A group of UI students spent spring break in Las Vegas working on a class project with UI Associate Director David Gould to re-imagine the downtown area. Many of the students say they overcame their initial fears and stereotypes of the city and could envision living there.

Uptown Bill's and Wild Bill's coffee shops are planning a week of special events to mark the 100th birthday of Bill Sackter. Music, films, an art show, and more are scheduled during the week of April 8-13.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Alec Brobston told his mom he intended to join the U.S. Army. He went on to fulfill his pledge, beginning a journey that’s taken him to South Korea, Iraq, and the University of Iowa, where he aims to build community among veterans.

The University of Iowa, in collaboration with the University of Northern Iowa (UNI), Iowa State University (ISU), and Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC), is presenting a webinar series about Careers in Aging, which will take place throughout April.

Ben Hunnicutt, UI leisure studies professor and author of "Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream," discusses the drop in leisure time and how thinkers from Whitman to Henry Luce were convinced that leisure time was considered an essential component of the American Dream.

Eileen Pollack and Jen Percy will read from their work at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 3, in a free reading at Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City as part of the Mission Creek Festival. The reading also will be streamed live on the University of Iowa Writing University website.

Hawkeyes across campus are invited to thank the people who make their University of Iowa experience better as part of a social media campaign organized by UI School of Journalism and Mass Communication students.

After spending the better part of a year learning the ins and outs of energy policy, University of Iowa debaters are ready to argue all sides of the issue at the National Debate Tournament March 28-April 1.

Kyle Moody, who teaches a UI video-game-journalism course, says whether it's technology, interface, storytelling, themes, or all of these things, BioShock games mean a move to the future through the lens of the past.

The University of Iowa and Mission Creek Festival will host a lecture by Tim Quirk from Google Play at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 1 in the second floor Senate Chamber of the Old Capitol. The lecture, titled "The Quiet Revolution: From the Walkman to the iPod, How Portability and Infinite Storage Have Changed the Way We Listen, and What We Listen To," is free and open to the public.

Leesa Fair achieved her 50th birthday goal—to receive a college degree, made possible by UI online learning opportunities, which also allowed her to graduate in December along with her son, Ben, who received a Bachelor of Arts in computer science.

"Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights," written by Marina Warner, professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies at the University of Essex, is the winner of the 2013 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin. The award is administered for the Truman Capote Estate by the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.