Vanessa Miller

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.”

Three years after getting the state OK to build an ambulatory surgery center near the booming North Liberty-Tiffin border, Steindler Orthopedic Clinic is two weeks from opening a 100,000-square-foot facility on March 24.

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.”

The State of Iowa has agreed to pay $85,000 to the Cedar Rapids family of a 3-year-old boy who was bit in the ear by a bomb-sniffing K9 patrolling Kinnick Stadium during a home Hawkeye football game in September 2022.

A U.S. District Court judge on Monday dismissed MercyOne’s appeal of a liquidation plan for the bankrupt Mercy Iowa City hospital it managed for years -- a plan MercyOne opposed, in part, because it left the Des Moines-based health care system exposed to potential lawsuits.

“I thank my mother for finding the physician,” he said. “Of course, I was involved with that whole process of finding a surgeon, going and meeting them, and asking them about the operation and the alternatives and getting second opinions. And the decision was left up to me, ultimately, of whether or not to get surgery.”

Amid an onslaught of criticism from lawmakers and proposed legislation to codify their higher education critiques, Iowa’s Board of Regents this week directed its public universities to do “a lot more” to comply with the “spirit of the laws” — including pulling down current or archived webpages with any mention of diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Board of Regents on Thursday levied a rare rejection of a University of Iowa construction project, opting not to approve -- at least for a period of time -- a long-awaited renovation of the 100-year-old Iowa Memorial Union.

The University of Iowa’s living learning communities house students with peers who share similar interests or majors in hopes of forming deeper community connections. Administrators confirmed to The Gazette that three of those communities — serving LGBTQ+, Latinx, and Black students — will no longer be offered starting next year.

After an hour updating lawmakers on ways their campuses are serving students, the presidents of Iowa’s three public universities fielded questions from lawmakers -- including about cuts to their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.