UI sociologist Michael Sauder participates in a discussion about the history of higher education, including controversies surrounding college rankings at the turn of the 20th century.

UI junior Sarah Holm is working with the IPIG on a campaign to encourage more professors to replace expensive textbooks with journal articles or open textbooks, a resource that provides certain books for free online with print versions costing around 80 percent less than a traditional textbook.

In the first week of classes alone, the Information Technology Services Help Desk assisted nearly 5,600 faculty, staff, and students with technology questions—about 3½ times the volume of a typical week in the semester.

The UI’s Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities (IISC) and the City of Muscatine are launching a partnership focusing on key projects for the city’s long-term sustainability. Students in art, business, engineering, public health, rhetoric, and urban planning will work under the direction of UI faculty and Muscatine leaders.

The Pentacrest will be a busy place on Thursday, Sept. 12 as two campus events will take place near the Old Capitol.

UI engineering professor Ibrahim Ozbolat describes how researchers are making progress towards creating human organs with techniques such as 3D printing, using the patient’s own cells for ink.

UI Pharmaceuticals has landed a deal to manufacture a commercial drug for the U.S. market after UI pharmacists found the right mixing order for the drug to be produced at mass scale.

Pamela Bourjaily, the director of the Frank Business Communications Center, says the pronunciation program was developed as an effort to better respect Chinese students and encourage a more comfortable environment in the classroom, for both the Chinese and domestic community.

Liz Lerman, founding artistic director of the Dance Exchange and recipient of a MacArthur “Genius Grant,” will be in Iowa City as part of the Ida Cordelia Beam Visiting Professorships Program in September.

The world's largest volcano, called the Tamu Massif, lurks beneath the Pacific Ocean, researchers announced Thursday. UI geochemist David Peate was not involved in the discovery, but says he looks forward to new models of how oceanic plateaus form.

The University of Iowa School of Music will present a free faculty chamber concert at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 10, in Riverside Recital Hall on the UI campus. The concert will feature the winner of the first University of Iowa String Area Competition winner: cellist Tom Maples, a graduate student of UI faculty member Anthony Arnone.

The American Chemical Society will hold a press conference to discuss the National Science Foundation’s support of a major climate change initiative at the Center of Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment, based at the University of California at San Diego. The press conference will be held from 3:30 to 4 p.m. (ET) Monday, Sept. 9, during the society’s annual meeting in Indianapolis.