A newly formed executive committee will meet tomorrow to discuss hiring a permanent director for the Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa.
Governor Kim Reynolds said it’s taken a while to get the center operating as envisioned because there aren’t many like it in the United States. “We’ve been somewhat of a leader getting it to this point,” Reynolds said.
Only 21 students signed up for classes offered by the center during the spring semester and the Board of Regents, which oversees the University of Iowa, decided classes would not be offered this fall. In June, Governor Reynolds signed a law to require all University of Iowa students to take at least two classes at the Center for Intellectual Freedom in order to graduate. That requirement starts in July of 2028. Reynolds said it will promote intellectual diversity on the Iowa City campus. “Being able to get back to the place where you can at least have a conversation,” Reynolds said, “have a healthy debate on ideas and on policy and not some of the ancillary things that starts to enter into the conversation.”
Due to the new requirement, about 6000 Iowa students will be taking classes at the center each semester. The center, which has had an interim director for about a year, will have to hire faculty to teach 26 sections of civics. The new requirement for two credits of civics will apply to students who graduate from Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, too. However, the Center for Cyclone Civics at ISU and the Center for Civic Education at UNI will not have to hire faculty and can designate already existing courses to meet that requirement. “All of them have taken a little bit of a different approach,” Reynolds said. “I don’t mean that negatively on the University of Iowa, but it’s just probably taken a little bit more time to get that done there.”
The Board of Regents set up a 26-member advisory council for the Center for Intellectual Freedom last year, but created a three-member executive committee in July to direct the center’s operations.