Speaking of Simpson Brian Steffen

Commencement is just around the corner at Simpson, unleashing hundreds of new graduates on the world. For this final episode of Season 5 of Speaking of Simpson, Director of Career Services Kelsey Bolton shares where those graduates are likely to turn up in the months ahead. The college's First Destinations Report shows that 94% of Simpson grads either land employment or graduate-school admissions — and an amazing 78% of them will stay in Iowa to help make the Hawkeye State a more educated and professional place to live.

The new commissioner of the American Rivers Conference, Marie Stroman, is on the podcast this week to talk about the Division III sports league of which Simpson is a member. Known since 1922 as the Iowa Conference, the ARC rebranded in 2018 with the addition of Nebraska Wesleyan as its eighth member institution. Stroman talks this week about her work bringing Simpson together with its conference peers and the challenges in running a Division III league in an age of Division I giantism.

Terry Branstad, governor of Iowa during most of the years from 1983 to 2017 and then ambassador to China from 2017 to 2020, visited Simpson on April 2 to take part in a conversation with Simpson President Jay Byers on the future of U.S.-China relations. This week's podcast is a recording of that event, which took place in front of Simpson staff and students in Pote Theatre and was sponsored by the John C. Culver Center for Public Policy.

John Della Volpe of the Harvard Institute of Politics will deliver the annual Culver Lecture at Simpson College on Thursday, April 4.  He joins the podcast this week to talk about the influence of Gen Z voters — today's college students and others born after 2001 — in national politics. Della Volpe is a former adviser to the Biden campaign and administration and the author of Fight: How Gen Z Is Channeling Their Fear & Passion to Save America.

Campus Day 2024 — Simpson College's oldest tradition, dating to 1889 — is just around the corner. It's a day of (we hope) springtime weather, community service, and campus fun. Elise Boulton, the head of the student planning committee for Campus Day 2024, stops by the podcast this week to talk about the event and its history, and what she and her fellow planners in the students body and on the college staff have up their sleeves for this year's edition.

Cal Dobbs isn't only a transgender educator and activist. The Venice, Calif., native also has run across the United States and completed the Triple Crown of Hiking to bring awareness of transgender rights and to fight the onslaught of anti-trans legislation being debated across the nation. Dobbs will be speaking at Simpson College on March 19 in a talk supported by Simpson College Department of Athletics and PRIDE, the college's LBGTQ+ student organization.