State relations remain a preeminent concern for Iowa’s public university system, compelling the regents to try something new. With the recent retirement of UNI’s state relations officer Mary Braun, the board is looking to hire a firm – instead of just one person – to replace her.
Both of Iowa’s public research universities in the budget year that just ended generated hundreds of millions in external funding to support experiments and projects across their respective campuses – although neither brought in as much as last year’s record-setting totals.
Under two years from the 2025 deadline Iowa set for itself seven years ago to get at least 70 percent of its workforce some form of education or training after high school, a new Gallup poll out Tuesday reveals confidence in higher education has plummeted — especially among Republicans.
Four weeks into summer school across Iowa’s public universities, enrollment remains below pre-pandemic levels — although campus leaders are “encouraged” by signs student counts are normalizing.
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.
Iowa’ Board of Regents also approved additional deferred compensation plans for her and for Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen. At the University of Northern Iowa, President Mark Nook gets his first raise since 2016.
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.
The sense Iowa’s agricultural land is both scarce and gaining value has driven the average price to a record-setting $11,400 per acre last year. Now Iowa farmers are bidding not only against neighbors, but out-of-state investors including professional athletes, well-known billionaires and the Mormon Church.
Iowa’s farmland owners are getting older and while that means their land likely will change hands soon, it probably won’t go to beginning farmers, according to the results of a new survey.
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.”
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.
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.
Iowa State University will continue to help fund water quality sensors on Iowa’s rivers and streams, despite a budget cut by the Iowa Legislature.
The survey comes in the wake of allegations that University of Iowa and Iowa State student-athletes violated NCAA rules.
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