Vanessa Miller

Although University of Iowa Health Care recently received Board of Regents approval to up its spend on a new 469,000-square-foot hospital project in North Liberty by 33 percent to $525.6 million, the campus still needs state approval to proceed.

Tens of thousands of students are preparing to descend on Iowa’s public universities next week, and all three are making preparations – including in Ames, where the City Council this week is weighing enhanced party penalties for the weekend before the fall semester starts.

In the last three years, the University of Iowa has spent or is committed to spend a total of $125,899 on services or products from Des Moines-based Seneca Companies, which Iowa’s newest regent serves as president and chief operating officer.

Among four proposals Mercy Iowa City entertained last year in its search for a new partner was one from University of Iowa Health Care offering more than $605 million to take ownership of the community hospital and make it the “centerpiece” of a new UIHC “community division.”

Just in time for the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art’s long-awaited reopening on Aug. 26, its most heralded piece — Jackson Pollock’s Mural — is back on campus after an equally long hiatus.

University of Iowa Physicians – a medical and surgical group based in its Carver College of Medicine – has agreed to pay $600,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the North Liberty wife of a patient who died in August 2015 of complications from a metastatic neuroendocrine tumor.

A year after Mercy Iowa City announced plans to exit its four-year affiliation with the statewide MercyOne health network and integrate into a larger health care system, the community hospital is pulling the plug on its search for a new partner and sticking with MercyOne.

Affirming its status as the costliest hospital project in state history, the Board of Regents on Wednesday unanimously agreed to increase the budget for University of Iowa Health Care’s new facility in North Liberty by 33 percent — bringing the total price tag to $525.6 million.

The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics this year ranked in the Top 50 nationally in two of 15 U.S. News & World Report-ranked specialties — its weakest showing in at least a decade, continuing a slide from nine ranked specialties in both 2012 and 2014.

Resident undergraduates headed to any of Iowa’s three public universities this fall will pay 4.25 percent more than students did last year after the Board of Regents on Wednesday unanimously approved tuition increases across their campuses.

The traditionally self-sustaining University of Iowa Athletics Department – a year after taking a $50 million loan from the main campus amid massive COVID-19 losses – has paid back $3 million to date, administrators told the Board of Regents on Wednesday.

Before Iowa’s Board of Regents on Wednesday gave the go-ahead for Iowa State University this fall to launch a new bachelor of science in climate science degree, regent Nancy Boettger warned administrators to keep “freedom of speech” in mind.

Iowans with an associate degree from any of the state’s 15 community colleges starting this fall will have easier access to a four-year bachelor’s degree thanks to a new University of Northern Iowa online program aimed at removing higher education barriers for adult and place-bound learners.

In the throes of a federal lawsuit accusing the University of Iowa and several Hawkeye football coaches of racism and mistreating former Black athletes, UI Athletics has announced two new diversity-related hires.

Iowa’s newest regent – J.C. Risewick, president of Des Moines-based Seneca Cos. – was chosen from among seven applicants for the recent Board of Regents vacancy, although he submitted a bare-bones application that didn’t include his education or employment history.