Perspectives on the first event held by the Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa differed between a regent, faculty member and student, each shared during Wednesday’s meeting of the Iowa Board of Regents.
Regent Christine Hensley, chair of the center’s advisory board, gave an update to the board of regents on the center’s progress, including the process of creating new policies for the center and the search for a permanent director.
“I have to admit, it’s been a little bit challenging at times, just because it’s such a unique model that we are working with here,” Hensley said. “It’s completely different than any other center for intellectual freedom or civic center … not only within the state of Iowa, but within the country.”
Center created on campus
Since the signing of legislation to require the creation of the center last June, the center has hired its interim director in UI professor Luciano de Castro; established a 26-person advisory council made up of faculty, regents, business leaders and lawmakers; established bylaws; found a physical space in Calvin Hall on the UI campus and completed a webpage for the center, Hensley said.
Former ambassador to China and former Gov. Terry Branstad has stepped down from the advisory council’s executive committee due to health issues, Hensley said, but remains on the council itself and has been replaced with former U.S. Rep. Greg Ganske.
While the center was supposed to offer its first course in January, Hensley said the focus on the inaugural event and bylaws, and a lack of good understanding of how to recruit students, led to the course being canceled. Courses will begin in March.
With a $1 million appropriation from the state, Hensley said a budget has been prepared but the board should start thinking of future funding as that amount will not be enough to hire faculty and offer more courses. A firm has been hired to complete a market study, she said, and work is being completed on center policies, fall course planning and a lecture and debate series.
The executive committee will handle the search for a national director, Hensley said, and an outside firm is being contracted to help in the process.
Hensley also expressed her satisfaction with the center’s first event, held in December at the UI. The “Centers Strategy Colloquium,” as it was titled, included panel discussions with academics, board of regents members and lawmakers to discuss the questions of what is wrong with higher education, how it can be fixed and what the center’s goals are.
She touted the attendance of other board members, as well as Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and conservative activist Christopher Rufo.
“It was really an excellent event, a lot of great publicity, a lot of great press on it, and a lot of great information,” Hensley said. “I know that there is a process that Professor Luciano is going through to develop a summary in the form of a book, but he’s working through that to make sure that we’re in compliance with all the policies on that.”
Differences of opinion
A student and a faculty member both expressed disappointment with the inaugural event during the meeting’s public comment period, though they had different hopes for the center’s future.
Clara Reynen, a University of Iowa graduate student and Unity Chair in the Campaign to Organize Graduate Students, and Hope Metcalf, human rights scholar and a clinical associate professor in the UI college of law, both attended the event and said they were unhappy with it not being entirely public.
The event operated under the Chatham House Rule, which states information from a meeting can be used but not any identifying information about the speaker or other participants. Reynen asked the board how this could be acceptable at an academic institution, and Metcalf said she had to seek out the event rather than it being publicized.
In a text analysis of the discussions during the event, Reynen said the word “sheep” was said 27 times, “conservative” and truncated versions of it were said 76 times, and “liberal” and its truncated forms were said 46 times, but terms including “student assessment,” “student objectives,” “learning objectives” and “learning goals” were mentioned zero times.
“I hope it is clear that we can see that the Center for Intellectual Freedom is not an academic pursuit,” Reynen said. “It is a political and conservatively political pursuit, and I hope you’re all ashamed of yourselves for it.”
Metcalf said she was excited to hear about the center’s formation, having seen “how much the deep and toxic polarization of our greater culture has infected the campus.”
Faculty love the UI and their students, Metcalf said, and she and others believe in students as thinkers, creators and people. However, what she heard from people during the event were threats of a “woke mind virus,” and she believes the center is behind in building trust with students, leading to low enrollment in the center’s courses.
“I listened, I talked, I had fascinating conversations. I met people with perspectives I hadn’t yet considered. But unfortunately, I was struck by a couple of things,” Metcalf said. “One was the remarkable lack of intellectual diversity among the panelists, at least, I can’t speak to who was in the room. Secondly … there seemed to be, I hesitate to say an overt hostility, but a deep misapprehension about what it is that I and my colleagues do every day when we come to teach here.”
She added that faculty members who also attended the events felt afterward that they were hearing Fox News talking points rather than “rigorous academic discussion.” Metcalf said she hopes and expects that “we can do better,” and she welcomed the board to come to her classes and experience what she does.
In addition to thanking Hensley for her work on the center, Board President Robert Cramer expressed gratitude for UI President Barbara Wilson and Kevin Kregel, UI executive vice president and provost, for their help with the inaugural event and getting the center off of the ground.
“My goal this year really is to try to partner with both the university and the center to make it the best we can,” Cramer said. “I think it’s … in all of our best interest to have this thing succeed as best as it can.”