The College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences will award its highest honor, the 2018 Lawrence C. and Delores M. Weaver Medal of Honor, to Iowa pharmacist and entrepreneur Greg Johansen. He will receive the Weaver Medal of Honor and deliver a lecture, titled “Opportunity and Risk,” at 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 25, in Sheslow Auditorium. The lecture is open to all faculty, staff, and students.

The Weaver Medal of Honor is awarded annually to an individual who has advanced the college’s education, research or outreach mission for the benefit of human health; has made a substantial impact on the profession of pharmacy; or has provided financial support that has led to strategic change and progress in the College.

Johansen is a 1976 graduate of Drake’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences with a successful career in pharmacy operations and a long history of philanthropic support to his alma mater and to his profession.

Read a news release to learn more.

— Marilea Chase, College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

Come to Parents Hall Wednesday, April 18, from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. to get unlimited tacos for five dollars. Fermatta the Blue and a jazz combo will perform, and Griff will be in attendance. Money raised at the event will benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association, so come eat tacos for a good cause.

— Garrett Pavey

Alison Cooke, chair of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Steering Group on Future Climate: Engineering Solutions, will discuss energy and climate change on April 24 in Sussman Theater at 7:15 p.m. She will discuss various efforts to address greenhouse gas mitigation and investigate the options from a social perspective, but through an engineering lens—looking at what opportunities are most realistic. The event is sponsored by the Drake University Environmental Science and Sustainability Department. It is free and open to the public.

— David Courard-Hauri, Environmental Science and Policy

A panel on the future of trade will take place Tuesday, April 17, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in Parents Hall South, Olmsted Center. Panelists include Jim McCaughan, Bob Baur, and Rachel Paine Caufield. Matthew Mitchell, associate professor of international business, will moderate the panel.

Jim McCaughan is an executive with the Principal Financial Group. He is president, global asset management, and chief executive officer of Principal Global Investors. Bob Baur is executive director and chief global economist for Principal Global Investors. In these capacities, he establishes and directs global economic policy and strategy, oversees and conducts macroeconomic and quantitative research, forecasts economic trends and anticipates market movements, and advises the investment staff in making economically sound investment decisions. McCaughan and Baur are frequently quoted by the financial news media and appear regularly on CNBC and Bloomberg Television, among others. Rachel Paine Caufield is an associate professor of political science at Drake. She teaches courses on American politics, with special attention to political institutions, and has coordinated candidate visits and led efforts to host national presidential debates and forums with ABC, CBS, CNN, and Fusion TV.

— Denise Ganpat, Center for Global Citizenship

Nearly 300 singers and instrumentalists will perform Beethoven’s dramatic and exciting “Mass in C Major” on Saturday, April 21, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 22, at 3 p.m. at St. Ambrose Cathedral, located at 6th Avenue and High Street in downtown Des Moines. The concert will feature all four Drake choruses, a faculty/student orchestra, and four student soloists: Laurel Cramer, soprano; Mollie Lawler, mezzo-soprano; Trevor Ross, tenor; and Paxton Gillespie, baritone. Tickets are $17 for non-students and $7 for students and can be purchased through Friday, April 20, online or at the Drake Fine Arts Box Office by calling 515-271-3841.  If tickets remain, they will be sold at the door, beginning 45 minutes prior to the start of the concert. For further information, contact Aimee Beckmann-Collier, director of choral studies, at aimee.beckmann-collier@drake.edu or 515-271-2841.

— Aimee Beckmann-Collier, college of Arts and Sciences

The Comparison Project presents a lecture by Michael O’Neill, miracle investigator, author, and creator of the website MiracleHunter.com, on Thursday, April 19, at 7 p.m. in Sussman Theater.

O’Neill will examine Catholicism’s most famous—and highly approved—modern miracle: The visions of the Virgin Mary being reported by three shepherd children at the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal in 1917. These events, including the purported great “Sun Miracle” and the inexplicable healings that led to the canonization of the visionaries as the youngest saints in history, provide a perfect backdrop for understanding the centuries-old mechanisms and stringent criteria for investigating and validating claims of the supernatural used by the Catholic Church even in today’s modern world.

O’Neill, a graduate of Stanford University and member of the Mariological Society of America, was the consultant for National Geographic’s December 2015 cover story and map about the Virgin Mary, “The Most Powerful Woman in the World.” His books include Exploring the Miraculous (Our Sunday Visitor 2015), 365 Days with Mary (Salt Media 2016), and 20 Answers: Apparitions & Revelations (Catholic Answers 2017).

— Monique Rodriguez, College of Arts and Sciences