UI Center for Intellectual Freedom to teach American values and ‘why capitalism rocks’

DES MOINES — Two months from the launch of the University of Iowa-based Center for Intellectual Freedom’s inaugural classes, its interim director this week shared details about what will be taught with lawmakers who have become increasingly interested and involved in curricular matters across Iowa’s public universities.

The new courses — “Political and Economic Institutions in the United States” and “American Cultures and Values” — will span seven weeks, starting at the end of March and running through early May. They were supposed to be offered at the start of the spring semester as well, but the center’s Interim Director Luciano De Castro told The Gazette they needed more time “to coordinate the dates with all lecturers and make the whole UI community aware of the courses.”

De Castro, who also is an economics professor in the UI Tippie College of Business, will lead both courses — each consisting of one two-hour lecture a week.

“They will be seven-week courses composed of a series of independent lectures taught by independent professors,” he said, without providing specific names.

The Political and Economic Institutions course will cover the following seven topics:

The American Cultures and Values course will touch on the following topics:

A preliminary $1 million budget for the center’s first year shows $130,000 earmarked for temporary faculty, $80,000 designated for visitors and travel; and another $80,000 budgeted for program development for Iowa students.

Market demand

The center also is planning to pay the Common Sense Institute $18,600 to conduct a “market demand assessment,” and they held a first meeting on that mission last week, according to De Castro.

“We also hired a research assistant to help them to get data and complete this report,” he said. “I expect to have the report completed this semester.”

The research, according to a Common Sense Institute proposal, will include the following components:

The institute also will look into faculty needs and resources required to launch new center curriculum and programming.

Although the center is housed at the University of Iowa, it was created through Republican-backed legislation last session — reporting directly to the Board of Regents, with an initial $1 million appropriation to get it off the ground.

De Castro said he plans to request additional funding this session for help hiring faculty to teach more courses that will support new certificates, majors and minors.

‘I have a concern’

The center has been mentioned in other legislation introduced this session — including House Study Bill 543 and Senate File 2033, both of which would impose new general education and core curriculum mandates on Iowa’s public universities.

The bills would mandate gen ed courses in American history and American government — none of which can be “exclusively or primarily devoted to the study of subgroups of Americans or other nationalities,” according to the proposed legislation.

The UI Center for Intellectual Freedom — along with its civics-center counterparts at Iowa State University and University of Northern Iowa — annually “shall designate courses at their respective institutions that satisfy the requirements of this section,” according to the bill.

But Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, earlier this week expressed concern with the legislature’s classroom involvement, including the line excluding instruction devoted to subgroups.

“Could you define for us what a subgroup is?” Quirmbach asked Sen. Kerry Gruenhagen, R-Walcott, who sponsored the bill.

  Buy Photo

“We can save this discussion for after the meeting,” Gruenhagen said. “Right now, we're taking comments about concerns?”

“Well I have a concern about this,” Quirmbach said. “I don't know what you mean by that.”

  Buy Photo

When Gruenhagen declined to answer, Quirmbach accused him of skirting the issue.

“The day after the Martin Luther King holiday, on the verge of next month as Black History Month, you seem to want to avoid discussion of Black history here,” Quirmbach said. “Are white males a subgroup?”

Given that women now account for a majority of the population, he said, “It seems to me that an American history course that is primarily dominated by white males would not satisfy the requirement here.”

“It seems that in order to satisfy this requirement, you have to involve, God forbid, the word diversity.”

Quirmbach also raised concerns about how much the new gen ed mandate would cost in total across Iowa’s three public universities — starting at Iowa State, which this year has about 26,400 undergraduates. Using calculations that involve getting each of those students in the two mandated courses over a four-year stay on campus, and finding enough faculty and teaching assistants to instruct, Quirmbach estimated more than $3 million in related expenses, “and that’s just for Iowa State.”

If you do the same math for the University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa, Quirmbach said the expenses swell to $6.6 million.

“You're at a $6.6 million unfunded mandate,” he said. “That's assuming that you can find the people to fill these assignments.”

Despite those concerns, subcommittees in both the Senate and House advanced their respective bills.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com