Articles Tagged: University of Iowa

Of the more than 10,000 University of Iowa faculty and staff who completed a “personal health assessment” in 2024, just over half said they’re “thriving” — while the other nearly half said they’re “struggling.”

After two-plus years fighting a medical negligence lawsuit involving the death of a 75-year-old University of Iowa cancer patient — who was found unresponsive on the floor next to her inpatient bed three days postsurgery — the state has negotiated a settlement to pay the family $1.5 million.

As the University of Iowa works to comply with Board of Regents directives and legislative mandates to curtail diversity, equity, and inclusion work across campus, its philanthropic foundation – the UI Center for Advancement -- is grappling with how to handle the tens of thousands donated to a longstanding diversity fund.

Friday was unseasonably warm across Iowa. In Iowa City, temperatures topped out around 80 degrees. That’s nearly 30 degrees warmer than the average high temperature in late March. The bright sunshine brought people out to the the Pentacrest in downtown Iowa City.

A federal judge this week ordered MercyOne to produce a long list of records associated with its six-year management of the bankrupt Mercy Iowa City after a committee overseeing the hospital’s liquidation accused the former managing partner of withholding documents and details about what led to Mercy Iowa City’s “swift financial decline.”

On the day by which University of Iowa officials said they were told to close the campus’ renamed and reformed Division of Access, Opportunity, and Diversity — previously its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Division — the university on Thursday debuted a new website for its Office of Civil Rights Compliance.

Since Iowa State University initiated the practice in the 1800s, more than 230 honorary degrees have been conferred by the state’s public universities to individuals who demonstrated “extraordinary achievements” — and now the campuses have a uniform policy to rescind them, if necessary.

Iowa House Republicans continued their efforts to reform higher education policies in the state by passing a series of bills Tuesday aiming to — among other things — further curtail diversity, equity and inclusion programming across not only Iowa’s public universities but its private campuses as well.

As part of sweeping cuts across a broad swath of U.S. departments and agencies, $35 million in federal grants and contracts headed to the University of Iowa’s 105-year-old IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering center have been placed on hold.

After strident pushback from Republican lawmakers who accused the University of Iowa of falling short of its mandate to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts on campus, UI officials on Thursday announced plans to close its renamed “Division of Access, Opportunity and Diversity.”

A legislative proposal aimed at upping Iowa-resident enrollment in the UI Colleges of Medicine and Dentistry could deprive the institution of $5.7 million in out-of-state tuition income over a four-year span, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency.

“The proposed revisions clarify expectations regarding university management and oversight of institutional social media accounts,” according to a summary of those policy revisions, which came back before the board for approval in February. “The universities are generally expected to refrain from issuing statements on political, social, or public policy matters.”

Knowledge is power for family members, for communities, for health care providers, and for the men and women — sons and daughters, moms and dads, brothers and sisters — battling drug addiction and the mental health challenges involved.

“I am directing the institutions to pull down any current or archived web pages regarding diversity, equity, and/or inclusion,” regents President Sherry Bates said in a statement last month following continued criticism from Republican lawmakers upset with any evidence of diversity, equity and inclusion work across the public universities.

After 58 years of collaborative diplomacy, the U.S. Department of State has notified the University of Iowa’s esteemed International Writing Program that it is terminating its grants because they “no longer effectuate agency priorities” or align with “national interest.”