Articles Tagged: Iowa Board of Regents

With more than three years left of her six-year term, Board of Regents President Sherry Bates on Monday announced she’s resigning from the board Thursday.

The hundreds of faculty, staff, students, and community members who offered feedback on the two finalists for Iowa State University president gave higher marks to and more positive comments for the candidate not chosen -- Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Dean Benjamin Houlton.

“I can assure you that the legislators that passed this, myself and the Board of Regents are extremely sensitive to what you have just indicated,” said Regent and advisory council chair Christine Hensley. “We also understand that this center is really being watched throughout the country. And We will not fail. We will not fail.”

Among the questions a new University of Iowa Center for Intellectual Freedom will tackle at its inaugural event Dec. 5-6 are “What is wrong with universities?”, “How did we end up here?” and “Can universities be reformed?”

Larry McKibben, a former state senator, longtime Marshalltown attorney and past member of the Iowa Board of Regents, died Sunday at age 78.

University of Iowa Health Care in the first quarter of the current 2026 fiscal year is running under budget in revenue and over budget in expenses – resulting in net operating income that is $15 million below expectations for the 2026 term that started July 1, a rarity for the largest health care system in Iowa.

University Heights is primed to begin building a new recreational trail system across 36 acres of forested land north of Melrose Avenue — near the Finkbine commuter lot — after the Board of Regents on Wednesday flagged support for its use of the University of Iowa-owned portion of the land.

The first meeting of a new Legislature-imposed University of Iowa Center for Intellectual Freedom advisory council has been set for next week, on Tuesday, over Zoom — meaning the half who live outside Iowa won’t need to travel to the state.

Given incoming Iowa State University President David Cook won’t begin his tenure until March 1, 2026, the Board of Regents this week will name recently retired College of Business Dean David Spalding to serve as interim president for three months.

The news — garnering broad applause from a packed crowd in the union — doubled as a welcome home for Cook, who was born in Mary Greeley Medical Center, graduated from Ames High, and earned a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State in 1992.

An aggravated assault last year was among 13 reported “hate crimes” on the UI campus in 2024 -- a spike from just one in 2023 and six in 2022, according to a new UI 2025 Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act and Fire Safety report being presented to the Board of Regents this week.

Although Chuck Grassley has filed paperwork to run for his eighth re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2028 – when he’ll be 95, pushing him over 100 by the end of the term should he win – UNI is preparing to receive his Senate papers once he finally retires.

Ames native and Iowa State University graduate David Cook — the second finalist to succeed outgoing ISU President Wendy Wintersteen — on Thursday told a campus crowd during a public forum that he wasn’t looking to leave his post as president of North Dakota State University.

In taking questions from the campus-based audience Wednesday during a public forum, Iowa State University presidential finalist Benjamin Houlton fielded one referencing the recent firing of an ISU employee for comments she posted on social media about Charlie Kirk’s killing.

Proposed bylaws for the University of Iowa’s new legislature-mandated Center for Intellectual Freedom require its 26-member advisory council to meet at least once a semester — plus any special meetings the chair or executive committee call.