Articles Tagged: Iowa Board of Regents

A few months after 75-year-old Steindler Orthopedic Clinic in March vacated its longtime home in east Iowa City for a new 100,000-square-foot clinic and surgery center in North Liberty, University of Iowa Health Care is eyeing Steindler’s old digs as a new home for its Department of Family and Community Medicine.

On the heels of a Legislative session replete with proposals to direct what can and cannot be taught across Iowa’s public universities — specifically related to diversity topics and civics education — the Board of Regents next week will consider a new policy barring “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “critical race theory” requirements.

For the first time since airing in 2022 plans to build a new 842,000-square-foot inpatient tower, University of Iowa Health Care has brought the project before the Board of Regents for approval to spend $72.5 million on “early work.”

When the University of Iowa created Chuck Xander’s position two years ago, he was the first veterans-embedded counselor on a university or college campus in Iowa, the first in the Big Ten, and one of the first dedicated to military-connected students in the nation. Since then, he’s held more than 550 therapy sessions with about 100 military and veteran students

With a slate of newly-confirmed regents on the nine-member board tasked with governing Iowa’s three public universities, President Sherry Bates this week doled out regent assignments to the board’s seven committees.

Addressing a proposal to up tuition and fees for resident undergraduate students nearly 3 percent across Iowa’s public universities, student representatives on Monday asked the board to halt, pause, or at least strongly consider the impact of the rising cost.

Before regents on Monday authorized their executive director to hire a firm, form a committee, and develop a timeline for the upcoming search to replace outgoing Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen, one lawmaker reminded them of a new law governing the selection process.

Iowa’s three public universities will see no increase in general education appropriations from the state in the upcoming budget year — and targeted bumps in special purpose funds — despite the governor’s recommended 2-percent increase.

Lawmakers use surplus to cover expected $917M shortfall

With an estimated 11,870 students across Iowa’s public universities expected to receive degrees during in-person and livestreamed commencement ceremonies this weekend, the regent system is reporting rising graduation rates.

Also in the Capitol Notebook, the Senate advanced a ban on DEI funding for local governments and community colleges

Recently-reappointed member of Iowa’s Board of Regents David Barker has been nominated to serve as U.S. assistant secretary of post secondary education following the resignation of Nasser H. Paydar, appointed in 2022 by then-President Joe Biden.

One day after state senators advanced an education budget bill starving Iowa’s public universities of any general aid increase in the coming year, the Iowa House advanced its own package cutting general education support by the amount each university was spending on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. But unlike the Senate version, the House would increase some support for other regent initiatives and for community colleges.

Also in the Capitol Notebook, the Iowa Senate confirmed 3 members to the Iowa Board of Regents

In response to Board of Regents directives and proposed legislation, Iowa State University is transitioning its “Cyclones Civics” initiative into an official center focused on closing civics-related knowledge gaps on things like founding documents, functions of government, principles of American democracy, and “the nature of civil liberties.”