The stars are taking center stage this month at The College of Idaho as the Whittenberger Planetarium hosts its April public show as well as the annual Astronomy Day event. The fun begins April 17 with a public show investigating asteroids, including the asteroid belt and near-Earth asteroids, which sometimes collide with our planet and other solar system residents. The show, which begins at 7 p.m. inside Boone Science Hall on the C of I campus in Caldwell, also will include a tour of the constellations and planets visible in the Idaho night sky this month.    

Less than six months after establishing the Intermountain West’s first endowed chair in Judaic studies, The College of Idaho will host one of America’s strongest Jewish voices on its campus.

Alan Dershowitz, a renowned author, attorney and the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, will be the College’s 2013 Commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient on May 18.  He’ll also give a public presentation, “A Conversation with Alan Dershowitz” moderated by the Hon. Stephen S. Trott, at the Egyptian Theatre in Boise.

The College of Idaho’s Orma J. Smith Museum of Natural History is partnering with Boise Art Museum to exhibit a collection of artifacts – many of which have never been seen by the public – as part of a new, year-long exhibition at BAM. The exhibit “Origins: Material Objects of Culture” opens Feb. 23 and will run through Jan. 12, 2014 at BAM, located at the entrance of Julia Davis Park in Downtown Boise.

College of Idaho professor and Boise resident Diane Raptosh has been selected as Boise’s first Poet Laureate, the city’s Department of Arts & History announced today, Jan. 15.

Raptosh, a professor of English and the Eyck-Berringer Chair at The College of Idaho, is the recipient of a number of honors and awards in the field of poetry and is the author of American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press, 2013) among other works.