Vanessa Miller

The University of Iowa chapter of conservative student group Young Americans for Freedom next week will welcome to campus the former teammate of transgender NCAA Division I national champion swimmer Lia Thomas for a talk titled, “Men do not belong in women’s sports.”

With the higher education landscape still challenging small private colleges and universities regionally and nationally, Iowa lawmakers this session proposed a measure to make sure the state has more involvement, interaction, and information about any future closures like Wesleyan’s.

Iowa boasts a higher six-year graduation rate across its public universities -- 73 percent -- than any state in the nation, a meaningful statistic for a region facing growing workforce demands and a higher education landscape facing mounting pressure and skepticism from lawmakers.

Mental health isn’t just a concern among students. Faculty and staff across Iowa and the nation are facing heightened mental health needs too – both personally and professionally, in their role responding to and managing the student distress they see in their classrooms.

In collaboration with Iowa’s 15 community colleges, lawmakers are moving through measure to change — for the first time in 20 years — the way state general aid is distributed across the campuses.

Mediapolis Republican asks how many ‘illegal immigrants’ each campus has

The Iowa State University police administrative adviser who has stepped in three times now as the campus’ interim equal opportunity director and Title IX coordinator has been named sole finalist to assume the job permanently.

According to a national public-university assessment on what increasingly is referred to in critical terms like “administrative bloat,” Iowa essentially is tied with Hawaii for spending the least on administrators, according to a new Board of Regents report.

Including $28 million it bid in a bankruptcy auction to buy Mercy Iowa City, $8.5 million it covered of the hospital’s “cash-based operating losses,” and $3.4 million it spent resolving Mercy’s unpaid contract obligations, the University of Iowa’s total cost to acquire the 150-year-old community hospital is expected to reach nearly $40 million.

Should the state adopt into law a bill that passed the Iowa House this week aiming to restructure the Board of Regents and its powers while also capping tuition costs and diversity programming, Iowa’s public universities could take a financial hit in the millions.

Adding to its list of athletics projects, the University of Northern Iowa on Wednesday received Board of Regents permission to start planning a 22,000-square-foot $10 million “court practice facility“ to be shared between men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball.

For the first time in nearly seven years, Iowa’s Board of Regents has a new president in Sherry Bates -- a social worker who’s been on the board for nearly a decade.

The University of Iowa has initiated a national search for a new vice president for research — a key member of the president’s cabinet — after announcing last week that J. Martin (Marty) Scholtz is resigning after five years.

Kirkwood Community College will pay its new President Kristie Fisher — officially inaugurated this week — an annual salary of $350,000 for the budget year that ends June 30, according to her three-year contract.

As the University of Iowa reshapes its west campus to accommodate a massive new $1 billion inpatient tower, $249 million Health Sciences Academic Building, and other renovation and expansion projects across its health care and athletic operations — administrators are eyeing not one, but now two new parking ramps.