
Jeneane Beck, Office of Strategic Communication, 319-384-0005
The following is a roundup of highlights from the April 23 Iowa Board of Regents meeting in Council Bluffs:
The Iowa Board of Regents has voted unanimously to name Jean Robillard as interim president of the University of Iowa beginning Aug. 1. Robillard is UI’s vice president for medical affairs and chair of the search committee tasked with recommending candidates to replace Sally Mason. The Presidential Search and Screen Committee has established a tentative timetable that will bring finalists to campus in late August or early September. President Mason announced her retirement in January and will have served eight years when she steps down on July 31st.
Beginning in fall of 2016, the University of Iowa will offer two bachelor’s degrees in public health, becoming the first higher-education institution in the state to host an undergraduate program in the field. The Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees will help address an expected shortage of public health, community health, and clinical health workers in Iowa and nationally.
The UI public health bachelor’s degree will provide students with a basic understanding of the five core public health knowledge areas: biostatistics, social and behavioral sciences, epidemiology, health policy and management, and environmental health sciences. Students graduating with this degree will be well prepared for employment in health education, research, clinical settings, and non-profit and state agencies. It’s also a natural platform for an advanced degree in public health or a related field.
The UI saw improvement in both the first-year retention rate and six year graduation rate—attributable in part to programs such as our living-learning communities, first-year seminars, first-year courses in common, and supplemental instruction and tutoring resources.
The UI continues to press for improvement in those numbers by emphasizing to students the importance of working with their academic advisor on an academic plan, providing additional information about available majors, and informing students about the opportunity to take summer school courses at lower tuition costs through the Summer Hawk Tuition Grant.
At the UI, approximately 41 percent of seniors graduated without debt; 31 percent who were Iowa residents graduated without debt. The loan default rate among UI students is also significantly lower than the national average or even state average. In FY 2011, the three-year default rate was 4.1 percent for the University of Iowa compared to 17.3 percent for the state of Iowa and 13.7 percent nationally.
Other key takeaways include:
The Board of Regents approved 209 recommendations for tenure and promotion for the 2015-2016 academic year. The University of Iowa has a total of 113 promotion and tenure actions compared to 100 the previous year.
More than 76 percent of the tenure-eligible faculty at the regents universities is tenured (76.7 percent at UI).
The board today (Thursday, April 23) approved a revision to a lease rate for space that will be used to expand services in the Iowa River Landing clinical site. The new lease will result in valuable upgrades to the facility. The rent for the space will $61,589 per month for the first year of the lease. The revised lease term is for 20 years and seven months, beginning September 1, 2014, and ending on March 31, 2036, with three additional ten-year extensions.
The shelled space will be fit-out to accommodate cardiology and family medicine clinical and administrative needs. The revised lease also provides for the construction of a climate-controlled skywalk bridge from the second floor leased premises to the second floor of the adjacent parking ramp and an enclosed climate controlled walkway within the second floor of the parking ramp that will connect to the second floor of UI’s Iowa River Landing facility. This will allow patients being seen in the leased space to access the labs and other clinical space within the UI’s main Iowa River Landing facility without walking outside.
The board approved a $15 million project to upgrade UI’s main power plant in order to meet new, more stringent federal emissions requirements. After investigating a number of options the university has elected to install pollution control equipment on three steam-generating boilers which will allow the university to maintain flexibility with various fuels (including biomass). The air pollution regulations became effective Jan. 31, 2013 and require compliance by Sept. 30, 2016. The compliance project will be funded by utility system revenue bond proceeds.
The board permitted changing the name of the Department of Psychology to the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in UI’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.