Higher Ed

After eight years, Board of Regents Executive Director Mark Braun — who started 17 days before Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen was hired in 2017 — is planning to join her in retiring.

Hearing by email and public comment criticism of a proposal to bar “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “critical race theory” requirements for university majors, minors, or certificates -- Iowa’s Board of Regents on Wednesday committed to reviewing and changing the proposed new policy.

The Board of Regents will pay AGB, the firm hired to lead its search for a new president of Iowa State University, a fee equal to 25 percent of the annual base salary of the candidate hired to succeed outgoing President Wendy Wintersteen.

Following campus outcry and accusations it’s violating state code, the Iowa Board of Regents has delayed until next month its final vote on a new policy to bar “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “critical race theory” requirements for majors, minors, or certificates.

The Board of Regents on Monday announced the members of a 12-member search committee charged with helping find a successor for outgoing Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen.

Longtime University of Iowa professor and interim College of Law dean Todd Pettys will continue leading the college for the next two years following a failed national search that he co-chaired last year.

Accusing the Board of Regents of violating its own “Freedom of Expression” policy, the University of Northern Iowa’s United Faculty union this week slammed a proposed policy change that would bar DEI and CRT course requirements across Iowa’s public university system.

Get to know The Gazette’s Higher Education Reporter

A few months after 75-year-old Steindler Orthopedic Clinic in March vacated its longtime home in east Iowa City for a new 100,000-square-foot clinic and surgery center in North Liberty, University of Iowa Health Care is eyeing Steindler’s old digs as a new home for its Department of Family and Community Medicine.

More than a century after the Sisters of Mercy in 1924 established Mount Mercy Academy -- which would evolve into a junior college in 1928, a four-year college in 1960, and a full-fledged university with graduate degrees in 2010 -- the Cedar Rapids campus officially has new ownership.

On the heels of a Legislative session replete with proposals to direct what can and cannot be taught across Iowa’s public universities — specifically related to diversity topics and civics education — the Board of Regents next week will consider a new policy barring “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “critical race theory” requirements.

For the first time since airing in 2022 plans to build a new 842,000-square-foot inpatient tower, University of Iowa Health Care has brought the project before the Board of Regents for approval to spend $72.5 million on “early work.”