Censure looms ahead of Board of Regents meeting; relations still strong

Mitchel Anderson

Student Government’s censure on the student member of the Iowa Board of Regents is still lingering ahead of this week’s regents meeting.

This week’s meeting is the first since Rachael Johnson, a student member of the board from the University of Northern Iowa, was censured — or given a vote of no confidence — by the ISU undergraduate’s governing body.

On Jan. 20, the Student Government Senate voted unanimously to censure Johnson. The senators passed this resolution because Johnson voted in favor of a $500 tuition raise a year for international students at the Dec. 2 regents meeting.

The outrage from the Senate sparked Student Government to pass a resolution against the tuition increase late in the fall semester and sent the bill to Johnson to review. However, she had received the bill only 24 hours before the vote because of an issue with the time line.

Johnson declined to comment on the censure, but Student Government President Dan Breitbarth said relations are still strong.

“Our relationship with [Johnson] is still good,” Breitbarth said. “We discussed it. We had a conversation after the vote and we had a conversation after the censure. It’s still her job to represent us, and it’s still our job to represent the students, so that’s where we are at moving forward.”

Breitbarth also clarified why the censure was toward Johnson and not the whole Board of Regents.

“Not only [Student Government], but the state of Iowa looks to her to represent all students from the three regent institutions,” Breitbarth said.

Speaker of the Senate Ben Crawford added what he hoped to get out of the ordeal.

“I guess we’re just looking for some trust going forward and communications on both ends,” Crawford said. “That just wasn’t working out very well.”

The Board of Regents meeting will be on Iowa State’s campus at the Alumni Center this Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday’s meeting will take place from 8:30 a.m. to about 2:15 p.m. Thursday’s meeting begins at 8 a.m. with a breakfast with student leaders and adjournment is anticipated to take place at 3 p.m.

Agenda items relevant to ISU students include a proposal to increase the housing, meal plan and parking rates on campus. The regents will also discus a new criminal justice major at the university, as well as a $3.8 million in funding for a bathroom remodeling project in the Richardson Court dorms.

More information on the meeting, as well as other agenda items, can be found at www.regents.iowa.gov