Since University of Iowa President Sally Mason announced "Golden Pledge: A Presidential Partnership for Student Success" in late October 2012, more than $2 million has been received through numerous gift commitments. The program aims to dramatically enhance the scholarship support the UI is able to provide for students.

Keeping education affordable, ensuring students succeed, fostering entrepreneurship, and strengthening connections with Iowa communities will top the agenda when University of Iowa leaders meet with Iowa General Assembly subcommittees this week.

Forty percent of top-ranked and 36 percent of non-top-ranked hospitals were unable to provide a price estimate for a total hip replacement procedure. Moreover, among the hospitals that could provide an estimate, the cost quoted for the procedure ranged from $11,100 to $125,798—a greater than ten-fold difference.

Hannah Walsh, a UI sophomore political science major from Spirit Lake, Iowa, was recently appointed to the Board of Regents, State of Iowa. Walsh is the lone student member on the nine-member board and is ready to be the voice of the students of the UI, Iowa State University, and University of Northern Iowa.

Are you ready to groove? The next free concert in the Arts Share/Community Foundation of Johnson County series will provide just the opportunity. “Groovin’ With Iowa Percussion,” led by University of Iowa School of Music faculty member Dan Moore, will take place at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 17, in Riverside Recital Hall on the UI campus.

Lucie Brock-Broido, author of three collections of poetry and recent Ida Beam Visiting Professor, will present a free reading at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20, in the Frank Conroy Reading Room of the Glenn Schaeffer Library, adjacent to the Dey House.

The University of Iowa Department of Theatre Arts will present "MOLD" and "Dust and Ash," two one-act plays that take different looks at how our past affects us, at 8 p.m. Friday to Saturday, Feb. 22-23, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, in Theatre B of the UI Theatre Building.

The University of Iowa School of Music will present a free concert by the UI Symphony Band and the Iowa Honor Band (composed of the state's top high school musicians) at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 16, in the Main Lounge of the Iowa Memorial Union.

The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop will host a free reading by poet Michael Palmer at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 15, in the Frank Conroy Reading Room of the Glenn Schaeffer Library, adjacent to the Dey House.

Hawkeye golfer Gigi DiGrazia spent her winter break at a health clinic in India, preparing for what she hopes will be a career in medicine.

The Ten Minute Play Festival, featuring eight plays written by University of Iowa undergraduate students, will be showing at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 14-16, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 17, in Theatre B of the UI Theatre Building.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an inherited life-shortening disease that is known to affect the lungs and digestive organs. A new study by University of Iowa researchers suggests that the CF mutation also affects the nervous system and might directly cause some neural abnormalities experienced by people with CF.