Spared from regent DEI hiring freeze, ISU names sole equal opportunity director finalist

AMES — The Iowa State University police administrative adviser who has stepped in three times as the campus’ interim equal opportunity director and Title IX coordinator has been named the sole finalist to assume the job permanently.

Mary Howell Sirna — who’s been with Iowa State more than a decade — participated in a campus forum this week for the job, which is not subject to a Legislature-imposed yearlong hiring freeze for diversity, equity and inclusion positions across Iowa’s public universities due to its “compliance function.”

This week’s announcement of Sirna as sole finalist for the job came six months after Iowa State initiated a national search for the combined position.

Carl Wells left Iowa State on Aug. 1 — after serving in that role just 15 months — to become associate dean for campus life at Newberry College in South Carolina. In spring 2022, he was among three finalists brought to campus to fill the vacancy left by Margo Foreman, who exited in 2021 after five years at Iowa State.

Sirna was appointed interim equal opportunity director and Title IX coordinator at that time, too — although she wasn’t among the three finalists for the permanent post.

DEI spending

In searching for Wells’ successor, Iowa State in August formed a six-member search committee and hired the Spelman Johnson search firm to help. The university paid the firm an administrative fee of $46,700 in August — but estimated a contract rate at 28 percent of the successful candidate’s first-year base pay, plus expenses.

In her interim role, Sirna is earning $167,980. In the 2023 budget year, Wells made $230,280, according to the Iowa state employee salary book.

His position wasn’t included on a list of 64 DEI- or social justice-related staffers Iowa State produced in early 2023 in response to lawmaker questions about DEI programming and staffing across the public universities.

In criticizing regent DEI spending, lawmakers sought a list of all the DEI-related titles, duties and salaries. Regents at the time reported nearly 129 full-time staffers working in DEI or social justice, including nearly 64 at Iowa State, 44 at the University of Iowa and 21 at the University of Northern Iowa.

After the Legislature included in its regent funding package a restriction on any new DEI hires, the board initiated a review of its diversity activities and issued 10 directives in November — which legislators now are proposing become law.

Those directives included cutting DEI positions not critical for compliance or accreditation — like a Title IX coordinator would be.

Shortly after the board issued its directives, regents reported back to the Legislature an updated DEI staffing count of 106 full-time positions, 36 part-time roles, totaling 142. Iowa State, in that update, reported 49 full-time DEI staffers and seven part-timers, amounting to 56 and a total compensation cost of $5.2 million.

Combined with the UI and UNI, total compensation for the campuses’ DEI staffers nears $13.3 million, according to that November report.

That report also noted the UI at the time had $136 million in grants or clinical trials with DEI requirements. Iowa State in fiscal 2022 received $371 million in various forms of federal funding with DEI mandates; and UNI had more than $23 million in government funding with DEI-associated requirements.

Equal Opportunity office

Per Iowa State’s agreement with Spelman Johnson, the campus had hoped to choose a candidate “for a hiring announcement date of Dec. 1, 2023,” but also reserved the right to “determine none of the applicants (are) satisfactory for hire.”

In her interim position, Sirna has listed among her duties overseeing discrimination, harassment and sexual misconduct complaints and investigations; conducting training on policy and procedure and the intersection of Title IX and criminal investigations; serving as the Americans with Disabilities coordinator; and managing, recruiting, supporting and hiring Office of Equal Opportunity staff.

The mission of the Equal Opportunity office is to “create an environment where all people are treated with dignity and respect and have an equal opportunity to learn and work at Iowa State University, free from discrimination, harassment and sexual misconduct.”

Among a handful of DEI-related mandates proposed in a new House File 2558 — the “Higher Education Reform Act of 2024” working its way through the Iowa Legislature — is one directing the universities to ensure support services are available to all students and another to adopt policies advancing “the diversity of intellectual and philosophical perspectives in faculty and staff applicant pools.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com