Nearly 5,200 University of Iowa students will receive their degrees during spring 2013 commencement ceremonies May 16-18 and June 7, including dual ceremonies for liberal arts and sciences graduates.

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The University of Iowa has partnered with the Iowa Children's Museum on "Playing is Learning," an initiative to reintroduce children, and their parents, to the concept of play. The kickoff event is May 14 beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the children's museum in Coralville.

Two University of Iowa alumnae have been awarded Fulbright U.S. Student Program grants to conduct research internationally in 2013-14. This year's UI recipients are Margaret Ross and Rebecca McCray.

Researchers at the University of Iowa and colleagues at Cornell University have received a five-year, $10.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue their work investigating the biological links between high blood pressure and obesity.

UI alumna Meg Bessman-Quintero is the only bilingual, master's-level mental health therapist practicing in the Sioux City area who counsels primarily Spanish-speaking immigrants and their families, filling a critical mental health niche in western Iowa.

UI undergraduate student Tim Kennelly has discovered that a process occurring in Saturn's magnetosphere is linked to the planet's seasons and changes with them, a finding that helps clarify the length of a Saturn day and could alter our understanding of Earth's magnetosphere.

The University of Iowa Alumni Association’s Lifelong Learning series will present “The Magic Behind the Ardore Quartet,” an exclusive, behind-the-scenes experience with Elizabeth Oakes, University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program Coordinator, and the Ardore String Quartet.

ArtsFest, held Friday in the University of Iowa's Studio Arts Building, was a free, interactive art experience presented by graduate and undergraduate students in the UI School of Art and Art History that featured artwork by the students, as well as demonstrations and hands–on opportunities in studio art and art history.

UI students and faculty have been leading weekly writing workshops at Lemme Elementary School, helping the kids craft stories and visual projects using Spanish and English as part of the bilingual Iowa Youth Writers Project. (Editor's Note: A paid subscription may be required.)

An exhibition and oral history about the flood of 2008, "Rising Waters, Rapid Changes," is on display now through the month of May in the window of Hands Jewelers, co-sponsored by the UI Obermann Center for Advanced Studies as part of the first-ever UI graduate seminar in public history.

Cristina Ortiz, a UI doctoral student in anthropology who moved to Columbus Junction, Iowa, for her research, discusses the tensions that have transpired as a result of a large population of Chin Burmese moving to Columbus Junction and competing for jobs with Latinos.