KU events this week: Marrow drive, NPR White House correspondent talk, provost lecture on ‘big data’

Your weekly KU events roundup, on a Monday during which, as I write, sub-freezing temperatures remind us that there’s still another week to go before spring break:

• As we told you last week, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. today at the KU Credit Union, 3400 W. Sixth St., is a marrow donor drive in honor of 2012 KU grad Laura Hollar, who’s battling leukemia.

• KU Provost Jeff Vitter is also a distinguished professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and he’ll show off his computer chops in a lecture Tuesday called “Finding your Way in a Compressed World.” The topic sounds intriguing: He’ll talk about how humongous piles of information, used ever more these days and often referred to as “big data,” can be compressed and searched in a manageable way. (The compressed version of the lecture’s title, according to a KU release, is “&W$!h”)

This is his inaugural lecture, a tradition for KU distinguished professors, in his Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor post. The talk will be 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in Alderson Auditorium at the Kansas Union.

• Tuesday evening brings another date on the Dole Institute of Politics spring semester lineup: “An Evening with Scott Horsley.” Horsley is National Public Radio’s White House correspondent, and he’ll sit down for a chat with Dole Institute Director Bill Lacy that you’re permitted — nay, encouraged — to listen to. That’s at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Dole Institute.

KU-based Kansas Public Radio is also a host, as it celebrates its 60th anniversary. KPR has an entertaining Q -and-A with Horsley on its website to get you pumped up, in which he talks about the time he gave the president a piece of his mom’s zucchini bread and other tidbits.

In case you can’t make it to the Dole Institute, the KU School of Journalism will also be broadcasting the event live on Knology or KU ResNet channel 31 and AT&T channel 99, as well as streaming it online at this link right here.

• Also on Tuesday — this is shaping up to be a busy day — the KU Honors Program will serve up another entry in its lecture series on “The Digital Humanities”: Kathryn Tomasek. an associate professor of history at Wheaton College in Illinois, will give a talk called “Oh My Dear Father! Uncovering Religious Networks through a Daughter’s Journal.” She and her students conduct digital research of the history of the college. That’s at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in The Commons at Spooner Hall.

• The KU Natural History Museum has another of its Science on Tap events, uh, on tap: Sharon Billings, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, will discuss how plants and soil serve to regulate the climate here on Earth, and how humans are changing that. That’s 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Free State Brewing Co., 636 Massachusetts St.

• And, as you may have seen last week, award-winning author Edwidge Danticat will visit for a lecture 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Woodruff Auditorium at the Kansas Union, as well as an informal Q-and-A session 10 a.m. Thursday at the Hall Center for the Humanities.

I’ve surely missed something someone feels is of interest. But on this wild and wonderful world of the Web, you have the power to share news with the entire world with a few taps on your keyboard. By which I mean you can just post any other events this week in the comments below. And send your KU news tips to merickson@ljworld.com.