Top officials who run the show
Who decides the cost of tuition? Who says where the UI can rebuild that building?
Many students don’t know the people who make decisions such as those don’t work for the UI.
Rather, they’re make up a group called the state Board of Regents.
The regents are nine citizens from across the state; the governor appoints the regents, and the Iowa Senate confirms them. The group regulates the public educational institutions in the state, including Iowa’s three public universities. Here is some information on the top officials who make UI decisions.
David Miles
Regent president
• Job: Managing director of the Miles Group, a family investment business
• Term: president until April 30, 2010. Board term expires April 30, 2013.
• Residence: West Des Moines
• Interesting Fact: Outside interests include wine, art, investing, and running.
Jack Evans
Regent president pro-tem
• Job: president of the Hall-Perrine Foundation, a private philanthropic corporation
• Term: 2007 to 2013
• Residence: Cedar Rapids
• Interesting Fact: Sits on the advisory council of the finance department in the UI Tippie College of Business.
Bonnie Campbell
• Job: Member of the Campbell Law Firm
• Term: 2007 to 2011
• Residence: Des Moines
• Interesting Fact: Former director of the U.S. Justice Department’s Violence Against Women Office and was instrumental in the creation of a U.S. treaty with Italy on ending trafficking of women and girls.
Robert Downer
• Job: member of the law firm Meardon, Sueppel & Downer P.L.C.
• Term: 2009 to 2015
• Residence: Iowa City
• Interesting Fact: Downer served as UI Student Government president during the 1960-61 school year as an undergraduate.
Michael Gartner
• Job: chairman and principal owner of the Iowa Cubs, the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs
• Term: 2005 to 2011
• Residence: Des Moines
• Interesting Fact: Has worked at several top news organizations, including the Des Moines Register, USA Today and NBC News
Ruth Harkin
• Job: Former senior vice-president of United Technologies Corporation
• Term: 2009 to 2015
• Residence: Cumming, Iowa
• Interesting Fact: One of the first women in the U.S. to be elected as a prosecutor in 1972, when she was elected to county attorney for Story County, Iowa.
Greta Johnson
• Job: Iowa State University political-science major
• Term: 2009 to 2015
• Residence: Ames
• Interesting Fact: Served as a page in the Iowa House of Representatives
during her senior year of high school and grew up on a farm. She is a fourth-generation Cyclone.
Craig Lang
• Job: president of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation
• Term: 2007 to 2013
• Residence: West Des Moines
• Interesting Fact: Farms with his father and brother and runs a large dairy operation
Rose Vasquez
• Job: Des Moines attorney
• Term: 2004 to 2011
• Residence: Des Moines
• Interesting Fact: Served as the director of the Iowa Department of Human Rights from 1999 to 2002.
A separate group of leaders oversee the UI on a daily basis. Here’s some information about the university’s administration, and their quick-hit advice for you.
Sally Mason
UI president
• Term: Started Aug. 1, 2007
• Past Jobs: Spent 21 years at the University of Kansas, lastly as the dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Mason served as provost at Purdue University from 2001 to 2007.
• Interesting Fact: Mason was the first child in her family to graduate from college.
• “I believe the UI should be a university that inspires as well as educates,” Mason wrote in an e-mail. “I know that is happening when our faculty, staff, and students are succeeding in learning, discovery, and engagement.”
Wallace Loh
UI provost
• Term: Started Aug. 1, 2008
• Past Jobs: Spent nine years as dean of Arts and Sciences at Seattle University before coming to the UI.
• Interesting Fact: Born in China and grew up in Peru before coming to the U.S. as a teenager to attend college. Speaks Spanish, French, Chinese, and English.
• “To be a Hawkeye is to be part of a community of scholars, artists, entrepreneurs, scientists — people who are passionate about learning, creating, and making a difference in the world,” Loh wrote in an e-mail.
Tom Rocklin
UI interim vice president for Student Services
• Term: Appointed in September 2008 and will serve until a new vice president is named.
• Past Jobs: Associate provost of undergraduate education and professor of psychological and quantitative foundations in the UI College of Education.
• Interesting Fact: Rocklin formerly acted as founding director of the UI Center for Teaching and as chairman of the UI psychological and quantitative foundations.
• “My goal is to provide students with an environment that supports their learning inside and outside of the classroom,” Rocklin wrote in an e-mail.
Linda Maxson
UI dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Term: Started in 1997
• Past Jobs: Associate vice chancellor and dean of undergraduate academic affairs at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville
• Interesting Fact: Has done field work on four continents.
• “[College of Liberal Arts and Sciences] is one of the country’s truly comprehensive colleges of arts and sciences, a thriving center to countless creative and intellectual pursuits,” Maxson wrote wrote in an email.
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