Vanessa Miller

The longtime executive assistant to Iowa State University’s president has signed a settlement agreeing not to sue and to retire by March in exchange for compensation recognizing her “years of commitment and service to the university.”

A year after the University of Northern Iowa established its new Center for Civic Education in response to directives from the Board of Regents and lawmakers, the center this week landed a $1.22 million American History and Civics Education-Seminars grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

Conservative Iowa regent David Barker on Tuesday was confirmed to his presidential appointment as assistant secretary for postsecondary education -- although Barker said he can’t be sworn in until the “Schumer shutdown” ends.

While maintaining its top ranking as Iowa’s best children’s hospital, according to U.S. News & World Report, the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital lost ground in new 2025-26 national rankings released Tuesday.

The state has agreed to pay a Le Claire mother $50,000 to settle her 2022 lawsuit accusing University of Iowa Health Care providers of perforating her bowel and charring her rectum during a 2020 cervical cancer surgery — leaving her permanently impaired and limiting her ability to parent her two sons.

Despite a lawsuit fighting the State Historical Society of Iowa's unexpected and "haphazard" closure of its Iowa City research facility and archives — and a court hearing scheduled in the dispute next week — the state on Monday began moving some of the historical documents with help from prison inmates.

The search committee tasked with identifying finalists to lead Iowa State University as its next president met in closed session Monday and after several hours of discussion narrowed down a pool of 78 applicants to eight semi-finalists.

“That would be a really cool discovery by itself,” University of Iowa planetary geologist Valerie Payre said. “That would mean we might not be alone in the solar system or even the universe.”

The state of Iowa has both a need and an opportunity to start offering four-year bachelor’s degrees across its 15 community colleges — like those offered on its public and private college and university campuses, according to a final investigative report that lawmakers commissioned over the summer.

In less than two weeks after University of Iowa Health Care on Aug. 29 notified 211,000-some people that their personal information might have been compromised in a data-breach incident, at least eight of those affected filed separate class-action lawsuits seeking both compensatory and punitive damages.

Seventeen historians, archivists, professors, authors, and donors with decades of public service are suing the State Historical Society of Iowa for haphazardly and without public input closing its Iowa City research facility and archives.

Days before Iowa’s Board of Regents met in closed session to discuss comments some university employees made on social media about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s death, Gov. Kim Reynolds wrote a letter urging the regents to terminate “public employees who make public comments condoning the murder of a person expressing political views.”

A 12-member search committee charged with identifying Iowa State University’s next president is scheduled to meet next week to discuss in closed session the 78 prospects who applied.

With bankrupt Mercy Iowa City and its former managing affiliate MercyOne snared in a growing web of legal disputes, the Des Moines-based affiliate is accusing Mercy Iowa City of being too verbose in its arguments, demanding case dismissal.

A week after the Board of Regents met for three and a half hours in closed session to discuss university employees who made inflammatory social media posts about the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, at least one ISU employee no longer is employed with the institution.