Christopher Martin

When former University of Northern Iowa president Bill Ruud announced he was leaving, Iowa Board of Regents president Bruce Rastetter praised him for “great progress” and leaving “UNI in a stronger position than when he arrived.”

It remains curious why Ruud had to go. Officially, the board didn’t fire Ruud, but his contract wasn’t renewed and that sends a message. Ruud’s graceful exit masks the injustice the regents did to him and UNI. Ruud’s departure is also another sign the board lacks accountability.

The board's own policy manual sets the standards: “Regents and institutional officials must endeavor to remain free from the influence of, or appearance of, any conflicting interest in acting on behalf of the Board or a Regent institution.”

Here is where the Board of Regents' actions often fail to meet the smell test. On multiple occasions, Rastetter and the board have violated the appearance of conflicting interest:

According to Politico, Rastetter recruited Terry Branstad for his return run for governor in 2010 and was his top donor at more than $160,000. The year after Branstad’s election, Rastetter got his six-year appointment to the board.

State law requires that not more than five of the nine members of the Iowa Board of Regents be from the same political party. The board’s “current mix of five Republicans, three independents, and one Democrat on the board,” meets the legal requirements, but does little to dispel the appearance of intentional partisanship.

As a regent, Rastetter partnered with ISU to develop land in Tanzania that would have benefited his company. ISU dropped out of the project in 2012 “in the face of mounting criticism,” the AP reported.

The board hired Bruce Harreld, the least qualified of University of Iowa presidential candidates. The hiring process, which favored Harreld and lacked transparency, is now subject to at least two lawsuits.

The board paid its CEO, Robert Donley, $338,466 in 2015, “more than doubling a salary cap set by the state Legislature,” the Cedar Rapids Gazette reported.

Most recently, the board approved a budget that takes $3.6 million from the universities to cover its own increasing expenses, including $240,000 a year for a new chief operating officer to oversee what the board itself calls “one of the smallest public higher education board staffs in the nation.”

Finally, the board does not allow citizens to make comments at its meetings. People can only make brief recorded “transparency hearing” statements, but there is no way to know if the regents watch these videos.

There are three patterns here, all not befitting the board: 1) The board functions as a revolving door of political patronage, 2) the board is secretive in its dealings, particularly where cronyism and favoritism might come to light, and 3) the board seems to treat compliant university presidents with special favor, and those it deems less compliant with disdain.

I have been a professor and an administrator at UNI for almost 20 years. I write not as a representative of UNI, but as a citizen who sees the educational jewels of Iowa’s public universities spoiled by the Board of Regents.

This is not just my assessment. The American Association of University Professors, the watchdog of university academic freedom, nearly sanctioned UNI for its board-approved program cuts and firings in 2012. Only Ruud’s course of good governance helped UNI avoided the sanction. In 2016, the AAUP sanctioned UI, with its report “primarily directed against the Iowa Board of Regents.” Plainly, the Rastetter-era Board of Regents has been abysmal.

If Branstad is unwilling to hold the board accountable, it falls upon the opposition party in the Senate to call hearings and investigate the board’s actions and ask why the regents let go an effective president at UNI.

Christopher R. Martin of Cedar Falls is a professor and former department head in communication studies at the University of Northern Iowa, and is a 2004 recipient of the State of Iowa’s Board of Regents Award for Faculty Excellence. Contact: chris.martin@cfu.net