The Iowa Board of Regents signed off on multiple agenda items Iowa State had requested, including renovation funds and program changes.

University President Wendy Wintersteen also spoke when the Regents met Thursday.

Capital improvements

The Regents’ Property and Facilities Committee recommended all three of Iowa State’s capital improvement projects to the Board. The Board later approved the projects via consent agenda.

The first is to proceed with project planning of a $14.2 million partial renovation of Black Engineering Building, with $12.6 million supported by private gifts.

“Currently, the departments of mechanical engineering and industrial and manufacturing systems engineering occupy Black Engineering Building,” Sean Reeder, operations and finance at Iowa State, said. “The department of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering will be moving to the new Therkildsen building this summer, and mechanical engineering would like to plan for renovating the vacant 12,000 square feet of the Black Engineering Building.”

The renovation will support research, provide capacity for future enrollment growth, and address necessary environmental health and safety upgrades in the space, Reeder said.

The Board also signed off on a project description and budget to renovate three parking lots on campus, along with new sidewalks, parking lot lighting and site restoration.

The three lots have been ranked “poor condition” and are located north of Black Engineering, east of Atanasoff Hall and east of Physics Hall. The improvements will be funded by the University Parking and Utility Systems Funds and will be completed in the summer of 2025.

Lastly, the Board approved a schematic design, project description and budget request to renovate a portion of the Human Nutritional Science Building (HNSB). 

The renovation would cover over 2,400 square feet across six second-floor teaching labs for Iowa State’s Textile Science Teaching Lab (TSL).

“Our existing Textile Science Teaching Lab has been displayed due to the demo and reconstruction work of LeBaron hall,” Reeder said. “The project plan includes interior space remodeling, some minor demolition of the current interior space, constructing new walls, updating finishes and some minor mechanical and electrical work to accommodate these improvements.”

The project’s $2.35 million budget is fully funded by private gifts.

Program changes

The Academics Affairs Committee recommended all four of the university’s requests to the Board, including two honorary degrees to Larry Buss and John “JR” Robinson.

The committee and Board also signed off on a new degree program, admissions suspension and degree termination.

The university will add a new degree, a Bachelor of Science in integrated health sciences (IHS), starting in the fall of 2025. 

University projections suggest IHS enrollment will increase from 35 to 270 by the end of the fifth year, citing “the program’s interdisciplinary nature and focus on both urban and rural healthcare needs.”

“The necessity for an IHS program was identified through a multipronged approach, combining labor market analysis, stakeholder interviews and consultations with industry professionals,” according to university documents. “The analysis led to conclusions about educational gaps in our state and emphasized the large size of the market for health sciences undergraduate programs.”

The funding for the new program will come from the “Degrees of the Future” initiative with shared governance from multiple colleges.

The university will also suspend admissions for a PhD in rural, agricultural, technological and environmental history (RATE) in five years, allowing current students to graduate.

The university cited the “Reimagining LAS” initiative, which has reduced funding for the program. The university also cited slowing demand for the program, with zero applications, zero graduations and 11 enrollments in 2023.

Lastly, the university will terminate a Master of Science in transportation.

“The interdisciplinary transportation MS major has not produced the number of applicants and enrollments that were expected when the major was evaluated in 1994 and renamed in 1995 from transportation planning to transportation,” according to the proposal. “Currently, there are no students admitted to or enrolled in the program.”

The university said there will be no impact on students, and future students interested in the field can apply to the civil engineering major and specialize in transportation engineering.

Two honorary degrees were also supported by the Faculty Senate, President Wendy Winteresteen and Senior Vice President and Provost Jason Keith.

Strategic Plan

Iowa State’s new strategic plan was presented. It comes after the Board updated its 2022-2027 strategic plan in January.

To comply with state law, the Board directed each university to revise their respective strategic plans. In the plan, the university eliminated words such as “diversity,” equity” and “inclusion,” replacing them with phrases like “welcoming and respectful environment” and “welcoming and supportive educational environment.”

After questioning from Regent David Barker, the Board voted to approve the updated strategic plans with the opportunity to make further updates to the plans in the future.

Board President report

Regent and Board President Sherry Bates also gave a report detailing the Board’s actions and responsiveness to recent state and federal law changes.

“The higher education landscape is changing at the state and federal levels,” Bates said. “One of the things that the Board does is to assist the institution to ensure they change as well. We must stay ahead of the curve and not play catch-up.”

She also detailed the changes they have made regarding diversity, equity and inclusion.

“While there have been administrative eliminations and restructuring, the universities need to look again to see if there are additional changes that should be made,” Bates said. “There has been work done on the university web pages, but a simple search shows there is a lot more work to do.”

Bates said that moving forward, “All of us, regents, university administrators, faculty and staff, must examine what we are doing now and what we will be doing now and what we will be doing going forward to ensure that we are following the spirit of the laws and executive orders, not just the words on the paper. The time is now to make sure we complete our work.”

Additional items

The Regents also signed off on a new application for admissions at all three universities.

In accordance with the state and federal governments, including recent executive actions taken by President Donald Trump, the Board changed a question on admissions applications to only include “male, female and prefer not to say” when collecting legal sex and self-identified gender demographics.

Questions about gender have been removed from university applications.

The Regents also signed off on a new application for admissions at all three universities.

The next Board meeting is slated for April 23 and 24.