Higher Ed

Iowa State and the University of Northern Iowa have resurrected their fully in-person orientation programs this summer — including offering students the chance to spend the night in a residence hall. The University of Iowa is offering a hybrid model.

Given its long history training educators, University of Northern Iowa — called the Iowa State Teachers College from 1909 to 1961 — is working to address the shortage, including through a new “fully online teacher preparation program” that allows working paraeducators with associate degrees to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education, with a special education minor.

The University of Iowa is suing the contractors who installed 900-some windows in its 14-story Stead Family Children’s Hospital, many of which have proven faulty and flawed, with cracks and dilapidation already showing just five years after the hospital’s opening.

The University of Iowa over its first year with Follett didn’t impose enough checks and balances to ensure it’s getting what it’s owed, according to a June 2022 internal audit presented last week to the Board of Regents.

The state Board of Regents has agreed to settle a complaint with a University of Northern Iowa student who accused the institution and its employees of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

State executives Monday agreed to pay more than a half-million dollars to reimburse the University of Iowa for pipe damage its 65-year-old Medical Research Center suffered during an arctic snap in early 2018 that set records and burst pipes across the community.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, higher education challenges remain — and in some cases are more prevalent — although COVID, with all the discomfort it brought, might have forced to the forefront one potential solution: online education.

Both University of Iowa President Barbara Wilson and Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen are getting 8.3 percent pay raises this summer — bumping up their annual base pay from $600,000 to $650,000.

The administration announced the action as President Joe Biden considers broader student loan forgiveness for millions of Americans. As a candidate, Biden said he supports forgiving $10,000 in student loans for all borrowers. He later indicated that such action should come through Congress, but the White House has said he is considering whether to pursue it through executive action.

Continuing what has become annual University of Iowa Health Care cost increases, the Board of Regents on Wednesday approved a 6 percent rate hike — which officials said could have been higher given current economic conditions.

Although social media has proved beneficial in many ways, Iowa’s public universities are facing a surge in mental health needs – like other campuses nationally following the COVID-19 pandemic – and they’re looking at social media as contributing to the problem.

Over the next 30 years, Iowa State University is planning to renew or replace 2.3 million square feet of buildings on its Ames campus and build 700,000 square feet of new construction, according to a facilities master plan presented to its governing Board of Regents on Wednesday.