Members:

• Gabriella Michalski (co-chair)
• Anna Larson (co-chair)
• Gabriela Cooper
• Carter Fitzgerald
• David Hensley
• Matteo Lokmic
• Ainsley Menning
• Jill Nied
• Swati Ramtilak
• Elijah Redington
• Blake Rupe
• Katrina Sanders
• Aaron Schneider
• Ellen Voigt

• Nora Zimmerman

   

Charge to the Committee.

1. The Committee shall be governed by the terms of the General Charter.
2. In addition, the Committee shall be responsible for:
   1. Selecting speakers for the University Lecture Series with the goal of presenting a balanced slate of speakers who will deal with topics of wide interest. Before making the selection, the Committee shall solicit and consider suggestions from all interested parties;
   2. Advising on and assisting in arrangements for lectures;
   3. Coordinating its activities with other appropriate programming groups on campus;
   4. Ensuring that the Regents Speakers Policy (BRPM 4.2) is adhered to in events under its jurisdiction.

2025: Aug. 23, 29, Sep. 5, 12, 19, 26, Oct. 3, 10, 17, 24, Dec. 5, 12 

2026: Jan. 23, 30, Feb. 6, 13, 20, 27, Mar. 6, 13, 17, Apr. 3, 10, 17, 24, May 1

Every Friday at 1:30 pm

                                          Subcommittees meet as needed

Literary Legends: Kaveh Akbar – Sep. 19, 2025
Eric Leiderman: Fragment to Focus – Oct 14, 2025
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson – Oct 15, 2025
Emmy Winning Producer Morgan Sackett – Nov 7, 2025
U.S. Marine Anthony Swofford, Writer of Jarhead – Nov. 13, 2025
An Evening with Telehealth Entrepreneur Jon Lensing – Nov. 17, 2025
Hill Harper, TV Actor and Iowa City Native – Feb. 25, 2026
“Can We Talk” with Penn Badgley and Dr. Nura Mowzoon – Mar. 5, 2026
Olympic Gymnast & Gold Medalist Laurie Hernandez – Mar 30, 2026
Dinner Table Dialogue: Engaging American Values with Nuance – Apr. 2, 2026
Ryne Weiss: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression – Apr. 7, 2026
An Evening with Fran Lebowitz – Apr. 22, 2026

Every year, the committee covers a wide range of topics ranging from journalism, literature, business, the entertainment industry, music, politics, and more. 

This year ULC was stripped of our ability to send a mass email to University students once a semester to announce our keynote lecture. This created an unfortunate situation where students were paying required fees for our events, yet were never told about the services they paid for. As such, many students didn’t hear about either of our keynote lectures, and for the first time in several years, both of our keynote lectures did not reach capacity. This was directly due to students not knowing our lectures were occurring. 
ULC members dedicated extensive committee time and personal time expanding our marketing and experimenting with new grassroot ideas we had never had to explore before. And while the committee learned a lot and grew as students through this experience, ULC is composed of eleven full-time students, and we do not have the resources to inform the entire student body on our own of our keynote event. 
ULC heard from many students after both of our keynote lectures occurred that they had missed the lecture only because they heard about the event too late, and otherwise would have loved to attend. 
The lack of a mass email directly interferes with this committee’s mission to spend student dollars to provide students the opportunity to hear from varied and world-class speakers, as student dollars go to waste when students are not given the chance to take advantage of ULC’s service.

Committee members are expected to spend at least four hours a week either researching pitches, planning events, and/or running our lectures. Attendance at weekly meetings is mandatory. Members are expected to be open minded and respectful of other members’ thoughts, and to consider the wants of the at large student population when planning lectures. Workload of subcommittees varies throughout the year and expectations are set by the subcommittee leader. 

Previous agendas and minutes are archived on a shared Teams. The archive is copied to the new Teams created each year.