A NASA astronaut, who was the first Native American in space, will visit Iowa State Friday afternoon as part of the fourth annual Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity.

John Bennett Herrington will speak at 12:45 p.m. Friday in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union.

Herrington was the first Native American in space, and Iowa State is fortunate to have him visit, said Japannah Kellogg, program coordinator for the dean of students.

After the Columbia tragedy, Herrington was reassigned, and there was a chance he would be unable to come to Iowa State, Kellogg said.

Herrington has logged more than 3,300 flight hours in more than 30 different types of aircraft, according to the NASA Web site, www.nasa.gov. He is also a Sequoyah Fellow of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.

“We try to focus on people from different ethnicities or racial backgrounds each year,” Kellogg said.

“This year we have an Asian American theme, and each year we have a different representative for our keynote speaker.”

The Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity, also called ISCORE, “is a conference put together by our university as a model of the National Conference On Race and Ethnicity,” said Vicky Lio, senior in journalism and mass communication and a 2001 National Conference on Race and Ethnicity student participant. ISCORE is a smaller version of the national conference.

This year there will also be panel discussions, and professors and students presenting research, said Lio, who is a vice-presidential candidate for the Government of the Student Body and a Daily staff writer.

The ability to have dialogue on race and ethnicity benefits members of the group, no matter what ethnicity each person is, Kellogg said.

“Quite often when we’re talking about race and ethnicity, when I was an adviser, a number of white students weren’t aware of things that were going on, and they were like, ‘I can go to that?'” Kellogg said. “Quite often on a predominately white campus people ask, ‘What can we do for minority students?’ when the question should also be asked ‘What can we do for white students?’ as well. Through having diversity, we’re enhancing the experience of the majority by gaining other perspectives.”