The Iowa Board of Regents passed a motion to establish a Bachelor of Science degree in athletic training at its meeting Tuesday at the Memorial Union. Regents member Katie Mulholland presented the recommendation to the board.

“The main reason we discussed the need for the program is based on the recommendation,” Mulholland said. “Iowa State needs to have this stand-alone program.”

ISU President Steven Leath also issued a president’s report in which he stated that he and his wife are adjusting to their new life at Iowa State. He said he’s worked harder than ever but is enjoying the transition.

Regents universities recently identified children protection as a priority issue, given the Penn State incident in late 2011 dealing with accusations of child molestation on campus grounds.

In light of the situation, Iowa State will continue to re-examine its policies, although it had already started before the incident. Leath feels that Iowa State’s policy is satisfactory in its child protection on campus and does not see any issues with the policy at this time.

“There’s a long history at Iowa State in adopting the best practices for child protection,” Leath said.

Leath said Iowa State was already in the process of reviewing the policy, but is establishing a new committee looking at all programs where children could be at risk. The university also will be re-examining training for mandatory reporters and ensuring that they are performing their required duties.

Doug Gruenewald, co-director of learning communities at Iowa State, gave a presentation on the success of learning communities.

The presentation featured Jacob Schaefer, junior in construction engineering and a successful member of a learning community and a peer mentor.

“Coming to Ames was one of the biggest changes my life has seen,” Schaefer said.

He went on to say that he benefitted from the learning communities because he was able to find a smaller community within Iowa State.

Iowa State is home to 75 learning communities that aim to give students an exceptional undergraduate experience

Gruenewald cited learning communities that led initiatives such as the Skunk River Navy that has removed 52 tons of trash from rivers and collaborated with the College of Design to turn trash into treasure.

The report showed that three-fourths of the first-year, direct-from-high-school students are in a learning community and the population is approaching 5,000 people. Since 1995, more than 40,000 students have participated in a learning community.

“After being fortunate to be involved in learning communities, I think it helped me stay on track for graduation,” Schaefer said.

The regents also spoke about plans for legislation for the coming session and concluded with a report on distance education.