Paul Thompson, founder and chairman of Transportation Insight and a supporter of business programs at Appalachian State University, will deliver the fall Harlan E. Boyles Distinguished Lecture.

The North Carolina Dance Festival returns to Appalachian State University again and provides an impressive list of touring dance professionals from across the state of North Carolina.

This ensemble, consisting of 22 performers and 41 steel drums, performs a variety of music, from traditional soca/calypsos, to classical, rock and roll, and traditional Appalachian Mountain music.

The Appalachian Trumpet Choir, conducted by Dr. James Stokes Jr. and Dr. Joe Phelps, will perform music from several periods.

Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan is an internationally celebrated nature writer, agrarian activist and ethnobiologist whose work focuses on conserving the links between biodiversity and cultural diversity. His talk is the public keynote of Sustainable Food Week.

Contemporary, classical and Celtic compositions for flute will be performed by the Hayes School of Music’s Appalachian Flute Ensemble, directed by Dr. Nancy Schneeloch-Bingham.

The Looking Glass Gallery in Appalachian’s Plemmons Student Union is presenting “Softly Pointed,” an exhibition of eight artists working in fibers. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

The film explores the history of Western North Carolina’s worst natural disaster. One hundred years ago this past July, 22 inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period, raising the French Broad River 17 feet above flood stage and causing extensive flooding throughout the western part of the state.

The symposium will feature two plenary speakers: Dr. Christopher Teuton, who chairs the American Indian Studies department at the University of Washington; and Dr. Janice Willis, a professor emerita of religion at Wesleyan University.