Iowa needs fresh thinking from regents

The Des Moines Register

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We recently ran a provocative essay on this page by former Board of Regents member Michael Gartner prescribing changes he believes Iowa's state universities must make for their own futures, and for Iowa's future.

Gartner's essay has generated a lot of discussion on our letter pages, online and elsewhere. It also should generate new thinking by the universities and the current regents, too.

One need not agree with everything Gartner proposes to agree he raises important questions that should be asked of these institutions. Among them:

Are Iowa's state universities prepared to accept the reality of declining state aid without reflexively raising undergraduate tuition? Do university administrators have the flexibility to be risk-taking leaders? Have these institutions strayed from their core missions? Should faculty members spend more time in the classroom?

This is an ideal moment for Iowa to confront those questions, as the leadership has changed on the Board of Regents (albeit prematurely), and the regents are searching for a new president to replace Greg Geoffroy at Iowa State University.

This is an opportunity for the board to challenge assumptions about the mission and operation of all three universities. For ISU, it is an opportunity to put that new thinking into action by hiring a new leader at ISU who may not fit the stereotype of a state university president.

An 18-member presidential search committee has outlined an exhaustive list of attributes it is looking for in the next ISU president. All of which are fine, except they define a president who would fit comfortably into the current mold at Iowa State, perhaps not one who would force the institution to break that mold when necessary.

While the search committee's job description talks a lot about the “land grant” mission of Iowa State, Iowa is light years away from the days when extension agents from Iowa State College nurtured a rural state struggling to survive on horse-powered farms at the dawn of the 20th century.

A better model for ISU's future is the school's role in the Manhattan Project, where scientists in Ames helped build the atomic bomb during World War II, which laid the groundwork for nuclear energy. Iowa - and the nation - needs a Manhattan-style project to pioneer new forms of food and energy for a world unable to feed a global population approaching 7 billion people.

Iowa has an opportunity to be a global leader in research and application of new plants, food production and processing. It must move the nation beyond the current ethanol and biodiesel debates to the next generation of alternative sources of energy. ISU could be an incubator for commercial applications of that science and exploit its proximity to the state's capital city to collaborate with government, industry and financial institutions.

Some things done now could be abandoned, but not the rich depth of teaching and scholarship that defines a great university. Great university professors engage students, but they also produce the research that makes a university a vital academic and economic engine.

This is the challenge at Iowa State University, and similarly at the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa. The job begins with risk-taking leadership by the Iowa Board of Regents.

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