MOUNT VERNON — The eighth annual Cornell College Student Symposium will feature research by students Saturday, April 17, from 9 a.m. to 2:40 p.m. at The Commons. Admission is free to the event, which is open to the public.

“The Student Symposium serves as a venue for some of our most engaged and accomplished students to share their work with the broader campus community and others, and it demonstrates the remarkable range of interests being productively pursued in and beyond the classroom at Cornell,” said Dennis Damon Moore, dean of the college.

Topics include biodiesel fuel, capital punishment, fire coral, ornate box turtles, abortion and the Gulf wars.

The symposium, which originated as a way to spark intellectual conversation and growth on campus, is one of the premier events at Cornell. This year, 48 students worked with 27 faculty members in 16 different departments and programs. Presentations will take one of two formats: lectures of about 20 minutes apiece summarizing projects and their findings, at three sessions in Hedges Conference Room and Harlan Dining Room (9 a.m., 10:45 a.m., 1:15 p.m.) and one session in the Rathskeller (9 a.m.); and poster presentations offering visual displays of projects along with explanatory comments, at two sessions (9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 2:40 p.m.) on the Orange Carpet.

After the symposium, Cornell’s Delta of Iowa chapter of Phi Beta Kappa will hold its annual induction ceremony at 3 p.m. in Harlan Dining Room, followed by a reception. Sixteen students have been selected for membership based on academic potential, scholarship, creativity, professional attitude and character. Phi Beta Kappa considers members from the top 15 percent of the senior class and the top 5 percent of the junior class.

Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest and most widely respected academic honorary society in the United States. There are 270 Phi Beta Kappa chapters in the United States, including seven in Iowa. Cornell’s Delta of Iowa chapter was the fourth chartered in Iowa, in 1923.

MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College students will host “The Gumbo Project,” a performance festival featuring traditional theater, standup comedy and performance art, Friday and Saturday, April 23 and 24, at 8 p.m. in the Plumb-Fleming Studio Theatre, a 120-seat black box theater in Armstrong Hall. Free tickets are available at the door.

Scheduled performances are:

- “Hold for Three,” a short comic play featuring freshmen Jess Dunne of Minneapolis, Haley Isaf of Bainbridge Island, Wash., and Parker Reynolds of Leawood, Kan.

- “Sisters,” a play about a conversation during a tennis match, featuring freshmen Colleen Metzger of Naperville, Ill., and Holli Gipson of Fort Worth, Texas, and sophomore Joe Foley of Mendota Heights, Minn.

- A standup comedy routine by Christopher Schlichting, senior from Davenport.

- A musical performance by Hannah Gansen, junior from Toddville.

- “What Are You Doing In There?,” a short drama, directed by freshman Joey Flinn of Naperville, Ill., and featuring Ryan Hitchon, junior from Jackson, Tenn.; Jackie Johnson, sophomore from Eden Prairie, Minn., and Parker Reynolds.

- A dance performance featuring seniors Amber Swenson of Brooklyn Park, Minn., Jenny Dowker of Niantic, Conn., and Lauren Bene of Fremont, Calif.; and juniors Sarah Gerencher of Joliet, Ill., Maureen Cook of Richland Center, Wis., and Stephanie Pisarik of Mount Vernon.

MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College music ensembles will perform in two spring concerts during April. Both concerts are in King Chapel and admission is free.

The Cornell Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Martin Hearne, performs at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 16. The concert will feature two chamber ensembles: the Cornell Woodwind Quintet will perform a movement of a quintet by Haydn, and the Cornell Brass Quintet will perform three spirituals by John Barnes Chance, “Go Down Moses,” “My Lord, What a Morning” and “Joshua.”

Two guest conductors — junior Andrew Buck of Highland, Ill., and junior John Feldman of Lisbon — will direct the Wind Ensemble in the two movements of “English Folk Song Suite” by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The Cornell Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, under the direction of Lisa Hearne, perform at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 18.

The Concert Choir’s program will feature American folk songs “Shenandoah” and “Down in the Valley,” sung by men’s chorus, plus two opera choruses, “Neighbors’ Chorus” by Offenbach and “O pastorelle, addio” by Giordano, sung by women’s chorus. The program also includes “O Schöne Nacht” by Johannes Brahms, and the American spiritual “Great Day” with soloists Jim Thompson of Mount Pleasant and Amber Swenson of Brooklyn Park, Minn., both vocal music education majors.

The Chamber Singers will present jazz selections “Smile” and “When I Fall in Love,” as well as madrigals and motets from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Featured works include Hungarian composer Gyorgy Orban’s dramatic anthem “Daemon Irrepit Callidus,” Norman Dello Joio’s “Come to Me, My Love,” based on poetry by Christina Rossetti, and John Tavener’s “The Lamb,” based on the poem by William Blake. The finale, “Tangueando” by Argentinian composer Oscar Escalada, is a showpiece based on polyrhythms and nonsensical syllables created by the composer.

MOUNT VERNON — William Parsons, chief of staff of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and an award-winning graduate of Cornell College, will speak at Cornell on Thursday, April 15, at 11 a.m. in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons.

Parsons will speak on “Holocaust Remembrance and Confronting Genocide.” He will deliver the same lecture that evening, at 7:30 p.m., at All Saints Catholic Church for the Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) service.

Parsons also will lecture at Mount Mercy College on Wednesday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m. in Cherry Heritage Hall, and at Coe College on April 15 at 3 p.m. in Hickok Hall’s Kesler Room. The title of these talks is “The Memory of the Holocaust Can Help Confront Injustice.”

All lectures are free and open to the public. Sponsors include the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund and Cedar Rapids’ Jewish-Christian Dialogue Group.

Parsons has served as the chief of staff for the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C., since 1996. The museum’s mission is “to advance and disseminate knowledge about this unprecedented tragedy; to preserve the memory of those who suffered; and to encourage its visitors to reflect upon the moral and spiritual questions raised by the events of the Holocaust as well as their own responsibilities as citizens of a democracy.”

In 2002, Parsons received Cornell’s highest honor, the Distinguished Achievement Award, in recognition of his “passion for education and teaching.” The award cited Parsons as one who “embodies the mission of Cornell College to empower students for leadership through productive careers and humane service in the global community.”

Education has been Parsons’ primary passion. Prior to becoming chief of staff, he worked with the Holocaust museum’s director to develop an education program used by teachers throughout the United States. Parsons also co-founded the Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation Inc., where he directed curriculum programming that was taught to over half a million children nationwide annually. The foundation received exemplary marks from the U.S. Department of Education in 1980 and 1984. Parsons also has served as a consultant on such PBS series as “Africans in America” and “Eyes on the Prize.”

He began his educational career teaching social studies and English in Brookline, Mass., public schools after earning a master’s degree in teaching from the University of Wisconsin.

He has co-authored two books on genocide, “Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior” and “Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views.”

MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College and the United Methodist Church will mark 150 years of a shared heritage and mission Sunday, March 21, during the 10:45 a.m. worship service at Mount Vernon United Methodist Church.

Gregory Palmer, bishop of the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church, will give the sermon, titled “All of the Above.” The Cornell Chamber Singers, directed by Lisa Hearne, will provide special music. Following the service will be a potluck dinner open to all.

Pastor Frank Seydel notes the service also will recognize members of the congregation associated with Cornell, including faculty, alumni, students and parents of students. “Those persons make up a substantial portion of our congregation,” he said.

The United Methodist Church has historically looked to colleges to help inform its members. Cornell was founded by Methodist minister George Bowman, who believed education was critical to a civilized society. In September 1853, classes began at Cornell — then called the Iowa Conference Seminary — in the old Methodist Episcopal Church because construction was not finished on the first academic building on the new 15-acre campus. During the college’s early history, the church aggressively helped recruit students.

Today six of Cornell’s 39 trustees represent the United Methodist Church, and the church supports the college financially and encourages its members to do so. The college and church remain committed to the joint mission of developing leaders with intelligence, compassion and willingness to serve others.

MOUNT VERNON — Select items from the Cornell College archives are making a rare public appearance in the Cole Library gallery as part of Cornell’s sesquicentennial celebration. This unusual exhibit is on view through March 31. A reception will be held from 3-4 p.m. Tuesday, March 23.

Among the artifacts are a men’s cheerleading uniform from 1929, oil portraits of legendary Cornell characters, a bust of William Fletcher King and a Dumpf Stumpf pin (find out more about it in the exhibit). In addition to many labeled photographs are the original skeleton keys to College Hall, a student desk from the early days of the college, leather-bound 19th-century student records, a Brown Bomber cartoon and a master plan for the campus that never came to fruition.

Many of these items have never been displayed before.

MOUNT VERNON — The Peabody Trio returns to Cornell College for a Music Mondays concert March 15 at 8 p.m. in King Chapel.

General admission is $8 at the door. This event, the last of four Music Mondays performances during the school year, is part of Cornell’s sesquicentennial celebration.

The Peabody Trio features pianist Seth Knopp, violinist Violaine Melançon and cellist Natasha Brofsky. The trio performed at Cornell in November 2001.

Their concert program will feature Mozart’s Trio in B-flat Major, K. 502; Alfred Schnittke’s Piano Trio (1985; 1992); and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor, Opus 50.

The Washington Post praises the Peabody Trio’s ability to bring “the romantic fervor of the early 20th-century greats” to every performance. The group has established itself as one of the foremost piano trios in the world after winning the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1989.

Since its New York debut in 1990 at Alice Tully Hall, the Peabody Trio has performed in many of the most important chamber music series in North America including the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., and the 92nd St. Y and Frick collection, New York. In addition, the group has toured Japan, Israel and Great Britain, and performed at the Tanglewood and Ravinia summer festivals. Trio members also serve as resident faculty members of the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore.

MOUNT VERNON — The lives of two prostitutes, two cops and the artist girlfriend of one become entwined in surprising ways in “Blue Surge,” a stage drama by University of Iowa graduate Rebecca Gilman that runs March 18 through 21 at Cornell College.

Performances are at 8 p.m. in Kimmel Theatre of Youngker Hall. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for seniors and non-Cornell students. To reserve tickets, call 895-4293.

Gilman earned an M.F.A. at Iowa in 1992. In 1998 she won the American Theater Critics’ Association Osborn Award for her play about serial killers, “The Glory of Living.”

“Blue Surge” focuses on two police detectives who become romantically involved with women they meet while attempting to bust a prostitution ring. Gilman’s story examines the role that class and background can play in shaping an individual’s values and expectations.

“Rebecca Gilman has an unerring ear for the ways mismatched people relate, an open heart for the ways they louse things up,” writes Peter Rainer in New York Magazine.

The Cornell production is directed by Ron Clark, artistic director at Riverside Theatre in Iowa City and artist in residence in Cornell’s department of theatre and communications studies.

MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College will be featured in “Colleges of Distinction,” a new college guide profiling some of America’s best bets in higher education. Based on the opinions of guidance counselors, educators and admissions professionals, “Colleges of Distinction” honors colleges that excel in key areas of educational quality.

In order to qualify for inclusion, Cornell was evaluated for its performance in the “four distinctions”: engaged students, great teaching, vibrant communities and successful outcomes.

Cornell will be extensively profiled with other colleges in the forthcoming book, “Colleges of Distinction,” which will be published this year. The colleges are also featured on the Web.

College seekers can visit the site to learn more about the colleges, read tips from high school guidance counselors and essays from college students, presidents and other members of different campus communities.

The colleges and universities listed in the guide include schools from every area of the country. Their average student-faculty ratio is 13:1, and most have an average class size of around 20. The schools vary in size from universities of 7,000 to small liberal arts colleges of 1,000 or fewer students.

MOUNT VERNON — Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Bob Woodward will deliver Cornell College’s inaugural Delta Phi Rho Lecture on Thursday, March 11, at 7 p.m. in King Chapel. Admission is free.

The lecture, “Bush at War,” is also the title of Woodward’s best-selling 2002 book, which examines the Bush administration’s actions in the 100 days following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Woodward will sign books at a reception in Cole Library following the lecture.

Woodward is an assistant managing editor of the Washington Post, where he has worked for 33 years. He was the lead reporter for the Post’s Pulitzer-winning articles on the aftermath of 9/11. “Bush at War” focuses on the three months following the terrorist attacks, during which the United States prepared for war in Afghanistan, took steps toward deploying forces in Iraq, intensified homeland defense and began a well-funded CIA covert war against terrorism around the world. Using inside access to the major players, Woodward offers a nearly day-by-day account of the decision-making processes and power battles behind the headlines.

The Post received the Pulitzer in 1973 for reporting by Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the Watergate scandal, which became the best-selling “All the President’s Men.” Woodward has co-authored or authored more No. 1 national best-selling nonfiction works than any other contemporary American writer, including three additional books on the presidency (”The Final Days,” “The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House” and ” Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate”).

His other No. 1 national best sellers are “The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court,” “Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi,” “Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987″ and “The Commanders,” on the first Bush administration and the Gulf War. Woodward is also author of national best sellers on the presidential campaign, “The Choice,” and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, “Maestro.”

Woodward graduated from Yale University and served five years as a communications officer in the U.S. Navy before beginning his journalism career at the Montgomery County (Md.) Sentinel, where he was a reporter for one year before joining the Post.

The lecture is funded by the Delta Phi Rho Centennial Endowment. In anticipation of the 1998 Delt Centennial, a group of early 1960s Delt alumni conceived of the endowment to finance a major lecture series on campus. After committing $150,000 themselves, the group single-handedly campaigned to raise a total of $400,000 from Delt alumni. The purpose of the endowment is to contribute to the intellectual capital of the college and the community by bringing to campus, approximately every other year, a nationally prominent figure to interpret current issues and encourage student and faculty involvement in public affairs.