Iowa Regents to consider systemwide campus safety group

IOWA CITY - The Iowa Board of Regents will consider at a meeting next week creating a campus safety and security subcommittee focused, in large part, on preventing sexual assault.

The Campus Safety and Security Subcommittee, which would meet at least twice a year, would review campus safety and security reports and issues at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, according to an agenda for the June 4-5 meeting in Ames.

'Campus safety and security is a responsibility that the Board of Regents takes very seriously,” the agenda states. 'It includes required training to help identify and prevent sexual violence, harassment and other misconduct as well as identifying and training institution staff responsible for enforcing and investigating alleged Title IX violations.”

The subcommittee would include at least one representative from each university, as well as the state schools for the deaf and visually impaired.

Campus sexual assault has gained more attention in recent years, with national stories highlighting the risks and the high-profile 'It's On Us” campaign sponsored by the White House and the NCAA.

Iowa's public universities have also faced scrutiny.

UI Police took 11 reports of sexual assault between August and April, although that did not include people who didn't report the crime to police. As part of a six-point plan, UI President Sally Mason created the UI student advisory committee on sexual misconduct that met for the first time in April 2014.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights is investigating whether ISU 'promptly and equitably” responds to reports of sexual violence after a student said she was sexually assaulted during the 2013-2014 school year and then discriminated against by the university.

In other business at the June 4-5 meeting:

' Regents will evaluate leaders of ISU, UNI and the Iowa Braille and Sight-Saving School/School for the Deaf. Mason, who retires in July, will not be reviewed. The evaluations are in closed session, but votes on salary increases must be done in public.

' Chief information officers from UI, ISU and UNI will report to the board on security vulnerabilities, threats and countermeasures. Iowa's public universities have faced breaches in recent years that have included a tax hack of UNI employees and a breach of five departmental servers at ISU that contained Social Security numbers of nearly 30,000 students enrolled from 1995 to 2012.

' UI will ask Regents for permission to spend $2.6 million on a 16,500-square-foot parcel at 104 E. College St. that includes a mixed-use building of commercial space and apartments built in 1974.

The June 4 meeting will be at ISU's Scheman Center and the June 5 meeting at the Alumni Center. Live streaming of the audio portion of the open sessions of the meeting will be available at www.regents.iowa.gov.