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IOWA CITY -- The University of Iowa needs more cohesion in its message to the public, and that's part of the job of  the UI'snew vice president for strategic communication, Tysen Kendig said today during a meeting with The Gazette's editorial board.Promoting the right message to more people hopefully will eventually lead to increased enrollment and retention, and more members in the Alumni Association, for example, Kendig said.It's also important to make a stronger case to the public about how the university ... continue reading

IOWA CITY — The University of Iowa is stockpiling barriers, sand and pumps in preparation for possible flooding this spring, UI President Sally Mason said Wednesday.It’s still early in the season and the likelihood of flooding is unknown, but after a devastating record flood nearly two years ago, UI leaders are playing it safe and have started to stockpile supplies, Mason said Wednesday during a visit to a UI Staff Council meeting.“It’s early in the game, but we can’t be ... continue reading

IOWA CITY — University of Iowa professors should schedule and design Friday morning classes in ways that increase student attendance, to combat Thursday night binge drinking, faculty leaders urged Tuesday.The UI Faculty Council, the leadership group of the university’s Faculty Senate, also passed a resolution backing the city’s plan to raise the bar entry age to 21. The Iowa City Council will vote on the 21-only ordinance later this month. Currently, anyone 19 and older can be in Iowa City ... continue reading

IOWA CITY -- The 14 University of Iowa graduate programs tagged as needing additional review by a task force won't get fellowship funding to recruit new students for next year.Graduate College Dean John Keller, during an open forum last night with graduate students, said graduate college officials decided to withhold the recruitment fellowship funding from those 14 programs on a one-year basis, until their futures are decided.That could mean some of them won't admit new doctoral students in the fall, ... continue reading

University of Iowa leaders support a renewed effort by the Iowa City Council to raise the minimum bar entry age, from 19 to 21, UI officials said in a statement today.The Iowa City Council last night at a work session said it wants to revisit the 21-only ordinance issue, something voters defeated in 2007. The Gazette's Gregg Hennigan is working on a follow-up story, talking with bar owners and others about the idea.UI officials in today's statement said they strongly ... continue reading

The Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Commission will hold a public forum in Iowa City Thursday afternoon to gather input on Everclear and other high alcohol content liquors sold in the state. It's the second such forum the commission has held this year, part of a discussion of a possible ban or tightened restrictions on highly concentrated liquors.The forum will be at 2:30 p.m. Thursday in room 337 of the Iowa Memorial Union on the University of Iowa campus. The commission will hold a ... continue reading

Regent Michael Gartner in a recent opinion piece called next year's 6 percent tuition increase "wrong on every front."Gartner, of Des Moines, was one of two regents to vote against the 6 percent increase at a meeting earlier this month, in a 7-2 vote. His column detailing why he disagrees with the increase ran in a recent issue of Cityview, an alternative weekly publication in Des Moines.Gartner calls the tuition increase a mistake and says it's bad for students and parents in ... continue reading

Plans call for flood-damaged Hancher Auditorium to be torn down in the coming months, but the building is still being heated, kept at a minimum of 45 degrees.The University of Iowa is heating Hancher, vacant since the June 2008 flood, with propane via plastic tube ducts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse the cost of heating Hancher, and other flood-destroyed buildings scheduled to be replaced at the UI and in Cedar Rapids, including the city's library and Main Fire Station. The cost to heat the ... continue reading

Kirkwood Community College set a spring enrollment record, with 16,233 students for spring 2010 semester. That's an increase of 2,338 students, or 16.8 percent, from the same point in 2009.The spring semester record comes after Kirkwood enrolled a record 17,841 students last fall at 12 campuses and centers in seven counties, a 17.4 percent increase from fall 2008.  The previous Kirkwood enrollment record was 15,466 in 2004.College officials noted a strong rise in student counts in both part-and full-time classifications, and a credit hour ... continue reading

University of Iowa Provost Wallace Loh said it’s premature to say if graduate programs among the 14 identified as "needing additional  review" will be eliminated. Other options are merging with other programs or reducing admissions, in line with available graduate student funding, he said today.“Some programs might close, some programs might reorganize themselves and become even stronger,” Loh said. “Those are the conversations that need to occur.”Loh charged six task forces last year with looking at various university priorities, with ... continue reading

About one of every eight graduate programs at the University of Iowa was deemed as needing additional evaluation by a task force charged with studying graduate education.  Those programs could become candidates for restructuring or closure, according to the task force final report released today.Of the 111 programs studied, 14 earned that designation, or about 13 percent. Those included master's and/or doctorate programs in the following: American Studies; Asian Civilizations; Comparative Literature; Comparative Literature - Translation; Film Studies; German; Linguistics; ... continue reading

IOWA CITY — A University of Iowa student-run theater won’t show a 1970s porn movie this weekend, after UI officials asked theater leaders to cancel it. The Bijou Theater has shown pornographic movies before, including this weekend’s planned “Disco Dolls in Hot Skin.” But Tom Rocklin, the university’s interim vice president for student services, asked Bijou student directors to cancel midnight showings Friday and Saturday. Rocklin did not receive complaints but did get a call from a reporter.  “It is clearly not ... continue reading

University of Iowa officials today said they canceled plans by the on-campus Bijou Theater to show a pornographic film this weekend.Tom Rocklin, interim vice president for student services, said in an e-mail this afternoon that after being notified the student-run theater planned to show a pornographic film, "I informed the student directors of the Bijou Theater to cancel their plans to show the movie in question. It is clearly not in the public interest for a public facility at a ... continue reading

Iowans John and Mary Pappajohn find themselves among heavy hitting company on the Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual "Philanthropy 50" list of top charitable donors.  The Pappajohns ranked No. 23 -- coming in two spots above noted giver Oprah Winfrey, who ranked No. 25. Not too shabby for the generous Iowans and venture capitalists.The list says the Pappajohns donated $47.3 million in 2009, compared to the $41.4 million donated by Winfrey.  The total given by the Pappajohns in 2009 includes a landmark $26.4 ... continue reading

Iowa students at the state's three regent universities will pay 6 percent more in tuition next year. But they will get back a $100 spring semester surcharge previously approved by the state regents.The 6 percent increase was approved by a 7-2 vote of the state Board of Regents today in Ames. Regents Michael Gartner of Des Moines and Ruth Harkin of Cumming voted against the increase, arguing for a lower rate.The board then voted unanimously to rescind the $100 tuition surcharge ... continue reading

It's possible the state Board of Regents on Thursday will reconsider a $100 spring semester tuition surcharge the board approved in December.Several regents said there has been discussion that the surcharge may be reversed, given Gov. Chet Culver's recommendation to restore $14 million to the regent institutions from a 10 percent cut this year. But regents said there seems to be no consensus about if the surcharge discussion will even come up, and if it has the support to be ... continue reading

A proposed ambulatory care clinic at the River Landing site in Coralville would cost about $53 million, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics officials told the state Board of Regents today.Officials want to move ahead with planning on the new clinic so they can move many of the out-patient clinic services away from the crowded main hospital campus and into a more patient-friendly site in Coralville.The completed medical office building would be 150,000 gross square feet, with 30,000 gross square feet ... continue reading

IOWA CITY — A process to analyze all 108 graduate and doctoral programs at the University of Iowa is at the starting line, not the finish line, Provost Wallace Loh told concerned faculty Tuesday. "There will be ample opportunity for shared governance in this process," Loh told the Faculty Senate. That was in response to concern voiced by some faculty that the process has gone too fast, or that the task force charged with assessing graduate programs has not considered external reviews ... continue reading

University of Iowa officials will take until April 28-29 to negotiate the purchase of downtown land for the new School of Music facilities.UI officials will report back to the state Board of Regents at the regents April 28-29 meeting with further recommendations on the proposed School of Music site, just south of Burlington Street in downtown Iowa City. If university officials can't say by that April meeting that they have success in purchasing the downtown land, they will instead recommend ... continue reading

The state Board of Regents next will vote on a proposed 6 percent base tuition increase for next year at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa.That proposal remains unchanged from the 2010-11 tuition plan discussed last fall by the regents. The board will meet Wednesday and Thursday in Ames, with the tuition discussion Thursday. The meeting information was released today.The total package increase, including tuition and fees, would be 8.7 percent at the UI, ... continue reading

IOWA CITY — Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner will give the 2009-10 Distinguished Lecture at the University of Iowa Tuesday, Feb. 2.The talk, sponsored by the University Lecture Committee and supported by the F. Wendell Miller Fund, begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Main Lounge of the Iowa Memorial Union. Kelly Johnson, a former member of the Lecture Committee, will interview Kushner on stage. A book sale and signing by Kushner will follow his interview in the Main Lounge, hosted ... continue reading

The committee charged with discussing the future of the University of Iowa Museum of Art is leaning toward making a recommendation to build a new museum in the UI's Old Capitol district, a designated area on the east side of campus in the campus master plan.The committee, established by UI President Sally Mason last August to discuss the future of the flood-damaged Museum of Art, met this afternoon and discussed its draft report, which members hopes to finalize and send to Mason yet this ... continue reading

A Web site of the Animal Liberation Movement says a University of Iowa law school graduate, Leana Stormont, is the latest person to be supoenaed to testify to an Iowa grand jury regarding the 2004 lab vandalism and break-in at the UI. The site says Stormont is a barred attorney who was involved with animal rights activism on the UI campus at the time of the 2004 raid. "A visible animal rights activist on campus, Leana Stormont appears to have ... continue reading

The University of Iowa received $9.5 million in a lawsuit settlement with Abbott Laboratories in a patent infringement case, documents released today by UI officials reveal.  The settlement was reached in November 2009.The UI had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Abbott in U.S. District Court, Southern District, regarding an invention and patent by Professor Mark F. Stinski titled "transfer vectors and microorganisms containing human cytomegalovirus immediate-early promoter-regulatory DNA sequence."The UI in March 2009 received a $19 million settlement in ... continue reading

Kirkwood Community College will close its Lincoln Center in Cedar Rapids by Dec. 31, 2010 as part of budget cuts. Kirkwood President Mick Starcevich announced the closing this morning during a speech on campus as part of Martin Luther King Day activities.Kirkwood officials aim to trim about $3.5 million by the end of the next fiscal year, FY 2011, as part of state budget cuts.  Along with closing Lincoln, Kirkwood will offer a special early retirement incentive in the hopes of cutting a ... continue reading