“The Iowa Review,” one of the most respected literary magazines in the country, is bringing veterans’ work to a wider audience through the Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans writing contest. The contest honors Jeff Sharlet, a Vietnam veteran, anti-war activist, and founder of “Vietnam GI.”

Begun in 1909 and petering out around 1929, Frolic Day, featuring a tug-of-war, sack races, and other field-day-style games, was a way for UI students to blow off steam around final exams. The Campus Activities Board recently brought the event back to campus. UI archivist David McCartney investigates.

In her first year at the University of Iowa, Erin Maier took an astronomy class on a whim. Now, after receiving numerous grants and assembling a UI telescope in the Arizona desert, she’s graduating with a Bachelor of Science in physics and astronomy and will soon pursue a doctorate.

Sixteen University of Iowa students and alumni have been awarded Fulbright U.S. Student Program grants to conduct research, attend graduate school, undertake creative projects, or serve as English teaching assistants abroad in 2017–18, breaking the UI’s previous record of 15 set last year.

The second season in the University of Iowa’s new Hancher Auditorium also will be the organization’s 45th anniversary season. The celebratory lineup features an array of world-class performers who will contribute to the artistic conversation on the UI campus, in the community, and across the state.

Sean Seelau earned degrees in philosophy, worked for years in the telecommunications industry, then in his forties decided to return to school. Now he’s graduating from the UI with a BA in mechanical engineering and is the first graduate to receive the UI’s new Certificate in Naval Hydrodynamics.

President Bruce Harreld has announced the University of Iowa will hire an independent firm to conduct an external review of university employment practices as defined by the Iowa Civil Rights Act. This review will begin with the UI Athletics Department.

The UI Office of the Provost announced Friday, May 5, the final candidate for the position of dean of the UI College of Nursing. Julie Johnson Zerwic, executive associate dean of the College of Nursing at the University of Illinois at Chicago, will visit campus May 8–9.

Mousa Abuissa first saw the UI campus when he was on a vacation with his parents and sister, who had traveled from Syria to visit his uncle in Iowa City. Nearly eight years later, and after also completing a BA in music, he’s receiving a Doctor of Pharmacy degree.

A team of University of Iowa researchers has discovered a new connection between two regions of the brain that may help explain how motor skills develop. Working with infant rats, the scientists found that the hippocampus and the red nucleus, part of the brain stem, synchronize during REM sleep.

After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, joining the military, and working as an intelligence analyst, Lindsay Danielson came to the University of Iowa to earn a JD—and with a husband and kids in tow. Now graduating from Iowa Law, she already has a job lined up.

For the sixth year in a row, the University of Iowa recognized the impact of philanthropy with a spring celebration facilitated by the UI Foundation, the university’s designated fundraising organization.