Vanessa Miller

Many of the more than 200 who showed up in snow pants and tuft-tipped winter hats at a caucus precinct location in Coralville were same-day Republican registrants, including several who came out specifically to support Nikki Haley. The former South Carolina governor won Johnson County. It was the only county that Trump didn’t carry.

Even as “dangerously cold temperatures” have pushed all three of Iowa’s public universities

With mounting scientific evidence showing exercise can reduce stress, anxiety, and symptoms of depression, one Iowa State University associate professor wants to know why and how and whether the type and amount of exercise matters.

With the $28 million sale of Mercy Iowa City to the University of Iowa just over two weeks from closing, the 150-year-old community hospital’s largest bondholders are seeking court affirmation they will get the vast majority of that money “promptly.”

Given wind chills in Johnson County could plummet below negative-35 degrees Tuesday, the University of Iowa on Friday announced it’s not holding in-person classes on what was scheduled to be the first day of the spring semester.

Instead of the nearly $40 million Legislative appropriations increase Iowa’s Board of Regents wanted in the next budget year, Gov. Kim Reynolds has recommended a $12.3 million bump — amounting to a 2.5 percent increase for each of Iowa’s public universities.

The new chief integration officer that University of Iowa Health Care has appointed to manage its complex merger with Mercy Iowa City — following UIHC’s $28 million bankruptcy acquisition of the community hospital — could earn $780,000 this year, according to her professional services agreement.

A letter to Mercy Iowa City patients went out over the weekend about its transition to University of Iowa Health Care ownership asking them to “continue to schedule and go to your appointments as usual.”

Just weeks away from “day one” of a merged University of Iowa-Mercy Iowa City model through which the 150-year-old Mercy Hospital will morph into UI Health Care’s “downtown campus,” job offers are going out to more than 1,100 prospective transitioning employees.

Speaker of the Iowa House Pat Grassley has served in the Legislature nearly 18 years and has never — over that span — seen it undertake a broad review of “how we deliver higher education.”

Building on its existing collection of pre-U.S. Senate political papers from Chuck Grassley, the University of Northern Iowa on Wednesday announced the long-serving senator will make another gift leaving UNI with a complete collection of papers from his entire career spanning 60-plus years.

That concept the children intuitively understood -- that giving can be as inspirational as getting – is one that UI honors program associate and longtime professor Dave Gould decided to explore this fall in his final semester teaching “Life Design,” an esteemed Blank Honors Center course that over more than a decade has produced community leaders, community events, and community change.

The University of Iowa shift in leadership and decision-making power has meant “significant” challenges for the $525.6 million hospital campus it’s building in North Liberty, according to an Oct. 18 audit by Baker Tilly, provided to The Gazette through an open records request.

Across colleges and universities, the words and lived experiences of addiction and recovery, dependence and therapy, mental illness and counseling are becoming less taboo, making initiatives like Iowa State University’s Collegiate Recovery Program more popular and important for students seeking support.

Universities nationwide, including those across Iowa, are prioritizing access and affordability to higher education among their recruiting strategies – even as tuition rises – and many hope a first update to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid in many decades will help.