Higher Ed

Iowa Conservatory sees 10 students, high spirits in boarding school’s first year

That concept the children intuitively understood -- that giving can be as inspirational as getting – is one that UI honors program associate and longtime professor Dave Gould decided to explore this fall in his final semester teaching “Life Design,” an esteemed Blank Honors Center course that over more than a decade has produced community leaders, community events, and community change.

The University of Iowa shift in leadership and decision-making power has meant “significant” challenges for the $525.6 million hospital campus it’s building in North Liberty, according to an Oct. 18 audit by Baker Tilly, provided to The Gazette through an open records request.

‘The regents are overreacting“ he says after officials discovered the videos he did with his wife.

Across colleges and universities, the words and lived experiences of addiction and recovery, dependence and therapy, mental illness and counseling are becoming less taboo, making initiatives like Iowa State University’s Collegiate Recovery Program more popular and important for students seeking support.

Rise identifies 15- to 17-year-olds who show promise in cultivating ideas and solutions that could change the world and works to support them in different ways.

Universities nationwide, including those across Iowa, are prioritizing access and affordability to higher education among their recruiting strategies – even as tuition rises – and many hope a first update to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid in many decades will help.

As the University of Iowa continues its takeover of Mercy Iowa City, administrators are sharing more details about the transition — including the appointment this week of Deborah Berini to lead management and integration with the now-bankrupt community hospital.

Among the complexities of a Mercy Iowa City bankruptcy sale to the University of Iowa is its electronic medical system transition – with any gap or abrupt termination of system operations posing “significant” threat to Mercy and its patients.

About halfway through construction of the University of Iowa’s new 469,000-square-foot hospital campus in North Liberty, its orthopedics department this week shared more details about plans to move its clinical, surgical, research, and educational operations to the Forevergreen Road site — further backing his characterization of the campus as an “orthopedic hospital.”

“There are real benefits,” he acknowledged when asked for his main takeaways from the scientific report. “But that doesn't mean there aren't real potential harms as well.”

Although only a fraction of the students who graduate in more traditional spring ceremonies do so in December, Iowa’s public universities this weekend will celebrate thousands participating in fall commencements across their respective campuses.