The University of Iowa is a major national research university located on a 1,900-acre campus in Iowa City in southeast Iowa, on the Iowa River near the intersection of U.S. Interstate Highways 80 and 380. Iowa is composed of 11 colleges, the largest of which is the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, enrolling most of Iowa’s undergraduates. The Henry B. Tippie College of Business, the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, and the Colleges of Education, Engineering, Law, Nursing, Pharmacy, enroll undergraduates, and with the Colleges of Dentistry and Public Health provide graduate education in conjunction with the Graduate College.
SOME NUMBERS
More than 30,000 students enroll at Iowa each year. Some 58 percent come from Iowa, 25 percent from adjoining states, and 9 percent from the remaining states. International students from 104 countries make up 8 percent of the University’s enrollment. The faculty numbers about 1,700 and there are about 13,000 staff. The total annual operating budget is about $2.8 billion, and there are more than 120 major buildings, most of them within walking distance of one another. Adding to the population are more than a million visitors each year who come to enjoy cultural events and art exhibits, to attend Big Ten athletic events, and to participate in the many conferences and educational programs scheduled at the University year-round.
COMMUNITY
The Iowa City area community includes Coralville, North Liberty, Solon, and other small towns with a total population of about 100,000. The University both provides and attracts a wide variety of cultural opportunities, Big Ten athletic events, and a number of business endeavors resulting from scientific and educational research that originated at Iowa. In the summers, Iowa City sponsors weekly downtown jazz and pop concerts, and all through the year major poets, writers, artists, historians, scientists, and others speak or perform in University venues or to read at local bookstores. Excellent public schools, close, safe, and comfortable neighborhoods, and a highly educated population mean that Iowa City frequently appears high on “best-place-to-live” listings in national magazines. The nearby countryside, good state parks, and the Iowa River provide many opportunities for walking, biking, and boating. Twenty miles to the north is Cedar Rapids, Iowa’s second-largest city, home to the Eastern Iowa Airport and a population of about 120,000.
HISTORY
Established in 1847, Iowa has won international recognition for its wealth of achievements in the arts, sciences, and humanities. Iowa was the first U.S. public university to admit men and women on an equal basis and the first institution of higher education in the nation to accept creative work in theater, writing, music, and art as theses for advanced degrees. It established the first law school and the first educational radio station west of the Mississippi, broadcast the world’s first educational television programs, and developed and continues to hold preeminence in educational testing.
STRENGTHS
The University has world renowned research programs in genetics, hydraulics, and speech and hearing, and has recorded major innovations in agricultural medicine, biocatalysis, biomedical engineering, biomedical sciences, and pharmacology education. Its graduate programs in audiology, printmaking, creative writing, speech-language pathology, and nursing service administration are first-ranked. Iowa scientists, including James Van Allen, have been pioneers in space research, designing and building research instruments for more than 50 successful U.S. satellites and space probes. The University of Iowa operates one of the nation’s most advanced and comprehensive university-owned teaching hospitals. It also has developed the most technically advanced driving simulator in the world.
Arts & Humanities
The arts and the humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are among The University of Iowa’s greatest strengths. National surveys regularly place Art and Art History, English, History, and Theater Arts among the best in the nation and rank the Writers’ Workshop and Printmaking at or near the very top.
A little reflection reminds us that programmatic success depends in great measure on the scholarly and artistic achievements of individual faculty members. Iowa’s rich legacy in the fine arts flows from the work of faculty members including, Mauricio Lasansky, Byron Burford, Hans Breder, and Julius Schmidt. Its tradition of theatrical excellence is built in part on the work of E. C. Mabie and Arnold Gillette. The work of Sherman Paul and E.P. Kuhl add luster to Iowa’s reputation in literary studies just as the literary voices of Frank Conroy, Paul Engle, Marvin Bell and Donald Justice have secured Iowa’s reputation as a global hot spot for creative writing.
Meet two contemporary heirs to this legacy of imaginative scholarship and creative work:
During the 2005-2006 year, Ma Thida is in residence with Iowa’s International Writing Program. Thida is a physician as well as an author. She’s also a social activist who spent some six years in solitary confinement in her native Burma for writing stories critical of her government.
Julie Hochstrasser, an art historian, has written about 17th Century Dutch still life-paintings with an intention of illuminating the social costs and pitfalls of global mercantile trade during the Dutch Golden Age. Her current work explores world art and explores ways in which a multidisciplinary approach to early modern works might broaden our understanding of contemporary globalization.
To help ensure continuation of its tradition, Iowa has created a number of in-house grants programs to support the work of its faculty. The UI Arts and Humanities Initiative, a program dedicated solely to humanities research and work in the creative and performing arts, is regarded as a model program for Arts and Humanities support at U.S. public universities.
Here are a few additional facts that may help define—or call to memory—Iowa’s forward reaching history of excellence in the arts and humanities:
- The University pioneered the acceptance of creative work in lieu of academic theses from graduate students in the arts.
- To date, Iowa alums have earned at least 13 Pulitzers.
- The School of Journalism awarded the first doctoral degrees in the nation in mass communication.
- The Writers’ Workshop was the first of its kind in the world, has been cited by the New York Times as the best creative writing program in the nation, and is a model for writing programs across the country.
- The International Writing Program is the first and only program of its kind in the world, bringing together writers from around the world.
- Original plays by students in the Playwrights Workshop were selected three years in a row for performance at the American College Theatre Festival at the Kennedy Center inWashington, D.C. The UI is the only university ever to be present at three consecutive national festivals.
- Recent rankings include:
- No. 1 in Creative Writing
- No. 2 in Printmaking
- No. 10 in Fine Arts (Master’s Program)
- No. 18 in Painting and Drawing
- No. 27 in English
Life Sciences
The University of Iowa’s reputation for comprehensive excellence in the life sciences follows, in great part, from the fact that Iowa researchers approach this many-pronged discipline from as many different angles. There’s research on the causes of human diseases, research that seeks new diagnostic techniques, new medicines, new medical devices, new ways of managing clinical practices. There’s research on basic biological phenomena and there’s companion research on ways in which the management of basic biological processes can help solve immediate industrial and environmental problems. There’s research relevant to farming and pharmaceuticals—research relevant to heart disease and to the environmental afflictions of the heartland.
HERE’S A SAMPLING OF RESEARCH IN THE LIFE SCIENCES AT IOWA:
Research to improve human health– the Carver College of Medicine
*Professor Gregory Hagemen co-leads an international research team that has discovered inherited variations in the Factor H gene that significantly increase the prospect of one developing age-related macular degeneration—or AMD—as she/he grows older. AMD is a sight limiting and sometimes blinding disease that affects some 50 million persons worldwide and about one-third of the US population over 75. Because there are few current therapeutic options for sufferers of AMD and because the newly reported genetic correlation may lead to new diagnostic approaches and medicines, the Director of the National Institutes of Health recently briefed Congress on this finding.
Above: Identified variations in the Factor H gene affect the production of unwanted drusen in the retina. The left image shows how even a single druse can destroy the retinal macula–leading to AMD. The companion stained image highlights cell nuclei. Inhibition of drusen formation might limit or end such destruction of the macula.
Research to improve industrial processes– the College of Engineering
Tonya Peeples works with extremophiles. This doesn’t mean that her collaborators spend their free time hurtling down unmarked ski slopes and it doesn’t mean that the ability to execute a summersault off a skateboard ramp is a prerequisite for her classes in biochemical and chemical engineering . Peeples works with microbes that thrive in extreme environments—whether that extremity is defined by high temperatures, high pressures or high levels of acidity. In these cases, extremity is the mother of utility.
These extremophiles, these lovers of extremity, present certain advantages in solving difficult problems in industrial biotechnology. The microbes—or the enzymes they produce—effectively catalyze reactions that can help leach gold from ore; they catalyze reactions that can help break down and so neutralize otherwise recalcitrant environmental pollutants; and they catalyze reactions that destroy industrial wastes.
In November Peeples received the 2005 Distinguished Service Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Minority Affairs Committee.
The award was presented for “sustained service and outstanding achievements that advance the goals of the Minority Affairs Committee.” Among those goals is reducing the under-representation of minorities in the chemical engineering profession, and engineering as a whole.
Research on developmental biology: basic and applied—the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
UI professor David Soll maintains a set of labs with three research thrusts and oversees two research and service centers of national importance. He and the two dozen members of his group have attracted or generated $33 million in funding over the last two decades. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that he holds both the Emil Witschi/ Roy J. and Lucille Carver Chair in the Department of Biological Sciences. Soll’s lab—or labs—seek to discover the means by which selected microbes—particularly yeasts—become troublesome, disease-causing agents. In addition, Soll’s group works to better understand the biochemical basis for cellular motion, studies that not only illuminate basic biological phenomena but which also provide practical insights into human diseases such as metastatic cancers and AIDS. The third thrust of Soll’s group is to develop new computer-assisted technologies for dynamic cell reconstruction and motion analysis—technologies that have accelerated the first two initiatives.
Then there are the service centers. Under Soll’s directorship, the W.M. Keck Image Analysis Center offers those outside the group or outside the UI an opportunity to use imaging technologies the group has developed. The Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank, run under the auspices of NIH, is a not-for profit center that maintains and distributes monoclonal antibodies for research throughout the world. The Bank filled close to 8000 requests in the past year. Indeed, it is fitting to say that Soll investigates not the life science but the life sciences.
HERE ARE SOME ADDITIONAL FACTS THAT HELP DEFINE IOWA’S LEVEL OF SUSTAINED EXCELLENCE IN THE LIFE SCIENCES.
Selected Program Rankings:
- No. 1 Nursing Service Administration
- No. 1 Speech/Language Pathology
- No. 2 Audiology
- No. 2 Nurse Practitioner (Gerontological/Geriatrics)
- No. 2 Otolaryngology
- No. 2 Physician Assistant
- No. 5 Physical Therapy
- No. 6 Ophthalmology
- No. 6 Orthopaedic Surgery
- No. 9 Primary Care Medicine
- No. 11 Nurse Practitioner (Pediatrics)
- No. 11 Health Services Administration (Master’s)
- No. 13 Psychiatry
- No. 13 Rural Medicine
- No. 16 Urology
- No. 17 Psychiatry
- No. 18 Public Health (Master’s)
Life Sciences at Iowa: Some Relevant FOAs—“Frequently Offered Answers”
- The Department of Otolaryngology is one of the oldest in the U.S. (1922) and one of the most comprehensive in the world.
- The Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering was one of the first chemical engineering programs in the United States (1905) and established one of the first U.S. degree programs in chemical and biochemical engineering (1989).
- The Department of Neurology is one of the three oldest in the country (1919) and its residency program one of the first to be accredited.
- The College of Dentistry is one of only a small number of dental schools in the United States with advanced programs in all recognized specialty areas. Every discipline has at least one national leader. The College also has the largest dental student research program in the nation.
- The psychology department is the seventh oldest in the country, and has been home to such eminent psychologists as Kenneth Spence, Albert Bandura, and Leon Festinger.
Physical, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences
UI’s most well-known physicist, James Van Allen—for whom both the Van Allen Radiation Belts and the University’s physics building are named—once tried to describe what it meant to be a “space scientist.” He began, “Space science is not a professional discipline in the usual sense of that term as exemplified by the traditional terms astronomy, geology, physics, chemistry, and biology. Rather it is a loosely defined mixture of all of these fields….”
One faces a similar problem when considering engineering or the physical and mathematical sciences. None of these terms fully defines a professional discipline, yet it’s clear that the practice of nearly any scientific or technical discipline depends upon the physical and computational sciences. Engineering crosses boundaries with computer science and medicine. Accordingly, experts in subspecialties of these fields are scattered broadly across campus. Physicists study medical radiology and microchip formation; experts in fluid dynamics study blood flow as well as river beds, sewer lines and smokestacks. Principles drawn from the mathematical sciences inform research on economic forecasting and epidemiology, on global atmospherics and carefully engineered virtual realities.
HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF UI RESEARCH IN THE PHYSICAL, MATHEMATICAL AND ENGINEERING SCIENCES:
The UI Tradition in Space Science—The Department of Physics and Astronomy
UI became linked to space science some 50 years ago because of the pioneering work of Professor James Van Allen and the NASA rocketeers. In 1959 Donald Gurnett was one of the UI undergraduate engineering students who helped design instruments destined for space flight under Van Allen’s direction. Today Gurnett holds the Van Allen Chair in Physics at Iowa and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Gurnett specializes in the study of space plasma physics and has participated in 25 spacecraft projects, most notably the Voyager 1 and 2 flights to the outer planets, the Galileo mission to Jupiter, and the Cassini mission to Saturn.
Over a period of 40 years Gurnett has collected numerous samples of sounds from space. These recordings became the basis for a multimedia theatrical collaboration commissioned by NASA and UI’s Hancher Auditorim. The resulting work, Sun Rings, features an original musical score first performed by the Kronos Quartet. In December 2005, Gurnett was awarded the Hannes Alfvén Medal by the European Geosciences Union (EGU) for his contributions to solar-terrestrial and planetary solar system sciences.
Protecting Our Environment—The Departments of Chemistry and Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
Sometimes Professor Vicki Grassian is designated as a physical chemist and sometimes as a chemical engineer since she holds appointments in both the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering. Sometimes she’s called a nanoscientist, sometimes an environmental scientist. In all events she calls herself a teacher, saying, “I would not be a good teacher if I wasn’t a good researcher, and I would not be a good researcher if I wasn’t a good teacher.”
Grassian’s research addresses the environmental and health effects of particles that have been taken up into the atmosphere. An ongoing project assesses the global environmental implications of airborne mineral particles raised by such natural conditions as desert winds. In addition, Grassian is interested in particles much, much smaller than grains of mineral dust. She’s interested in the potential long-term environmental and health effects of nanoparticles– one nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. To this end, she’s assessing the potential toxic effects of materials built up from nano-sized pieces.
In addition to her considerable federal funding, Grassian is the 2004-2005 recipient of the UI James Van Allen Fellowship in recognition of her distinguished work in the physical sciences. In 2005, Grassian was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Pedagogical Innovation—The Department of Mathematics
For more than a decade UI Professor of Mathematics Keith Stroyan has been developing better pedagogical techniques and technologies to aid undergraduates. The innovative results of his pedagogical research have gained national attention. In January he will receive the Mathematical Association of America’s most prestigious teaching award.
In the 1990s, Stroyan developed an innovative calculus course for undergraduate students, whose majors ranged from music to mathematics. The calculus curriculum which was developed with support from the National Science Foundation, uses contemporary computing to involve students in real-world problems — such as calculating the spread of epidemics or the fall of a bungee diver. Calculus is a language for subjects ranging from physics to economics and this course allowed students to apply calculus to their major subjects in course projects. Stroyan hopes this will encourage more U.S. college students to pursue technical careers especially in engineering and the sciences.
Acknowledging the natural affinities between math and engineering, he has been a leader in working with the College of Engineering to create a new engineering math curriculum that takes advantage of computational and web-based technologies.
Education & Social Sciences
Many of the social and educational sciences are relative newcomers to the academic scene. Some were not recognized as disciplines until the second half of the 19th Century. Research at the UI accelerated the maturation of these fields and provided early intellectual credibility to the social and educational sciences —leaving a persistent legacy of excellence.
Already in 1872 UI had opened the country’s first college-level department of education and in 1895 Iowa opened a psychology lab — only the seventh such endeavor in the U.S. By 1917 Iowa began formally addressing the delivery of social services through the Child Welfare Research Station.
In 1925 E.F. Lindquist joined the College of Education as a research assistant; in 1929 Wendell Johnson enrolled as a grad student in Psychology. In 1936 Kenneth Spence became chairman of Psychology, replacing the eminent founding chairman and later Graduate Dean, Carl Seashore.
Lindquist went on to create the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the American College Testing (ACT) Program. His pioneering work in the automated scoring of standardized tests gave rise to the Measurement Research Corporation whose successor is now a local branch of the international firm, Pearson. The headquarters of ACT remain in Iowa City. Together, Pearson and the ACT Corporation employ some 4000 Iowans.
After receiving his social science Ph.D., Johnson applied his knowledge of clinical psychology to curing stuttering and other speech impediments. Himself a former stutterer, Johnson largely created Iowa’s now internationally-recognized program in Speech Pathology and Audiology—a hybrid of the social and medical sciences, made possible by the interplay between these two traditional strengths at Iowa.
The UI has acknowledged the tradition of research excellence of faculty members such as Seashore, Spence, Lindquist, and Johnson by naming facilities after each. This tradition of excellence continues on an even broader scale today. Social Science research is conducted in departments including anthropology, sociology, political science, social work, economics, and psychology. Related work thrives in the College of Education, while principles of the social sciences inform research on health care delivery in the Colleges of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health.
Here are a few examples of current UI research in the social sciences and education.
Medicine for the Mind and Body—The Department of Psychology Associate Professor Susan Lutgendorf studies psychoneuroimmunology and biobehavioral medicine. These lengthy, compound terms highlight the ways in which her work seeks to illuminate the complex relationships among the mind and basic biological functions—thinking, feeling, and illness. She studies, for example, the relationships among social support, immune function, and tumor growth in ovarian cancer patients. She also studies the potential benefits of a complementary and alternative medicine treatment called “healing touch” on breast cancer patients during their radiation and chemotherapy. The rigor of Lutgendorf’s work has earned her research group sustained funding from the National Cancer Institute as well as more specialized sponsors.
Working to Ameliorate Violence—Research in the Department of Sociology UI sociologist Rob Baller thinks about violence. In particular, his work evaluates the proposition that violence begets violence. In one current study he examines longitudinal records to ascertain if teen suicides in some ways become “contagious,” and so lead to more suicides. He concludes that a single exposure to suicide likely does not “infect” a teen but that three or more exposures increase the chance that a teen might take his/her own life. In another study Baller asks if a local history of violence correlates with the incidence of contemporary violence in the same locale. He relates the incidence of lynchings in the American South between 1882 and 1930 to local homicide rates between 1986 and 1995. Baller notes that most of the earlier lynchings were perpetrated by whites against African Americans and that a contextually small number of more contemporary homicides were similarly perpetrated. Baller does observe a meaningful correlation between the incidence of past and present violent killings, however. He concludes his reported findings by quoting William McFeeling: “Historians know that the past can never be erased and that the ugliest human actions cast the longest shadows.”
Making the Grade—Research in the College Education UI’s College of Education ranks 15th nationally among similar Ph.D. granting colleges at public universities. Excellence is around every corner in the College’s home, The Lindquist Center. The willingness to adapt and adopt technology in pedagogy and pedagogical research has been a constant in the College for nearly 80 years and is a theme that runs through a range of current initiatives in test development, giftedness, counselor training, and adult education.
Emblematic of the College’s interest in educational technologies is the ePortfolio ™. This is a virtual file cabinet, developed under a collegiate initiative, that allows teachers and “pre-teachers” alike to maintain, sort, change, and share digital teaching materials. The ePortfolio ™ gives graduating students a boost in their job searches since they can provide a ready, comprehensive picture of their experience to date. Professional educators and graduate students use ePortfolio ™ to share materials with colleagues, to document (and report on) their curricula, and to just plain help keep things straight.
WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA—WHERE WE ARE ENTERING AN EXCITING NEW ERA!
All that is remarkable about this University’s legacy remains true. We provide excellence and accessibility in education, conduct groundbreaking research, undertake revolutionary creative endeavor, dedicate ourselves to diversity, and enhance higher education’s role in public life. At Iowa, undergraduate, graduate, and professional students find a rich, vibrant, innovative, and affordable academic experience. While we continue to serve the public through our traditional strengths, we also recognize that today is not the same as twenty years ago, or five years ago, or even yesterday. The University of Iowa, as one of the nation’s academic leaders, must always hold our traditions and our strengths dearly, but we must also look forward to a future marked by increasing distinction and new discovery.
One area of tremendous importance to every person on the planet is sustainability, perhaps the central issue of our time. As an educational and research leader, The University of Iowa must remain at the forefront of preparing the next generation of thinkers, innovators, and entrepreneurs who will help the world meet its profound environmental challenges. Our Sustainable University Initiative focuses partially on reducing our own carbon footprint through institutional energy conservation, use of renewable energy resources and sustainable materials, and green construction. But even more importantly, we have developed new educational programs such as wind energy management in our College of Engineering and a University-wide undergraduate certificate in sustainability studies. While many universities are scaling back their sustainability commitments in a troubled economy, The University of Iowa continues to move forward.
For decades, Iowa has been known for the best in health care and medical research and education. We are moving our stature as a leader in life sciences research forward by building the new UI Institute for Biomedical Discovery. This center for the science of saving lives will unite expertise and resources from across the University to address some of the world’s most devastating diseases and conditions. We are at an exciting crossroads in Iowa and across the nation. Before us lie incredible opportunities to save lives, to improve the health of Iowans and people everywhere, and to ensure a better quality of life from birth into advanced age. The UIIBD—and all of our health sciences programs—are taking advantage of those opportunities on the leading edge.
Iowa is also known as the first University to offer academic credit for creative work, inventing the MFA degree, and creating the most renowned Writers’ Workshop in the world. That reputation—and the incredible cultural vibrancy of our home community—has led Iowa City to be designated the first City of Literature in the Western Hemisphere, and only the third in the world, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Since before the first MFA’s in the 1930s up to today’s expanding writing programs, The University of Iowa has been known for being a leader in the literary world. With a renewed world spotlight on us, we are making sure that we continue to be a center for the arts and letters that is known across the globe.
As those who create art and literature know, through tragedy comes opportunity. And that is exactly what is happening at the UI. In 2008, our campus and many communities throughout Iowa experienced the most significant flood in our state’s history, and one of the biggest natural disasters in American history. We have shown the incredible resilience and dedication of the University community by completing a full 2008-2009 academic year with all the courses we promised our students. As we continue to renew our campus, we have an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild our programs for the 21st century. While we continue all of our programs at full steam, the next few years will see the emergence of new facilities—particularly on our arts campus—that will not only be state-of-the-art, but will define what a University education is all about for future generations. Also as a result of the flood, the UI is building on our experience through numerous research programs focused on flooding, including a new Iowa Flood Center that will conduct pioneering research for real-world solutions.
The people of the state of Iowa are justifiably proud of their University, and I hold that legacy in hand with a profound sense of stewardship. While we honor and build upon the UI’s heritage, and while we continue to renew our physical campus, we will move together into a future of endless opportunity for all through the promise of new knowledge. Here is a link to some of the UI’s recent and past achievements: University of Iowa Marks of Distinction. I invite you to peruse them, and then to explore our website to see the excellence that we have to offer, whether you are contemplating your college career, seeking information on the latest research discoveries, or connecting with a service important to you. I am thrilled to be part of a University of Iowa community that is talented, dedicated, and caring. I know you will be, too.
Sally Mason
President
Iowa Athletics
MISSION STATEMENT
The mission of the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics is to provide the administrative and coaching support, facilities, resources, and equipment necessary for student-athletes to graduate from The University of Iowa while participating in broad-based championship caliber athletic competition. The overall well-being of the participant and the integrity of the program will be paramount in all that we do.
More to come…check out the Hawkeye Web Site