There was no decision made to create an amendment to the university handbook about Iowa Open Meetings laws at a meeting of the Governance Council on Thursday night.

The amendment, which was proposed and circulated by Joel Geske, associate professor of journalism and communication, in a Faculty Senate meeting on Dec. 11, would make meetings by university councils and committees free and open to the public. Currently, such meetings are not subject to Iowa Open Meetings laws. The Athletic Council and the Leopold Advisory Board are not required by statute to follow this procedure. The amendment has not been heard by the Faculty Senate and is still under discussion by the Governance Council.

The amendment would state that even though university council and committee meetings do not have to be open, they would still adhere to the spirit of the Iowa Open Meetings laws.

In fall 2007, members of the Governance Council decided they wanted to draft an amendment to the code, as they felt it was antiquated.

Geske said the last line in a previously proposed amendment created by the Governance Council was not satisfactory. It states, “However, a meeting may be closed when necessary for the proper functioning of the committee.” He said he felt the line would allow for any committee meeting to be closed as per the discretion of those meeting.

“I feel this leaves us open for all kinds of problems. I think it’s very vague, and my legal counsel friend, Barbara Mack [associate professor of journalism and communication] in the journalism school, said it’s a big enough loophole to drive the Grand Canyon through,” Geske said. “I think the state law is very clear about when meetings should be open and when they may be closed, and that’s in Chapter 21.5, which gives us guidelines for closure.”

Paul Tanaka, university counsel, said he felt Geske’s amendment was a bit vague in itself because the definition of what constitutes a meeting and what types of meetings are not specified. He said the “laundry list” approach to what types of meetings was also not good approach to this problem.

“It’s really all about we want to do is pull it [current code] from the university handbook, and what we do in substantive policy is another issue,” Tanaka said. “And it’s not clear to me what the scope of that policy is. Is the intent [of the amendment] of the policy for the GSB and Professional and Scientific Council as well? Or as it applicable to all faculty groups? What is the scope of the proposal?”

At the end of almost two hours of debate, it was decided that Geske would attempt to combine his draft of the amendment with the council’s, which will then be proposed at the next Faculty Senate meeting.