Kicking off the entertainment for Veishea 2007 will be a familiar face to all of us – or at least it used to be familiar.

Jodi Sweetin, who played Stephanie Tanner on “Full House,” is this year’s speaker for a Veishea educational lecture.

Since her child-star days, Sweetin has been through a crystal meth drug addiction and alcohol addiction. She has recently been touring college campuses and will make a stop in Ames to speak about her life after “Full House,” in particular her addiction and recovery.

“We like to kick off Veishea with an educational speaker who can hit on topics that are prevalent on college campuses. This is one of those topics,” said Nathan Katzer, Veishea entertainment co-chairman and senior in public service and administration in agriculture.

Sweetin recently turned 25 years old and hasn’t been on “Full House” since it stopped production in 1995. According to the Veishea Web site, she checked herself into a rehab facility for intensive therapy in March 2005. She has been clean and sober ever since.

Christina Dvorak, Veishea general co-chairwoman and senior in advertising, said she thinks Sweetin was a great addition to Veishea.

“I think it’s going to be a great kickoff. We can all relate to her and she’ll have a very beneficial and educational message,” Dvorak said. “We’re all having pressures on us right now with growing up and becoming adults. She’s already been through that, and now she can help.”

When you think of somebody addicted to crystal meth, chances are you probably don’t think of a fresh-faced blonde who has had national success as an actress. That’s one of the stereotypes that Shallee Keenan, Veishea campus and community involvement co-chairwoman and senior in sociology, hopes will be put to rest after the educational lecture.

“I think people stereotype what type of people do drugs like crystal meth, and she’s not one of them,” Keenan said. “I hope that people will learn from her experience, and learn that you can’t judge people and stereotype people.”

In an interview from earlier this year with David Lewis from Play, Sweetin revealed that growing up as a child star isn’t a perfect life.

“Growing up when I was on the series, I never really watched. Even from this day, it’s surreal to watch myself on television. Growing up in the business you have to grow up very fast – you do have a different type of childhood, that has its benefits and it has its drawbacks,” Sweetin said.

Since leaving rehab Sweetin took the reins as host of season two of the wildly popular FUSE show “Pants-off Dance-off.”

“I knew that it was a complete departure from my typical Stephanie Tanner character, but it was all in good fun and I knew that the audience this show would appeal to was the fans of ‘Full House’ that had grown up and were now around my age, in college and would find ‘Pants-off Dance-off’ the sort of amusing ‘train wreck’ of a show it’s meant to be,” Sweetin said in Lewis’ interview.

The lecture, like all Veishea events, is free to the public and will take place at 8 p.m. Monday in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union.