As part of the Board of Regents’ efforts to be more transparent, appointed transparency officers oversee public hearings at each of the regent universities.

The hearings’ purpose is to allow members of the community to comment regarding upcoming regents’ meetings.

However, no visitors were present at the latest public hearing held at Iowa State.

Only university staff attended the latest hearing attempt on Thursday, Nov. 21, in the Memorial Union.

Equipment to record the hearing for the regent website, a sign-in sheet for speakers and empty chairs occupied the Campanile Room.

The hearing was open to the public from 6 to 7 p.m.

Required to stay the entirety of the scheduled hearing, Shirley Knipfel, Iowa State’s appointed transparency officer, Diana Pounds, associate director in University Relations, and Matt Darbyshire, manager in IT services academic technologies, talked about other university topics while speculating on whether or not any visitors would show up.

“I think that attendance for these public hearings is mostly driven by the agenda items that appear on the docket for the upcoming meeting,” Knipfel said. “If you get items people are passionate about, then you will have a higher rate of attendance.”

Knipfel said she wasn’t sure how hearings at the other locations have been going. Public hearings are held at University of Iowa, University of Northern Iowa, Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School, Iowa School for the Deaf and the board office in Urbandale.

“I think the turnout has been low, but I believe it’s been low at all of the sites,” Knipfel said. “I’m not sure which one, but I think one of them didn’t have anyone show up at the last one.”

The Iowa State hearing in October found four students in favor of the resident undergraduate tuition freeze on the docket for the upcoming December meeting.

Reviewed at the September board meeting, the requested 4 percent increase for General University operating support would allow resident tuition to be frozen for the second consecutive year, meaning tuition would be held constant for the third year in a row, something that hasn’t happened since 1975.

Emma Rink, freshman in pre-business, and Celia Sepulveda, freshman in industrial engineering, had heard about the tuition freeze but had no knowledge of the public hearing.

“[Even if I had known about the meeting], I probably wouldn’t have gone,” Sepulveda said.

Knipfel said many students may not exactly know what the Board of Regents is.

“I don’t know what I would say,” Rink said. “I don’t even know what [the Board of Regents] is really about.”

Knipfel said attendance is mostly related to the board’s docket and what is of interest to the public and students. Time of day also influences attendance.

When asked if the hearings seemed to make a difference at the board meetings, Knipfel said, “It’s all new. [It’s about] going through a process to try and figure out what’s going to work and what isn’t.”

These public hearings are part of the Transparency Task Force’s recommendations of best practices to the board. Members of the public enter, sign in and record a message for the board to listen to before the board meeting.

“Six months down the road, we don’t know if it may continue like this, or we may have 10 to 15 people show up,” Knipfel said.

Darbyshire began to pack up technology at 7:01, and by 7:08, everyone had left the Campanile Room.