Protesters gathered this morning outside the Board of Regents meeting taking place in Cedar Falls. Around 70 University of Northern Iowa faculty and students and community members staged what they called a “Rally for the Facts.”
One of the organizers, professor Joe Gorton, said the group is concerned about the lack of transparency during the decision process that resulted in a number of budget cuts at U.N.I.
“These type of major decisions that affect thousands of constituencies, while simultaneously resisting community involvement…that just cannot happen in an American democracy and it’s not gonna happen here,” Gorton said.
The Board of Regents voted last month to cut 58 majors, minors and graduate programs at U.N.I. That followed approval of a plan to the Price Lab School, which has offered an on-campus student-teaching experience in K-12 classrooms. Gorton said he believes any or all of the decisions can be reversed.