Coming events

As flowers begin to bloom, spring also brings a variety of activities across campus. A festival of new plays by SIUC graduate student playwrights, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist’s lecture, a look at the media’s role in high-profile trials by one of the nation’s leading legal analysts, and several events marking the start of Asian Awareness Month in April are on tap over the next week.

The Department of Theater presents "Journeys: Exploration in New Works, (Alpha Bill)" the first half of its annual two-weekend festival of three plays written by SIUC playwrights Thursday, March 31, through Saturday, April 2, in the Christian H. Moe Laboratory Theater in the Communications Building. Performances begin at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $5. The box office is open noon to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, and one hour before each performance. To charge by credit card, call 453-3001. A second weekend featuring new plays by three more graduate students is April 7-9.

An April 2 performance, Taiko Drum, St. Louis Osuwa, kicks off "Land of the Rising Sun: Reflections of the Far East," the theme for Asian Awareness Month. The live performance and free workshop starts at 1 p.m. at Brush Towers, with Grinnell Hall the rain location.

Nobel Prize-winning chemist Richard E. Smalley, a professor of chemistry at Rice University, presents "Our Energy Challenge," at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, April 3, in the Student Center Auditorium. Smalley believes energy may be the single most critical challenge facing humanity this century.

The media’s role in high-profile trials will be discussed by one of the nation’s leading legal analysts and legal news journalists at 5 p.m., Tuesday, April 5, in the law school auditorium. Roger Cossack, who has analyzed the nation’s top legal stories over the past decade, presents the 2005 Hiram H. Lesar Distinguished Lecture. Cossack is currently a legal analyst for ESPN.

Please visit the SIUC Public Events Calendar for information on these and many other happenings on campus.