The University of Iowa is celebrating Earth Month throughout April with numerous activities including a waste sort, tree plantings, sustainability-related presentations and movies, and a ride-your-bike-to-work/class campus day.

The Iowa Brass Quintet of the University of Iowa School of Music will return from a Midwest tour to present a free concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 11, in the University Capitol Centre Recital Hall.

New rock-fracturing technology has brought oil boom times to North Dakota. However, a UI researcher says the roads leading to the state’s oil riches may be paved with a potential health hazard.

It’s now official. Des Moines is the formal site of a regional branch campus for the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. A recent agreement between the Des Moines Area Medical Education Consortium and the UI Carver College of Medicine cements the arrangement for the next 10 years.

A UI expert will explore the unprecedented financial crises affecting America’s middle class in a free public lecture presented by the UI Alumni Association on April 24 in Des Moines.

Influential multi-instrumentalist and composer Peter Apfelbaum, founder of the Hieroglyphics Ensemble, will be a special guest soloist in a free concert by the University of Iowa's Johnson County Landmark big band at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 13, in the Englert Theater.

The Latin Jazz Ensemble of the University of Iowa School of Music will be joined by guest artists Rich Medd, trombone, and John Lorenz, bata, in a free concert at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 15, in the Riverside Recital Hall.

President Barack Obama has appointed Christopher Merrill, director of the University of Iowa International Writing Program, to the National Council on the Humanities.

Mauricio Lasansky, who led the UI printmaking area in the School of Art and Art History to international prominence, died April 2 at the age of 97. His work, including his famous "Nazi Drawings," is featured in the collections of virtually every major art museum in the United States and Europe.

University of Iowa sociologist Mary Noonan's research found that long-term breastfeeding entails an economic cost to women, in the form of decreased earnings.

MusicIC 2012, Iowa City’s summer classical music festival, returns for a second year with a week-long series of concerts and other events June 10-16. This year’s festival includes more musicians, a concert and scavenger hunt for families, and an ambitious attempt to theatricalize one of the concerts.

The University of Iowa Center for New Music will host the Third Annual Composition Festival, an event of the Exchange of Midwestern Collegiate Composers (EMCC), with four free public concerts Friday, April 13, and Saturday, April 14.