Vanessa Miller

Three days after a pair of Republican lawmakers contacted the Board of Regents with concerns over the number of genders listed on admission applications to Iowa’s public universities, all three campuses updated their forms to offer just three options: male, female, or “prefer not to answer.”

In voicing support for a legislative proposal to establish a new School of Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa -- with a bill that started in the House now bolstered by a companion bill in the Senate -- a tenured UI professor cited research revealing extreme political bias across top-ranked American colleges and universities, including in Iowa.

Iowa’s community colleges for 60 years have innovatively and persistently pursued a Legislature-levied mission to provide educational opportunities, workforce training, and community enrichment through two-year associate degrees, one-year certificates, and other continuing or high school-level academic programming.

Republican lawmakers Wednesday advanced

A day after the University of Iowa paused or slowed research-related grant applications, hiring, and general spending in response to funding cuts announced by the National Institutes of Health — the campus’ largest federal research funder — UI officials on Tuesday retracted that guidance due to a temporary restraining order on the NIH cuts.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Iowa author Marilynne Robinson reacted to the use of her name last week by a researcher and writer for the conservative National Association of Scholars, who urged Iowa lawmakers to solve a “civic literacy crisis,” and pointed to Robinson as an Iowan who embodies “the civics education and civic literacy of times past.”

Despite a court order blocking an attempted freeze on all federal grants, loans, and other forms of financial aid, researchers across Iowa’s public universities are being impacted by President Donald Trump’s executive orders — including those eliminating “radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing.”

Elizabeth Willis, since arriving on the University of Iowa campus a decade ago, has come to epitomize the iconic and esteemed Iowa Writers’ Workshop in which she teaches and the wealth of writers among whom she continues to create.

Shortly after an analyst from a high-profile conservative policy group two weeks ago presented lawmakers with evidence that more than 20 programs across Iowa’s public universities have a negative “return on investment,” a member of the Board of Regents contacted her with questions.

Warning Iowa is suffering from a “crisis in civics literacy,” a representative from the National Association of Scholars on Wednesday urged lawmakers to reform public university general education requirements, establish autonomous civics schools on its university campuses, and ensure education accrediting bodies can’t block Iowa’s reform laws.

In hopes of boosting enrollment and addressing Iowa’s workforce needs, the University of Northern Iowa is proposing slashing tuition rates by more than half for non-resident students from bordering states to match instate rates paid by Iowa residents.

A year after lawmakers passed sweeping legislation banning diversity, equity, and inclusion spending across Iowa’s public universities, legislators are taking aim at DEI-related curricular requirements — and the Board of Regents is in support.

As legislators this week continue their consideration of a group of bills aimed at reshaping higher education in Iowa -- taking aim at diversity, equity, and inclusion programming, curricular offerings, and accrediting agencies -- one lawmaker on Wednesday called on Iowa’s community colleges to consider offering bachelor’s degrees.

In responding to a House proposal that would require the University of Iowa to establish a new “School of Intellectual Freedom,” a UI lobbyist on Tuesday announced campus plans to create a new “Center for Civic Dialogue and Leadership.”

For her decades of space flight and research with NASA and now Axiom space, Iowa native and prolific astronaut Peggy Whitson will be inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation announced Tuesday.