A newly formed executive committee will meet tomorrow (Tuesday) to discuss hiring a permanent director for the Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa. Governor Kim Reynolds says it’s taken a while to get the center operating as envisioned because there aren’t many like it in the United States.
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 says it will promote intellectual diversity on the Iowa City campus.
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Due to the new requirement, about six-thousand 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 I-S-U and the Center for Civic Education at U-N-I will not have to hire faculty and can designate already existing courses to meet that requirement.
The Board of Regents originally appointed 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.
