It started out with a bang as the Hawkeye football team took the field amid fireworks for the 2012 season's only night game at Kinnick Stadium. Saturday, Oct. 20 also marked the Black and Gold Spirit Game, one of several official "color games" peppered throughout the season.

Salgado Maranhão, leading Afro-Brazilian poet, songwriter, and winner of Brazil’s highest literary award (the Academy of Letters Prize), will present his newly translated collection, "Blood of the Sun," with American translator Alexis Levitin at 7 p.m., Monday, Nov. 5, in a free Prairie Lights reading streamed live on the University of Iowa Writing University website.

Hancher will present Brian Stokes Mitchell, a Tony Award-winning actor and vocalist—and Glee guest star—on Friday, Nov. 2 at the Riverside Casino & Golf Resort Event Center.

The Gerdin family of Solon, Iowa, has made a $12 million gift commitment to the University of Iowa to support the new UI Children’s Hospital. The gift, from the Gerdin Family Foundation, is the largest to date for the Children's Hospital's $50 million building campaign.

L. Michael White, Ronald Nelson Smith Professor of Classics and Religious Studies and Director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins at University of Texas at Austin, will visit the University of Iowa campus Oct. 22-24 as an Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor.

Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumnus Bret Anthony Johnston, the University of Iowa’s first Frank N. Magid Visiting Writer in Residence, will read from his work at 7 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 1, in a free reading at Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City. The reading also will be streamed live on the UI Writing University website.

Elliott Drive will be reduced to one lane from Carver-Hawkeye Arena to just south of the Dental Science Building drive from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 22 through Friday, Oct. 26.

Sandra Daack-Hirsch, a clinical geneticist and assistant professor in the University of Iowa College of Nursing, is the new environmental and public health ambassador for the State Hygienic Laboratory.

The University of Iowa School of Music will present a guest euphonium recital by Neal Corwell at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 31, in the University Capitol Centre recital hall. The performance, which is free and open to the public, will include some of Corwell’s original compositions.

"Trees in Your Pocket" by botanist Thomas Rosburg is now available in paperback from the Bur Oak Books series of the University of Iowa Press. The book provides identification and natural history information for about 40 prominent deciduous species found in the Upper Midwest states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri.

Mike Meyer would rather talk with his right foot. Meyer, a shy and almost reluctant junior kicker for the University of Iowa football team, made a lot of noise once again Oct. 13 during the Hawkeyes' 19-16 double-overtime victory at Michigan State.

The University of Iowa is taking on Northwestern in a competition beyond the gridiron: To determine who can recruit the most volunteers to participate in research studies. The contest begins on Oct. 22 and ends on Oct. 29.