Lang wants regents to focus on cooperation with Legislature

New state Board of Regents President Craig Lang said building a stronger cooperative relationship with the Iowa Legislature is one of his top priorities for the board in the coming months.

Since being selected as the new regents president last month, Lang has declined interview requests from the media. In making his comments Thursday at the regents meeting in Cedar Falls, Lang explained he spent the past several weeks gathering input from fellow regents, state and university leaders and the public. He wanted to get input from key players before making any major decisions or making broad statements to the media about his plans for the future of the board, Lang said.

“All of these conversations are necessary during a transition to determine common ground and to assess our future direction,” Lang said.

His conversations reveal that those key players have far more in common that they have differences, Lang said, with everyone united in their support and commitment to students and the educational institutions.

There has to be a stronger relationship with the Iowa Legislature, an especially important priority now as the board attempts to stop the state appropriation losses to the universities, Lang said. To that end, Lang invited local legislators to breakfast before Thursday's regents meeting and invited them to stay for the meeting. The regents must look for more opportunities to communicate with legislators. It would be good, for example, to sit down with Gov. Terry Branstad and legislative leaders to talk about the university budgets approved by the regents Thursday, Lang said.

“What we're trying to do is open the transparency and the dialogue early on so they become participants in the process,” he said.

Lang said his other two urgent priorities are the recruitment and selection of the next Iowa State University president, who Lang said should be a hard-charging innovator ready to make ISU a leader in the bioeconomy, and creating more awareness among Iowans about the value of higher education and the role it plays in the state.

His term as board president starts by building bridges and increasing transparency, Lang said.

He does plan to delegate some duties to members of the regents office staff and to university officials, specifically speaking with the media about certain issues. The regents executive director and staff works on board issues daily and are often more well-versed in specific areas, he said.

“That doesn't mean I won't know. Communication will be better if the regents office takes over some of these things that past presidents have done,” Lang said. “I don't believe it's important for the president of the board to be out in front of the public every time an issue comes up at one of the universities. If the media wants a response, the universities should do that or the executive director should do that.”

Lang, a Republican from Brooklyn, was selected by the board as the new regents president last month. That move came after Gov. Branstad urged former board president David Miles, a Democrat, to step down as president even though he had a year left on his leadership term. Branstad said he wanted a board president who would work more cooperatively with the Legislature.