Iowa State seeks to terminate Harkin Institute

Iowa State University officials next week will ask the state Board of Regents to terminate the Harkin Institute of Public Policy.

The Harkin Institute at ISU was approved by the regents in 2011 to facilitate research and public access to ISU graduate and longtime Sen. Tom Harkin's papers, which were to be donated to ISU upon his retirement in 2014. But that vote created controversy, including among Republicans who thought it was inappropriate to name an institute at a public university for a sitting politician.

The saga continued when Harkin in February said he was pulling the donation of his papers from ISU, amid concerns about academic freedom and restrictions on agriculture research. Regents leaders and ISU officials disputed that, arguing there would not have been academic freedom restrictions.

It was announced in May that Harkin's papers from decades in the U.S. Congress instead will end up at Drake University, at the Tom Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement.

Iowa State raised about $3 million from donors for the Harkin Institute, and the redistribution of those previous gifts has been completed by the ISU Foundation in compliance with donor wishes, according to the regents meeting agenda information. The institute has been inactive at ISU since February, when Harkin pulled the papers.

No impact is anticipated on other units at ISU as a result of the proposed closure, officials said in the agenda information.

The regents also next week will consider approval to establish the Institute for Vision Research in the UI's Carver College of Medicine. The purpose of the proposed institute is to assist the UI to assume a world-leading role in the eradication of human blindness through interdisciplinary translational research, education and clinical care, officials. said.

The initial director of the proposed institute will be Dr. Edwin Stone, professor of ophthalmology at the UI since 1997.

The proposed budget for the institute in year one is $11.1 million, with $4.7 million coming from grants; $3.6 million from gifts; $2.4 million from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and $407,000 in departmental support. The proposed budget would grow to more than $18.5 million in year five, with most of it coming from grants and gifts.