Center News

Free Press awards go to Clark Kauffman, Polly Carver-Kimm

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IowaWatch honored an outstanding investigative journalist and a former public health spokesperson, both judged to be advocates for open and transparent government, during the Virtual Storytelling Event on Friday, Nov. 12. The awards stopped in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “IowaWatch is delighted to recognize the work of journalists and Iowans who care about truth and providing citizens, the public, with information that it is their right to access,” said Suzanne Behnke, IowaWatch’s editorial director. IowaWatch photoClark Kauffman

Clark Kauffman was given the Stephen Berry Free Press Champion Award for a working journalist, journalism group or journalism educator in Iowa.

Center News

IowaWatch hosts Nov. 12 online storytelling event, featuring adventurers

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You can find adventure just about anywhere, from exploring your own neighborhood to getting lost in the wilderness. IowaWatch.org will celebrate adventures big and small in a virtual storytelling event via Zoom webinar Friday, November 12, at 7 p.m.

Iowans Lisa Rossi, Chuy Renteria, and John Richard will share true stories of adventures from their lives. Rossi, a former Des Moines Register journalist and IowaWatch board member, will tell about embarking on a new adventure in stand-up comedy. Renteria, who recently released his memoir, “We Heard It When We Were Young,” will share his adventures growing up in West Liberty. Richard, a documentary filmmaker, will share his harrowing tale of being trapped in the Andes of Argentina.

higher education

Evans: More secrecy unwise in schools’ hiring decisions

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Iowa’s three state universities made a U-turn this summer, and they now are headed down the road toward secrecy with some hiring decisions. The about-face should trouble taxpayers of this state. It also should bother members of the Legislature, who have expressed concern in recent years that the universities are out of touch with the people of Iowa. First, some background about this change:

For many years, the universities have followed affirmative action hiring practices. These are intended to ensure a diverse array of qualified candidates is considered when jobs are filled in the administrative ranks, on the faculty, and for professional and scientific positions.

Randy Evans

Evans: Iowa’s universities need to learn an important lesson

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In recent years, Republicans and Democrats in the Iowa Legislature often agree on little. But they were nearly unanimous this spring in supporting an important piece of legislation — a bill requiring faculty and administrators at the state universities to go through training about the First Amendment and the rights it contains. Anyone skeptical of the need for the new law received a wake-up call last week when the U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis handed down a decision against the University of Iowa. The decision should embarrass and anger Iowans. In a blistering 3-0 ruling, the court said university administrators engaged in clear discrimination against a student religious group based solely on the views of the organization and its leaders.

Center News

Two summer reporters to join IowaWatch

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Two reporting interns will spend 10 weeks of their summer with the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism – IowaWatch. Olivia Allen and Maria Kuiper will focus on specific topics for the summer. Kuiper begins May 24 and Allen follows on June 1. Maria Kuiper

Kuiper is a 2021 University of Iowa graduate. She studied journalism with a minor in Arabic and a certificate in human rights.

Evans: It’s time to streamline top-heavy universities

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Even before coronavirus hit American colleges and universities, even before their budgets imploded because of the pandemic, questions were being asked nationally about how these institutions spend their money. Some high-profile decisions by University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld have put the focus on this issue in our state. The issue further crystallized last week when a list of administrative staff at Iowa State University landed in my mailbox. At its essence, this issue is the growth of the number of administrators, compared with the number of academic staff. Todd Zywicki, a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia, studies this issue.

Evans: Threats won’t end people’s virus anxieties

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Give an extra tug on your seatbelt. The next couple of months will be rough ones. The new school year starts in a few weeks. Not surprisingly, with the coronavirus still sickening and killing people in Iowa, what normally is a time of much excitement has become a time of great anxiety. Our president has said he expects students to be back in the classroom for in-person learning in every school in America. If schools do not comply, he has threatened to withhold their federal education aid.

energy

University of Iowa meets climate change goals — didn’t kick its garbage habit

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The University of Iowa met most sustainability goals it set a decade ago, but failed in a key area — garbage going to landfills. The University of Iowa released a report this spring on its progress towards its 2020 sustainability goals. Based on the original goals, the school met targets to:- Use less energy in 2020 than it did in 2010.- Get at least 40% of campus energy from renewable sources.- Drop per capita emissions from university travel by at least 10%. UI failed to divert 60% of campus waste away from the landfill by recycling, reusing and composting. The 2019 rate sits at 39%.

Evans: Barta’s management under scrutiny — again

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There’s so much anxiety going around Iowa City now, and Maalox could easily qualify as the official summer beverage. There’s anxiety over what the fall semester will look like at the University of Iowa, with coronavirus still a fact of life in the community and enforcement of social distancing next to impossible in dormitories, classrooms and student hangouts. There’s anxiety over how many students will decide to sit out the coming school year because of concern for their health. A significant drop in the university’s enrollment could cause the school’s financial problems to mushroom. There’s anxiety over how coronavirus will change the Hawkeyes’ football season, the social event of the fall in Iowa City and the biggest revenue-generating sport for the UI Athletics Department.

Fighting COVID-19 in Iowa

COVID-19 scuttles jobs, internships for Iowa’s college students

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Paige Marsh went through five interviews before getting a job offer from a national insurance company, headquartered in Des Moines, back in January. “I have been in touch with the company every month since I signed my offer letter,” Marsh, a senior business administration major at Wartburg College,  said. “And then I just got the call about the company freezing all new hires until 2021.”

She will continue to search for work in the meantime. College students, like Marsh, who are ready to hit the job market, now find positions hard to find or internships have been postponed or canceled. The jump to the “real world” is typically full of anxiety and uncertainty for seniors — and this year is no different with COVID-19 unsettling the job market.