There is a petition circulating on Iowa State’s campus that is likely to cause quite a stir over the next few weeks.

The petition encourages the Board of Regents to apply the same standard to ISU administrators that it wants to use for tenured faculty.

It requests that members of the ISU administration, particularly President Martin Jischke, have their positions reviewed.

The parts of the petition that stand out are an accusation that the administration is responsible for creating “a climate of fear and repression” at Iowa State and a request for an evaluation of President Jischke’s performance.

The petition also states that many people on campus are concerned that undergraduate education and teaching at Iowa State are suffering.

Petitioners have opened the list to students, faculty and staff alike, and copies of the petition are even being posted in different offices around campus.

This is a serious matter that should not be ignored by anyone on campus.

To say this petition will have an unknown effect on members of the Board of Regents is an understatement, but we encourage them to review this matter with the utmost respect and gravity.

A move like this cannot simply be dismissed as the pathetic moanings of a band of scattered malcontents who would be complaining no matter how good things were.

Regardless of your opinion on the ISU administration and President Jischke’s individual performance, it takes an unparalleled level of intestinal fortitude for faculty to come forward with complaints this serious when they are obviously concerned about operating in an atmosphere of fear and repression.

President Jischke has been accused by many of his subjects of running the university like a dictatorship, and these concerns should not be shrugged off lightly.

Jischke says the people of Iowa are generally satisfied with the way things are going at Iowa State. That may well be true, but the average citizen of Iowa is not on campus every day.

Those who are here — particularly faculty — know what kind of an atmosphere is propagated. When those people say there is something wrong, the Board of Regents must sit up and pay attention.

No matter what happens with the petition, and no matter how the regents respond to it, the discussion about what is most important to the university needs to continue.

And everyone on campus should get involved.

Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Sara Ziegler, Greg Jerrett, Kate Kompas, Carrie Tett and David Roepke.