Vanessa Miller

With questions about tenure, its value, and its threats still top of mind for some Republican lawmakers, the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty on Iowa’s regent campuses is continuing a generational slide to its lowest in recent history.

Iowa’s Board of Regents is not ready to include in its automatic-admission scoring system a relatively new “Classic Learning Test” gaining traction nationally and especially in conservative-leaning states as an alternative to the traditional ACT and SAT tests.

A growing percent of students across Iowa’s public universities feel comfortable expressing their opinions on and off campus, in and out of class, and even on social media — according to a second free speech survey Iowa’s Board of Regents administered earlier this year, just over two years after ordering its first following a string of campus incidents that drew intense criticism from Republican lawmakers.

A critical audit of the University of Northern Iowa’s Office of Compliance and Equity Management – responsible for making sure UNI offers equal education opportunities and complies with state and federal laws like Title IX and affirmative action – uncovered shortcomings that could “expose the university to unacceptable risks” and “result in serious consequences.”

Among $2-plus billion in upcoming University of Iowa Health Care construction -- including a $1 billion, 842,000-square-foot inpatient tower near Kinnick Stadium -- is an expanded burn treatment center, now facing a 10-percent budget hike due to the “challenging and complex nature” of hospital renovation work.

Because Spencer Lee’s 57 kilos bracket is one of five Olympic weights not yet qualified for the Olympics, his U.S. trials win Saturday isn’t an automatic ticket to the Summer Games. He still has to qualify the United States at that weight in Istanbul, Turkey on May 9-12 by placing among the top three at the World Olympic Games Qualifier.

Six years since leaders of Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine warned lawmakers “we won’t get accredited again” without building — or at least making progress toward — a new stand-alone Veterinary Diagnostic Lab, the state and university have collaborated to do just that.

Standing between Hawkeye wrestling icon Spencer Lee and his long-sought Olympic dreams today is fellow former Hawkeye Thomas Gilman, who made his Olympic debut three years ago in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, bringing home a bronze medal.

Former Hawkeye standout Spencer Lee is headed to the best-of-three championship for an Olympic birth against another former Hawkeye — Thomas Gilman, who now wrestles for the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club at Penn State.

The Domestic Violence Intervention Program plans to apply for the sexual-assault grant funds announced by the attorney general’s office Wednesday, DVIP Executive Director Kristie Fortmann-Doser told The Gazette.

The University of Iowa’s world-renowned hydroscience and engineering center focused on fluids-related education, research, and public service wants to build a new $40 million hydraulic modeling facility in Coralville – an endeavor aimed at maintaining the program’s leadership and innovation in an increasingly-relevant field.

After six years without competing, an unseeded UI resident doctor took down the three seed and then the two seed at a “last chance qualifier“ tournament to earn himself a spot vying for a chance to compete at the Olympics in Paris this summer.

Taking matters into its own hands — following the U.S. Department of Education’s tumultuous and confused rollout of its new FAFSA — Coe College on Tuesday announced a “regent price match” aimed at providing “immediate help to Iowa students entering college for the first time in the fall.”

Instead of an originally-proposed $27.4 million major renovation of its 50-year-old Duane Banks Field – meant to “significantly improve the game-day experience” and add hundreds of seats for fans – the University of Iowa is paring down its baseball stadium upgrades, for now, “due to funding and cost concerns.”

ACT, Inc. — long known for its standardized tests before more recently pursuing a broader mission of research, education, and college and career readiness — this week announced a major collaboration with a large California investment firm, shifting the Iowa City-based ACT from a nonprofit to for-profit company.