Articles Tagged: Iowa Board of Regents

To make up for missed deadlines and late data from the state, Iowa Auditor Rob Sand this week had his office for the first time push out “single audit reports” for each of Iowa’s public universities to spare them from threats to federal funding and certifications that require annual financial reporting.

Four months after the University of Iowa reported “a search for a buyer is in progress” for its 55-year-old Mayflower Residence Hall, the institution officially has listed the 326,000-square-foot property for $45 million.

The state of Iowa added to its tally of Board of Regents-related settlement payouts Wednesday by approving three more – including a $5 million agreement tied to allegations of medical negligence at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, to be paid out over 30 years through 2053.

As it’s done for years, the Board of Regents last week approved a University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics across-the-board 6-percent rate hike for the new budget year starting next month – the highest allowed in many UIHC payer contracts.

After hearing from student representatives worried about the rising cost of higher education but aware of eroding state support, Iowa’s Board of Regents without discussion Wednesday approved across-the-system tuition and fee increases – including a 3.5-percent hike for all in-state undergraduates.

The Board of Regents today is evaluating the performance of its three university presidents and executive director over the last year — a process that on many occasions historically has resulted in pay raises and increased deferred compensation.

The University of Iowa wants to make part of its research park in Coralville more attractive to prospective companies by cutting out the Board of Regents as owner and allowing developers to either buy parcels or lease land directly — making it more like Iowa State University’s booming research park.

Iowa State University next week hopes to add to its list of 80-plus honorarily-named buildings, centers, and spaces with Board of Regents approval to name its veterinary medicine academic building, “Frederick Douglass Patterson Hall.”

Continuing its construction boom involving more than $1 billion in new and renovated facilities, University of Iowa Health Care next week will seek Board of Regents approval to spend $249 million on a new 263,000-square-foot “Health Sciences Academic Building.”

Here’s how your tax dollars will be spent in the coming fiscal year

Six months after launching a search to replace Harriet Nembhard as dean of its College of Engineering, the University of Iowa on Thursday announced Ann F. McKenna — a vice dean at Arizona State University — will take the reins of the 2,000-plus-student college Aug. 16.

Postsecondary enrollment nationally stayed well below pre-COVID levels this spring — down 1.3 million students or 7 percent from 2019 — and Iowa remained among the hardest-hit, with a 13 percent drop in combined community college, private, and public university enrollment over the four years.

On the same day University of Iowa officials asked a federal judge to dismiss a January lawsuit in which its new private utilities partner accused UI of shirking obligations just three years into their 50-year $1.165 billion deal, the university filed its own counter lawsuit against the utilities partner.

The tally of tenured and tenure-track faculty across Iowa’s public universities in the academic year that just wrapped continued down a slope that began a decade ago — when 3,531 Board of Regents faculty were tenure eligible, amounting to 63 percent of the 5,637 faculty total.

As the University of Iowa searches for new leadership atop its sprawling health care enterprise, growing network of hospitals and clinics, and highly-ranked college of medicine, administrators want a partner to help them assess “fair market valuation” of a “wide range of health care settings and assets.”