Higher Ed

The University of Iowa has taken the first steps toward conducting an outside search for its next permanent athletics director, establishing a search committee and hiring a search firm.

“The students that issued the statement have every right to their opinion,” Board of Regents President Michael Richards said. “I continue to strongly disagree with what they said and stand by that. However, I should not have used insulting language towards the students.”

With its outgoing Athletic Director David Harris headed to Tulane University in January, where he’ll assume the same role, the University of Northern Iowa on Wednesday announced former University of Iowa Athletic Director and retired Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby will step in as interim AD.

A former employee of University of Iowa Community HomeCare has paired up with a former patient to sue the entity on behalf of themselves and 67,000-plus others over a data breach in March they argue could have been prevented, was reported too late, and unjustly enriched the university while causing years of stress, risk, and potential further victimization in the form of fraud and identity theft.

Just one year into the public portion of University of Northern Iowa's $250 million comprehensive fundraising campaign, the Cedar Falls campus already is most of the way to its goal — putting it more than two years ahead of schedule.

The private university in Des Moines is grappling with a budget deficit in the millions.

Although the common and highly-contagious RSV – short for “respiratory syncytial virus” – runs a mild, cold-like course for most people, it can hit infants and patients over 60 hard, even requiring hospitalization. For the first time, a vaccine is how available for those high-risk groups – thanks, in part, to University of Iowa Health Care trial work.

With a bankrupt Mercy Iowa City already inciting objections to the more than $1 million it's accrued in attorney fees tied to Chapter 11 proceedings, the hospital’s interim management and restructuring firm last week submitted another $1 million bill.

Despite warnings of a looming enrollment cliff threatening to decimate crops of high school graduates feeding thousands of colleges nationally, Iowa’s high school graduate numbers aren’t expected to dip below 2019 levels any time soon — at least through 2036.

Despite uncharacteristic discord on the Board of Regents over a list of diversity, equity, and inclusion recommendations, the board on Thursday approved the suggestions and asked the universities to produce progress reports and implementation plans by April.

Since University of Iowa Health Care more than two years ago initiated efforts to take over Mercy Iowa City, an outside Chicago-based law firm has billed it $1.8 million for “transactional and regulatory assistance arising in connection with a potential affiliation involving Mercy Iowa City.”

But the University of Iowa is the only state campus where tuition income beat expectations in fiscal 2023.