Hunter
10/11/19
University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld says the school is in the final stages of negotiating with potential partners to run the university’s utility plant in order to generate new revenue.
During his talk at the Iowa City Noon Rotary Club Thursday, Harreld also hinted that this may not be the end of the school’s reaching out to private companies for revenue streams.
The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports Harreld saying, “If the state starts to deappropriate us as they have over the past 20 years, … then we’ll have to scramble even harder. In anticipation of that, we’re looking at doing something similar to this in a number of other areas. So this won’t be our only P3.”
Harreld declined to answer follow-up questions after his talk, but the initial plan for the utility partnership was to have an agreement signed before the end of the fall semester.
UI students have made public appeals to the university to be more aggressive in their sustainability goals. Representatives from the school were noticeably absent from last Friday’s Climate Protest featuring teen activist Greta Thunberg, with faculty and staff being told not to promote the event on school social media portals. President Harreld has not publicly responded to student demands.