Vanessa Miller

Leadership of the Legislature’s new Center for Intellectual Freedom based at the University of Iowa on Friday dismissed recent polling showing the vast majority of students across Iowa’s public universities feel comfortable sharing their views in class.

Iowa’s Board of Regents has hired a new Des Moines-based government and public affairs firm with ties to Republican heavy-hitters like Gov. Terry Branstad to lobby on behalf of the University of Iowa this upcoming session.

Eight months after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement abruptly terminated the status of four University of Iowa international students — and revoked visas for three of them without explanation — those students have settled the lawsuit they filed against the Department of Homeland Security.

A recent change in leadership atop Iowa’s Board of Regents should address the lack of oversight some have accused it of, according to regent Christine Hensley — who spoke at an inaugural event over the weekend debuting the Legislature’s new Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa.

“The governor is here, legislators are here, regents are here, but the president and the provost — always the provost — haven’t graced us with their presence tonight,” Christopher Rufo said. “Why is that? What's more important than the beginning of an academic research institution that was commissioned by the Legislature that has the highest aspiration of the university at its core — to unlock the freedom of thinking and to reorient the university toward the highest good?”

With construction underway on a sprawling CyTown district — aspiring to integrate Iowa State University’s athletics and entertainment venues into an innovative year-round destination — ISU has agreed with developers on building plans, a financing structure, and financial projections showing massive gains in the coming decades.

Gov. Kim Reynolds is among the nationally-known names slated to speak at this weekend’s inaugural event for the University of Iowa’s Legislature-imposed Center for Intellectual Freedom, according to a schedule provided to The Gazette.

Robert Cramer — a long-time executive with his family’s bridge-construction and land development company and past board member of The Family Leader — on Wednesday was elected president of Iowa’s Board of Regents.

University of Iowa Health Care has agreed to pay $4.2 million to the mother of a 38-year-old Johnson County man who — while experiencing a psychotic break in the emergency room — was placed in such extreme restraints that he suffered a heart attack and “catastrophic and permanent brain injuries.”

With more than three years left of her six-year term, Board of Regents President Sherry Bates on Monday announced she’s resigning from the board Thursday.

Due to last week’s winter storm that dumped nearly 15 inches of snow on the Cedar Falls-Waterloo area and a foot in many other communities, the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University are canceling classes Monday “to provide students more time to return to campus from Thanksgiving break.”

The hundreds of faculty, staff, students, and community members who offered feedback on the two finalists for Iowa State University president gave higher marks to and more positive comments for the candidate not chosen -- Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Dean Benjamin Houlton.

Exceeding expectations in some patient categories — like those needing emergency care or to be admitted overnight — University of Iowa Health Care’s new orthopedics-focused hospital in North Liberty already is “becoming an anchor for the growing community” after just six months, officials said.

Through Jan. 25, the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art has on international loan and display in its galleries an acclaimed early painting by American artist Georgia O’Keeffe — marking a rare opportunity for Midwesterners and a “culturally significant moment” for the region.

“He just had that kind of philosophical mind and artistic mind where he wanted to uncover truths about human life, or get students to ask questions about their meaning in life, or how to deal with some of the difficulties in life,” religious studies professor Diana Fritz Cates said. “It almost feels to me like he wanted to sometimes jolt people out of their complacency, to start asking more philosophical existential questions.