Vanessa Miller

Dorm life — which, like everything else, experienced major disruption in the last two years — appeared largely back to normal on the University of Iowa campus Sunday, when students ushered in the annual return-to-campus ritual with the start of residence hall move-in.

After regent Nancy Boettger warned Iowa State University last month to keep free speech in mind while teaching on the “politically charged topic” of climate science, she gave ISU a pair of books from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change — which denies the notion of human-induced climate change.

The University of Iowa is bringing back to campus a former deputy general counsel — who for the last year has been advising colleges on sexual misconduct policies, conducting internal investigations, and leading training on Title IX compliance — to succeed Carroll Reasoner as vice president for legal affairs and general counsel.

Tuition rates for Kirkwood Community College students this fall are 7.5 percent above last fall — marking the steepest increase among community colleges in the state, according to college documents.

The University of Iowa has agreed to pay one of its former track and field coaches $125,000 -- plus another $15,000 in attorneys’ fees -- as part of a settlement agreement that involved his voluntary resignation on July 22.

Each of Iowa’s public universities has approved as a “conflict of interest vendor” Seneca Companies Inc. -- which the state’s newest regent heads as president and chief operating officer.

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.