"Iowa Now Minute" is a 60-second roundup highlighting recent UI activities, research, public engagement, and campus life. Look for a new video every Thursday.

The family of Wayne and Jean Wells has established a new scholarship fund for University of Iowa students from Van Buren County who are pursuing a business degree. The gift provides an endowed fund that will pay out scholarships annually in perpetuity, helping generations of Southeast Iowa students.

The University of Iowa Department of Theatre Arts will hold open auditions from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 7, and from 4 to 8 p.m. Sunday, March 8, for the Iowa New Play Festival 2015. Callbacks will be held between 6 and 11 p.m. Monday-Thursday, March 9-12.

If a geological age can have a “moment,” the Anthropocene is having its right now. Increasingly popular and recognizable, the term was coined 15 years ago by Nobel laureate and atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen to denote the present geological time interval. The Anthropocene will be front and center at a three-day interdisciplinary Obermann symposium on the UI campus, March 5-7.

The Iowa Board of Regents has named the 21 members of the University of Iowa Presidential Search and Screen Committee. The committee is charged with identifying candidates for board consideration, in conjunction with the search consultant, Parker Executive Search, to serve as the next president of the UI.

The vibrant Pacifica Quartet will play music by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Ran in a concert Friday, March 6, at 7:30 p.m. at Riverside Recital Hall, culminating a week-long residency. University of Iowa's Hancher presents the concert in collaboration with the UI String Quartet Residency Program.

Deborah Elizabeth Whaley, an associate professor in the American Studies Department and African American Studies Program at the University of Iowa, writes a guest column about homelessness prior to the showing of "The Homestretch," a documentary that follows three homeless teenagers, that will be shown Tuesday, Feb. 24, at FilmScene.

In an article on the different forms computers and computing can take, University of Iowa computer scientist Douglas Jones says compatibility problems out-weigh the advantages of adopting ternary computing, which uses three possible values to solve problems instead of the usual two.

Since the White House launched the “It’s On Us” campaign in September, the movement has sparked more than 250 colleges and universities to take a definitive stand against sexual assault, including the University of Iowa.

Sue Buckley, the University of Iowa’s long-time vice president for human resources, has announced that she will retire on June 30.

The Iowa Department of Transportation is a world leader in some winter road maintenance techniques, UI engineering professor and international road salt expert Wilfrid Nixon told ninth-graders at Prairie Point Middle School.

University of Iowa President Sally Mason shares information about the next steps in the Iowa Board of Regents' TIER (Transparent Inclusive Efficiency Review) with UI students, faculty, and staff as the implementation phase is underway on campus.