University of Iowa freshman Andy Topping makes "bracelets with a purpose." The pre-business major created an online business that makes bracelets out of parachute chord, both for style and survival.

Susan Assouline has been named the new director of the University of Iowa College of Education's Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, effective Jan. 1, 2013.

The Macbride Nature Recreation Area is home to various environmental education programs, and the bird blind. "Iowa Now" spent a couple hours at the bird blind recently to see what happened by.

Iowa Now will publish on a lighter schedule the week of Thanksgiving, Monday, Nov. 19 through Friday, Nov. 23.

The University of Iowa takes very seriously any allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace and as a result, will implement a series of changes intended to positively impact student-athlete advising and compliance in the department of athletics moving forward.

Nancy Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D., University of Iowa professor of psychiatry, who holds the Andrew H. Woods Chair of Psychiatry, has received the 2012 National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) Scientific Research Award, honoring her contributions to the understanding of schizophrenia.

A University of Iowa study says men are less likely to be seen as depressed—even when they are. James B. Potash, MD, study editor and UI professor of psychiatry, says there has been relatively little focus on education and depression in men.

By the time construction is complete on the newest University of Iowa residence hall in 2015, it will have been more than a century since the UI opened its first hall: Currier, a dormitory for women, in 1914. A lot has changed in the past 100 years regarding student housing.

Ed Folsom, 65, is a University of Iowa faculty member who is widely regarded as a leading Walt Whitman scholar worldwide. (Note: A paid subscription may be required.)

The University of Iowa Museum of Natural History continues its fall Movies@MNH series Sunday, Dec. 2, at 2 p.m. in Macbride Auditorium. This month’s movie is “The Worm Hunters,” with a run time of 52 minutes. The movie series is a free family event open to the public.

Colleges are often perceived as leaning left, but research by social scientists at the University of Iowa College of Education suggests the reality is more nuanced and that the Greek system tends to be a locus for students who are more conservative.

The University of Iowa is seeing growing international student enrollment, especially from Chinese students. Five years ago the UI welcomed around 400 new international undergraduates; this fall that number jumped to well over 2,000.