Gov. Kim Reynolds on Friday reappointed two regents charged with governing Iowa’s public universities and named one new appointee to the nine-member board — former Republican congressional candidate Robert Cramer.
Republican lawmakers Wednesday began “dismantling the (diversity, equity, and inclusion/critical race theory) bureaucracies existing at our regional institutions” by advancing a bill barring Iowa’s public universities from spending money on DEI offices, employees, and programming.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service donated 169 confiscated tarantulas and offered them to Iowa State University this month.
Acknowledging the reality that students, workers, employers and corporations will be using artificial intelligence and chat bot technology — and, in many cases, already are — Iowa’s public universities are issuing guidance, forming committees, crafting assignments and churning out research on how to use it, how to benefit from it and how to guard against its limitations and potential harms.
With lawmakers in the throes of deciding how much to appropriate Iowa’s public universities for the upcoming budget year, the Board of Regents this week released a new “economic impact report” showing its campuses collectively added $14.9 billion to the state’s economy in the 2022 budget year.
The University of Iowa’s efforts to acknowledge and reward good work come as UI Health Care reports 500 to 600 open nursing positions, and the broader campus reports its most faculty resignations since at least 2006 — with 92 in fiscal 2022.
For the first time in decades, all three of Iowa’s public universities want to update the peer institutions with which they compare themselves to “more closely align” with their respective campuses.
Agriculture contributes more than 10% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States today, and Iowa — with 13 million acres of corn and seven hogs per person — is one of the top two emitters, second only to Texas, since 1990.
A group of 26 Republican lawmakers wants Iowa’s public universities to explain themselves and their teacher training curriculum by defining a long list of terms plucked from course descriptions — like “compulsory heterosexuality,” “critical media literacy” and “equitable science teaching.”
Five years after lawmakers denied Iowa State University the full $100 million it sought for a new and updated Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory – which underpins Iowa’s $32.5 billion dollar animal agriculture industry and aids in animal health emergencies, like the bird flu – Gov. Kim Reynolds on Tuesday committed another $40 million to the new lab.
Iowa State University, which begins developing the $200 million CyTown entertinament district this spring, is looking for vendors, retailers and restaurants to eventually fill out the regional destination.
Iowa’s university and college campuses this month are planning a host of lectures, activities, and events to honor Martin Luther King Jr. and his National Day of Service — including Iowa State University, featuring a lecture from a civil rights leader arrested for climbing a South Carolina State House pole in 2015 to remove its Confederate flag.
Iowa’s Board of Regents on Tuesday will conduct mid-year performance reviews of their university presidents, who over the last year have faced a range of high-profile issues and challenges -- like the transition from pandemic-era restrictions, free speech on campus, and hundreds of millions in new facilities and upgrades.
Although a Republican-led effort last year to change the way Iowa funds its public universities didn’t materialize, the concept isn’t dead — as lawmakers are airing plans to revisit the idea in the upcoming session in their debate over how much to give the state institutions.
Daily Newsletters