MOUNT VERNON — Representatives from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a University of Iowa law professor and a civil liberties attorney will appear Tuesday, Feb. 10, at Cornell College for a debate, “The War on Terror: Are We Losing Civil Liberties to Gain National Security?”

The debate will take place at 7 p.m. in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons. Participants are Charles Larson Sr., U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, and his assistant, Patrick Reinert, U.S. military court-martial judge, debating Tung Yin of the University of Iowa College of Law and Hanna Weston, a civil liberties attorney in Cedar Rapids.

The debate is sponsored by the Mount Vernon-Lisbon League of Women Voters and Cornell’s Public Interest Group and Women’s Action Group. The moderator will be Don Cell, Cornell professor emeritus. Admission is free.

After 9/11, Congress passed the Patriot Act giving the U.S. government broader authority over surveillance, immigration, foreign students, intelligence gathering and criminal law jurisdictions. The Department of Homeland Security was established and funded. At home, the inconvenience of airport screening may be modest but the stakes are large for both security and civil liberties in our open society. In the presidential election, national security could be the critical issue for many. What is the true balance sheet between security gained and civil liberties lost? Are we doing it well or can we do better?

Larson and Reinert will defend the U.S. government’s case that both our security from terrorists and our civil liberties have been successfully protected. Yin and Weston will argue that the government’s methods have been quietly undermining civil liberties, unnecessarily, in a “war” without precedent that has no clear end.

For attorneys, this program qualifies for Continuing Legal Education credit.

MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College Lyric Theatre presents Stephen Schwartz’s musical “The Baker’s Wife,” a lilting parable about the dangers of hasty love, Jan. 29 through Feb. 1 in Kimmel Theatre of Youngker Hall.

Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for seniors and non-Cornell students. To reserve tickets, call 895-4293.

Based on the film “La Femme de Boulanger” by Marcel Pagnol and Jean Giono, the musical centers around the inhabitants of a rural village in Provence, France, who have been without a baker for seven weeks. They have begun to bicker ceaselessly. Finally, Aimable the baker arrives with his young wife, Genevieve, and all is resolved — until a young, strapping local handyman seduces Genevieve away from her older husband. Crushed, Aimable’s bread-making desire vanishes, too. Coming to his aid, the villagers work to lure back Genevieve.

The musical score by Schwartz — famous for the stage productions of “Godspell,” “Pippin” and “Working” — was considered among his best work.

Music direction is by Jonathon Thull, Cornell voice instructor, Lyric Theatre founder and artistic director, and chorus master for the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre’s recent production of “La Traviata.”

The Cornell production is directed by Ken Sonkin of San Francisco. He has worked with numerous companies including the American Conservatory Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Marin Shakespeare Festival, Pennsylvania Centre Stage, Denver Center Theatre Company, Pacific Alliance Stage Company and Sacramento Theatre Company. For three years he was director of the Theatre Artists Institute, the professional actor training program for the American Musical Theatre of San Jose, and served as artistic director of the Regency Center in San Francisco.

MOUNT VERNON — Chanson, a male a cappella ensemble known for performing stirring American spirituals, Renaissance motets and popular tunes, will appear Feb. 9 at Cornell College for a Music Mondays concert.

The concert begins at 8 p.m. in King Chapel. General admission is $8 at the door. This event, the third of four Music Mondays performances during the school year, is part of Cornell’s sesquicentennial celebration.

Chanson’s program for Cornell will include “Rise Up O Men of God,” “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” and “Hold On.”

“Chanson’s impeccable blend and sumptuous phrasing earns these dynamic young vocalists a place in the upper echelon of today’s male ensembles,” says Robert Sieving, president of the American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota.

The six-voice chorus formed in 1997 at Concordia College when members belonged to Concordia’s famed traveling choir directed by Rene Clausen. Since then, Chanson has toured widely throughout the Midwest and has released two CDs, “Come Sing to me of Heaven” and “There is Sweet Music.” Vocalists are tenors Matthew Kneefe, Aaron McDermid and Micah Lamb; baritones Aaron M. Zinter and Peter Lovett; and bass Brett McDermid. They hail from Minnesota and Kentucky.

The final Music Mondays concert at Cornell will feature the Peabody Trio on March 15.

MOUNT VERNON — Celebrated historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Garry Wills will speak at Cornell College on “The Burden of Slavery in American History” on Wednesday, Feb. 11, at 7 p.m. in King Chapel. Following his talk, Wills will sign books at a reception in Cole Library.

Wills’ address during Black History Month is Cornell’s 2004 Eric C. Kollman Memorial Lecture. He is the 13th speaker in the series and the first to address the topic of slavery in America. Admission is free.

Wills is a prolific author in addition to being one of the foremost American historians. He specializes in cultural and religious history, areas that have served as the backbone of his scholarly work and literary success. He has written more than two dozen books, including works on Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan, the New York Times best seller “Papal Sin” and the Pulitzer-winning “Lincoln at Gettysburg.”

“Papal Sin,” Wills’ most controversial book, attacked the heart of the Catholic Church hierarchy as fundamentally dishonest and was called by the New York Times Book Review a “devastating no-holds-barred indictment” of the church. His latest books include his statement of faith, “Why I Am a Catholic,” “Venice: Lion City” and the recent “Negro President: Jefferson and Slave Power,” from which he will draw for the Cornell lecture.

Wills received a doctorate in classics from Yale in 1961 and is adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University. Among his honors, Wills has received the Presidential Medal of the Endowment for the Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Award twice, the Merle Curti Award of the Organization of American Historians and the Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting for writing and narrating “The Choice” for Frontline.

The Eric C. Kollman Lecture honors the distinguished history professor who taught at Cornell from 1944 to 1973. Beginning in 1984, Cornell has held Kollman memorial lectures on topics of historical interest ranging from the atomic bomb to 17th-century Jewish women.

MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College President Les Garner has been elected to a three-year term on the board of directors of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU). His term begins in February.

NAICU represents private colleges and universities on policy issues with the federal government, such as those affecting student aid, taxation and government regulation. The NAICU board comprises 48 members.

Garner has been Cornell’s president since 1994. He is president of the Cedar Rapids Symphony Foundation, past chairman of the board of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce and past chairman of the Iowa College Foundation.