Will Iowans benefit from Lang’s position?

By Iowa City Press-Citizen.

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If you want input and insight on Iowa's regent institutions, you might want to join the Iowa Farm Bureau - or at least subscribe to its newsletter.

Newly elected Iowa state Board of Regents President Craig Lang told the Farm Bureau Spokesman that he consulted extensively with the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation board and internal study committee before agreeing to be considered as Regents president (“Regents' chief delegates some of his duties, he says,” Aug. 4 Des Moines Register).

“There was a general feeling that Farm Bureau members would benefit by having representation in this position,” he was quoted as saying.

Is there any general feeling about whether all Iowans will benefit? After all, the regents govern the state's three public universities, including the University of Iowa.

Frankly, we're concerned by some of the things we're hearing from the new regents' president.

We understand that he has an obligation to his employer. But we think the first thing all Iowans want to hear about his vision for our state's regent institutions is, well, his vision for the regent institutions - not how his new role might benefit his employer.

Instead, he declined interview requests from media - those not run by Farm Bureau - for weeks, and then in his first press conference at the regents meeting he explained his unwillingness to give interviews by saying that he was getting input from key players.

“All of these conversations are necessary during a transition to determine common ground and assess our future direction,” Lang said.

The only problem with that is that Lang has been a member of the Board of Regents for years, so it seems like he should be well versed in the issues facing the regents' institutions as well as the viewpoints of various stakeholders.

Please don't get us wrong. We don't expect the regents to be at our beck and call. But it seems to us that part of the responsibilities of the president of the Board of Regents is explaining priorities. Lang did some of that at the regents meeting, saying that hiring an Iowa State University president, improving relations with the executive and legislative branches and creating an awareness of the value of higher education were his top three priorities for his coming nine months as president.

He also said he doesn't believe “it's important to the president of the board to be out in front of the public every time there's something that happens at one of the universities, and I think if the media wants a response, either the university should do that or the executive director (of the Board of Regents) should do that.”

We agree with that, too, though we don't quite understand whether Lang thinks that the heads of the regent institutions haven't been doing enough on that front or previous regents' leadership was doing too much or both.

But we believe that the president of the Board of Regents must have and broadly communicate a strategic vision for higher education in Iowa. Maybe there's not enough time in the next nine months for that kind of discussion. Maybe moving the needle on the three issues Lang says are his priorities is plenty for the new president and the board to achieve in that time.

But we believe that the more all Iowans are included in the conversation about our public universities, the better.