ACT, best known for its college entrance exam, started with an idea from a professor in the University of Iowa College of Education. It has grown into a multifaceted, multinational enterprise. But the nonprofit continues to enjoy a strong bond with its founding institution.

University of Iowa faculty in the College of Education's Rehabilitation Counselor Education Doctoral Program, one of the top-ranked rehabilitation programs in the nation, now have an enhanced ability to recruit some of the best and brightest graduate students nationally, thanks to a $750,000 U.S. Department of Education grant received by several professors in the college.

Students from across Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois will get a chance to discover new aspects about Woodstock, the Holocaust and education in Cambodia at this year's University of Iowa International Day. The 13th annual event will focus on "The Human Right to Know," and will give nearly 300 middle school students an opportunity to learn the issues surrounding the right to information and education. The UI College of Education and the Stanley Foundation are the main sponsors.

The United States does not have a uniform national policy addressing academic acceleration, the practice of advancing students in subjects at a rate that places them ahead of where they would normally be in school. Gifted education experts at the University of Iowa hope to change that with the release of a publication "Guidelines for Developing an Academic Acceleration Policy."

Anne Kapler talks with Rachel Marie-Crane Williams, an associate professor in the art and education colleges, about how she uses art classes to inspire incarcerated women and teens.

Khon Thai jai dee. This phrase, meaning “Thai people are good-hearted” in English, sums up the way UI Associate Professor Scott McNabb feels about the southeastern Asian country and its people. Since starting at the UI 30 years ago as an education professor, he has continually revamped his teachings to reflect each of his visits to Thailand.

Nine Japanese teachers-in-training will arrive on the University of Iowa campus Sunday, Sept. 20, to share lessons with local elementary and secondary school students on everything from sumo wrestling and kimono culture to traditional Japanese toys and stories, thanks to a partnership with the UI College of Education (COE).

A story about gifted education and grade skipping cites a 2004 study by the Belin-Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development on the issue, A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students.

Our Teacher Education at Iowa video has been selected to be featured on collegemajors101.com.

Many people are unaware that students who are gifted can also experience a range of cognitive and learning disabilities such as autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, known as twice exceptionality. More than 100 faculty, staff, students and community members will examine this issue when the University of Iowa College of Education's Connie Belin and Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development hosts the Fifth Biennial Belin-Blank Advanced Leadership Institute (B-BALI) Thursday and Friday, June 25-26, at the Iowa Memorial Union. This year's focus is "Twice Exceptionality: Examined & Explained."

Fifty three Iowa school districts find out more money is coming their way to provide preschool programs. It's the Governor's effort to offer better early education to children and ease the financial burden on parents. Teachers and parents are praising Governor Chet Culver's announcement today which will allow an additional 3,000, four-year-old children receive a quality preschool education.

The University of Iowa College of Education presented a variety of scholarships to some of its top students during its annual student awards ceremony in April at the University Athletics Club. The awards and scholarships are given annually in the UI College of Education and are based on academic achievement and potential for success in a particular field within education, among other criteria.

A short distance down the hall is KE's first grade classroom. This class of young learners has been joined by Alicia Corron, a practicum student from the University of Iowa. Under the expert guidance of Suzanne Yoder, Alicia, the daughter of Bev Brannen and Myron Corron, she is currently working towards her degree in Elementary Education with a specialization in Math and Reading. With her hometown in Des Moines, Alicia loves Iowa City and thus chose The University of Iowa in which to pursue her degree. (Read more)

Every community should look at the new list of Iowa’s top 50 high schools for Advanced Placement opportunities. The 2009 Iowa AP Index put out by the Belin-Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development at the University of Iowa is an indication of a culture of academic rigor.

George Washington High School in Cedar Rapids has become the state's first public school to achieve the No. 1 ranking on the "Iowa Advanced Placement Index for the Top 50 Schools."

A "Two Heads Tooth Brush," and a "Rub A Dub Dub Doggy Tub" are just two of almost 300 inventions that will be featured at the 2009 Invention Convention Saturday, April 25 at Iowa State University in Ames. The event alternates between the University of Iowa and Iowa State University campuses and is sponsored by the UI College of Education's Belin-Blank Center and the UI and ISU Colleges of Engineering.

The choir members laugh, joke, and mingle easily as they gather in the makeshift chorus room at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center (IMCC) in Coralville. Among them are professors, students, administrative assistants, and community members. Another group of about 20 men, indistinguishable except for the orange nametags attached to their shirts, are mixed into the group. These are brothers, dads, sons, husbands, and grandpas. They are also offenders living at IMCC, known as Oakdale Prison. (Read more)

Elsie Vega is 80 and a lesbian. "If I had a partner, I would propose to her immediately and get married," she said. Vega has endured decades of societal change regarding same-sex relationships, punctuated last week by the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling legalizing marriage. It astounds her. She was closeted for decades and entered a heterosexual marriage to have children. Unable to ignore feelings she had since childhood, Vega divorced in the 1970s and raised her four children alone. Today, the silence is ancient history. Vega produces a public access television show from the Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center called "Neighbors and Friends" and is busy interviewing gay and lesbian couples, one that is raising children. (Read more)

Anyone can achieve the American Dream if they have hope and work hard. This is a strong message that an estimated 100 Cedar Rapids black middle school students and their teachers will hear when they visit the University of Iowa from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, April 17, for an interactive, on-campus visit directed by University of Iowa College of Education faculty, staff and students.

A resource fair for disabled students will feature representatives from The University of Iowa REACH (Realizing Educational and Career Hopes) program. The Austin Daily Herald originates in Minnesota. This news was also carried by the Austin Post-Bulletin.

Sitting behind a computer desk, Peter Fultz designs a badge that war veterans participating in a new golf program will wear. Office work at the Iowa City Veteran's Affairs Medical Clinic is a little different from the retail jobs the 21-year-old man with cognitive and learning disabilities has had in the past. (Read more)

A feature describes how University of Iowa music education faculty member MARY COHEN started a choir at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville.

Thanks to a new yearlong UI Leadership and Public Service Seminar offered through the UI College of Education Department of Counseling, Rehabilitation and Student Development in collaboration with the Iowa City Community School District, 10 UI students are making a difference in the lives of younger students.

More than 300 aspiring Iowa artists in grades seven through 12 had the opportunity to compete for Scholastic Art and writing awards thanks to the University of Iowa College of Education's Connie Belin and Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development Scholastic Art and Writing Award competition.

On the outside, Robert Williams used his voice to bring joy. Williams said he sang and played piano in street choirs and churches, but that was 40 years ago. Now he is a 64-year-old lifer at Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville, also called Oakdale Prison, and those days are gone. But, a new opportunity arose for Williams, albeit in a different setting. A University of Iowa professor started an Oakdale Prison Community Choir. Williams quickly signed on, and rehearsals are now a weekly highlight. (Read more)

For a fleeting moment deep in the maze of the Iowa Medical and Classification Center at Oakdale, Josiah Paulsrud felt free. During that moment he sang deeply, his smooth baritone rising and falling with the voices around him. The singing changed things for Paulsrud, stripping away his incarceration number 645595. It made him feel like Josiah again — the same person who used to blast the radio while driving his car through his hometown of Ida Grove in northwest Iowa. (Read more)

A University of Iowa music professor is bringing citizens into prison to sing with 20 inmates. Mary Cohen worked with wardens at the medium-security Iowa Medical and Classification Center for more than a year to get a choir started. (Read more)

They won't be singing "Jailhouse Rock" or "Folsom Prison Blues." Rather, 20 inmates at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville are joining 20 volunteer community members and eight University of Iowa students to lift their voices in jubilant song as part of a groundbreaking choral experience this spring semester. (Read more)

More Iowa students will improve their science literacy thanks to a four-year $4.8 million U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences grant received by University of Iowa College of Education Professors Brian Hand and William Therrien and Iowa State University Statistics and Political Science Professor Mack Shelley. (Read more)

Sue Dvorsky foresaw herself pursuing her two passions through two very different outlets from an early age - working for the Iowa Democratic Party and teaching. "I was in the generation of young women where it was beginning to open up to a broader range of careers," she said. "I always saw myself teaching, and politics was a natural part of that." And now, she has again shown her passion for politics after being named the first vice chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party. (Read more)

In August, the UI started a new program that addresses some of those needs, through supportive employment training. REACH (Realizing Educational and Career Hopes) is an inclusive, two-year certificate program designed to help college-age students with cognitive and learning disabilities develop life skills and transition to employment and community participation. (Read more)

University of Iowa student Olivia Myers finished third Saturday night in the Miss America Pageant. Myers, 22, of Sperry, said reaching the pageant was her "ultimate dream" because she had watched the contest throughout her youth. (Read more)

This time of year, people are more likely to feel stressed out with school, work and last-minute holiday shopping woes, especially with the current economic recession. Jay M. Greenfeld, a doctoral student in the University of Iowa College of Education's Counseling Psychology Program, believes that individuals have a choice in how they respond to difficult situations. To help them, he wrote a self-help book titled, "My Choice -- My Life: Realizing Your Ability to Create Balance in Life." (Read more)

A group of Willowwind School students are learning the finer points of choir singing from University of Iowa undergraduates. We are learning songs and notes and melodies," said third-grader Halle Terry, 8. Terry is one of eight students in the Willowwind choir. They are practicing vocal techniques, music reading and a range of old folk songs that they will perform in a concert next week. From UI's end, the undergraduates are taking something away as well. Their work with the Willowwind students is a service-learning component of a choral methods class they are taking this fall. Mary Cohen, who is teaching the UI course, initiated the link between the older and younger students. Cohen is a UI assistant professor of music education with faculty appointments in the School of Music in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Department of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education. (Continued…)

Three College of Education people have made the Press Citizen Person of the Year short list. They are: Steve McGuire (professor), Mark Salisbury (doctoral student), and Sue Dvorsky (alumnae). (Read more)

More than two billion readers now have access to a major report in their native language on the acceleration of gifted students. Thanks to a $99,300 John Templeton Foundation grant, the University of Iowa College of Education's Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development has translated Volume 1 of  "A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students" in the seven leading languages in the world after English, including Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.

Every Thursday, UI sophomore and RA Ryan Cumings meets with the students on his residence-hall floor to play poker and chat. The meeting is not a one-time chance for the group to relax. It could potentially have a long-term effect on the students' lives. Cumings is one of two RAs for the UI's first-ever Realizing Educational and Career Hopes (REACH), a two-year certificate program for college-age students with cognitive and learning disabilities to help them develop life skills and prepare for jobs and community involvement. And while professionals primarily teach the participants, some UI students are involved with the program through mentoring, tutoring, and leisure activities. (Continued…)

Through the new REACH program, students take core classes in academic enrichment, career development, and life and social skills for independent living. One of the first programs of its kind to be offered at a Research I university, REACH students are fully integrated into university life, including living in the residence halls. (Read more)

The Men’s Anti-Violence Council, a new University of Iowa group, is informing students about methods of violence prevention. The council is part of the Women’s Resource and Action Center and receives funding from a federal Department of Justice program, according to council coordinator Jerrod Koon.

The majority of violent crimes are committed by men, but the majority of men are not violent, University of Iowa graduate student Jerrod Koon says. Getting those men to speak up against violence, especially violence against women, is the key to changing the problem, said Koon, coordinator of the Men's Anti-Violence Council.

With male-on-male violence occurring all too frequently in the community, a group of males say they're fighting back. The group, Men's Antiviolence Council, formed with the Women's Resource and Action Center this summer, held its first open house Wednesday to discuss how to adequately battle violence on campus.

In order to find out how the University of Iowa community is processing a second highly publicized suicide by a UI professor, I contacted Sam Cochran, director of University Counseling Services.

My first experiences with suicide occurred early in my life. My mom's sister made a number of attempts, and a close friend of mine took his own life. These events caused me to want to become a psychologist and to study suicide. Accurate data can be difficult to obtain, but the most recent data with which I am familiar (the 2005 data from the American Association of Suicidology) indicate that there are about 33,000 completed suicides per year in the United States.

Gregory Cizek, professor of educational measurement and evaluation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will discuss fundamental validity issues related to the use of test results to measure student achievement at the University of Iowa William E. Coffman Lecture. The lecture will begin at 3 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30, in the Jones Commons of the E.F. Lindquist Center on the UI campus, followed by a reception. Both events are free and open to the public.

The University of Iowa College of Education and UI International Programs are organizing the 12th Annual International Day Human Rights Conference for 305 area elementary and middle school students Wednesday, Oct. 29 at the Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in Coralville. The theme for this year's conference is "The Human Right to Childhood."

A story about college costs skyrocketing while the economy worsens raises the question of whether college is a worthy financial investment for everyone. Experts point out that the college experience is not just about financial rewards. Students are able to explore their interests. They often become inspired by subjects they never knew existed and are able to view the world through a broader lens. "There's value added when it comes to critical thinking and moral reasoning," said ERNEST PASCARELLA, a University of Iowa professor who has studied the effects of college. The story originated in THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.

Going to college seems like a reasonable dream for young adults, but until recently, a dream was all it was for Stephen Schumacher. (Continued…)

Safety Straight Talk (The Daily Iowan)

High school can be tough for teens - sometimes even more so for students have come out of the closet. (Continued…)

Little things a teacher does can make a big difference in the lives of students who may be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. (Continued…)

The University of Iowa will use a recent grant to design technological adaptations so more students with disabilities can readily access Web sites,  digital text and other tools in pursuit of a college education. The UI College of Education's Iowa Center for Assistive Technology Education and Research received a one-year, $117,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop technology that will make higher education more accessible for people with a variety of disabilities.

Andrew Ho, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Quantitative Foundations, recently was named a recipient of the 2008 Thomas A. Urban Research Award.

Again and again (and again), Steve McGuire has risked his life to rescue people from the Iowa River.

The first two times Steve McGuire saved a life, he didn’t think. But on his third improbable run down the Iowa River bank, he was definitely thinking.

More than 400 Iowa students in kindergarten through college expressed their creativity and talents through artwork, poems, creative essays and performance pieces in Celebrating Creative Expression, a competition celebrating the 20th anniversary of the University of Iowa College of Education's Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development.

Twenty-three Korean educators have traveled across the globe for a two-week seminar at the University of Iowa College of Education's Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development.

Students with disabilities in Iowa -- and those who help them learn -- will have an opportunity to benefit from the latest technological advancements available. An estimated 23 teachers, speech pathologists, parents of students with disabilities and others will participate in the first Assistive Technology Summer Institute, sponsored by the Iowa Center for Assistive Technology Education and Research (ICATER) in the University of Iowa College of Education.

For some time, Dr. Vilia Tarvydas, a professor and coordinator for the University of Iowa’s graduate programs in rehabilitation had been petitioning for a course covering mental health counseling after a natural disaster. (Continued…)

A group of top academic high school students from China is experiencing Iowa -- everything from anthropology and engineering classes to ice cream socials and baseball games, thanks to a first-of-its-kind program at the University of Iowa. The program, called the China-BESTS (Belin-Blank Exceptional Student Talent Search) Program, is part of a cooperative agreement between the UI College of Education's Connie Belin and Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development and Hangzhou Harvest Consulting Company Ltd, a consulting company in China.

Ken Hallinan admits he didn't always have his life mapped out - in fact, he describes the path that led him to the UI as a "long, convoluted one." After a brief and an early career in journalism, Hallinan, 42, decided he needed to get back in the classroom. He wanted to be a teacher. (Continued…)

Iowa City Press-Citizen features Teacher Education graduate and UI track star Christine Kotarba in article entitled, “Hearing loss can’t slow down UI senior.”

In the past, the most popular way to instruct children about the outdoors was to teach indoors, according to Dr. Christy Moroye, assistant professor and specialist in environmental education. Chemistry experiments, memorization of textbooks, the collection of data on weather patterns, and other pursuits based on the scientific method, were (and in many cases, still are) standard.

But as the sustainable development and conservation movements find their footing in the mainstream, merely telling children they should love the environment is not enough. A result is Place-Based Education, which focuses on teaching kids about sustainability and conservation through encounters with the creatures with which they share their world. The theory states that through interactions with their habitat, children will develop a love for the environment, and thus a desire to help sustain and nurture it in whatever ways possible.

Feature story on the R.E.A.C.H. (Realizing Educational and Career Hopes) program

Ear warmers, a coffee table that doubles as a dog kennel and a Mega Melter were a few of the more than 200 inventions presented by 358 students from across the state of Iowa in University of Iowa's Carver Hawkeye Arena April 5. The Invent Iowa 2008 State Convention gave the young inventors an opportunity to demonstrate devices they believe could make life easier or more enjoyable for many people. Invent Iowa is sponsored by the UI College of Education's Connie Belin and Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development as well as the UI and Iowa State University colleges of engineering.

Belin-Blank Center celebrates two decades of service to international gifted education community

Have you ever seen a product in the store or on TV and wondered why you didn't think of it first? If so, you may be interested in viewing the many inventions to be displayed at the Invent Iowa 2008 State Convention Saturday, April 5, at the University of Iowa Carver Hawkeye Arena.
http://news-releases.uiowa.edu/2008/march/032708invention_convention.html

Invent Iowa
http://www.kgan.com/csArticles/articles/000065/006546.htm

Press Citizen
http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880405006

A story about teaching a second language to children notes that early education is especially important for learning a language. Children are particularly tuned in to acquiring language and figuring out how language is built, says MICHAEL EVERSON, an associate professor in the University of Iowa College of Education who specializes in foreign-language acquisition. "Very early, children can break this code that there are different sounds in the language," Everson says. "[Nursery rhymes and poems] help kids develop . . . how the sound system of their language works." The State Journal is published in Michigan.

Surveys abound showing that women in academe (and the rest of society) earn less than men. Likewise theories abound for why this is the case so many years after it ceased to be acceptable for deans (or other bosses) to automatically assume a woman could make do with less. PAUL UMBACH, a scholar at the University of Iowa who has been mining national data, presented his latest findings Monday at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. The results, in short, say that - even using the most sophisticated possible approach to take into consideration nonsexist reasons for pay differentials - a pay gap remains, based on gender. And while this can't be definitively tied to sexism, there aren't a lot of likely alternative explanations. But the study also found that some of the explanations that do exist - in particular based on disciplines and the types of institutions where women are more likely to find jobs - suggest that the salary gaps may be here to stay, unless higher education thinks very differently about reward structures.

It's where women teach, more than what they teach, that accounts for their poorer earnings in the academic work force, a researcher from the University of Iowa suggested at a conference here on Monday. For decades, scholars have tried to sort out how much of the gender gap in wages is caused by raw discrimination and how much is driven by mediating factors. Female faculty members have sometimes been found, for example, to have fewer and less-prestigious postgraduate degrees, on average, than their male colleagues. Some studies have also found that women are concentrated in fields or institutions that attract relatively little external research money, or where faculty members publish less frequently. Those mediating factors do not necessarily excuse the gender gap, because they might themselves reflect various kinds of past and present sexism. But they complicate efforts to understand and remedy wage disparities. On Monday afternoon, a scholar suggested a way to clarify the question. During a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, PAUL UMBACH, an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Iowa, offered a new statistical technique for assessing wage inequalities. He argued that his method - known as a cross-classified random-effects model - offers a richer and more accurate picture than scholars' previous analyses of the gender gap.

University of Iowa doctoral student Wangui Gathua started fund to help Kenyans after violence.

Iowa City Press-Citizen editorial about The University of Iowa study, "A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students."

An editorial about gifted education cites The UNIVERSITY OF IOWA study, "A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students." The paper covers Florida's Treasure Coast and Palm Beach.

Three years after the University of Iowa's Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development published "A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students," an online research survey shows that the report has had a major impact on the state of gifted education in the United States.

http://www.tristateobserver.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=9542
http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080217/NEWS01/802170316/1079/NEWS

University of Iowa College of Education Teacher Education students teaching abroad enrich U.S. classrooms.

Diana Blaney, a scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., wants to inspire the next generation of rocket scientists and astronauts.

UI developed Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (Salt Lake Tribune, Jan. 10, 2008)

The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, developed by University of Iowa faculty and administrators, examine students' skills in reading, language, math, social studies and science and compare students to a national average. All Utah third-, fifth- and eighth-graders took the tests.

Music Education Assistant Professor Mary Cohen invites the senior community to join her Voices of Experience intergenerational choir.

A story on Assistant Professor Andrew Ho from the Fall 2007 issue of Spectator

This article features a number of Distance Learning programs including Professor Wanat and the master’s degree in Educational Administration Program.

A story about Girls on the Run, a program that trains girls in grades three through five to run, notes that one of the coaches is Tricia Seifert, a post-doctoral student at the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA.

Tim McGowan, the Teacher of the Year in Rapid City, SD, earned a master's degree in counseling and human development at the University of Iowa. He is one of seven finalists for South Dakota teacher of the year.

• Jerrod Koon: Realizing that condemning violence wasn’t enough, a graduate student turned to action and enlisted fellow men.
• Cate Hartmann: A returning student draws on her own experience to lend fellow veterans a hand.
• Phillip Lewis: A shooting robbed the UI alumnus of his college football dreams, but steered him in an unexpected direction. Today he shows others how life-changing challenges can offer new beginnings.
• Nick Colangelo: The educator and advocate is dedicated to creating opportunities for academically promising students.
• Olivia Myers: The UI student, reigning Miss Iowa, and Miss America second runner-up shares her passion for learning.
• Daniel Peters: A UI student overcomes learning challenges to pursue education in innovative program.
  
• Casey Koschmeder: An education student gets his first classroom experience in Kenya—and brings home plenty of lessons himself.
• Wangui Gathua: A graduate student comes to Iowa to further her own education—in hopes of helping others do the same.
• Steve McGuire: River rescues, flood recovery, and award-winning teaching illustrate a faculty member’s knack for helping out when it’s needed most.
• kate Karacay The graduate student raises awareness about human trafficking, successfully lobbying for a new Iowa law.
• Casey Koschmeder, an education student gets his first classroom experience in Kenya—and brings home plenty of lessons himself.
• Michael Everson examines how we learn language—especially Chinese—and why it matters.
• John Mikelson, the former Army medic became an undergrad at 45, and now helps veterans of all ages make the college transition.
• Deb Vierling: Using education as a tool for empowerment, the UI College of Education alumna has been dubbed everything from an advocate to an angel.
• Saba Ali A: Faculty member’s ties to Islam, Appalachia, and now Iowa inform research on education, culture, and career.
• Don Coffman: Sad to see adults leave music behind, the music educator and bandleader decided to coax some back.
• Christine Grant: The former women’s athletic director has earned a national reputation advocating opportunity for all athletes.
• Rachel Marie-Crane Williams thinks art can blend with activism to make a difference in the world. Her artistic vision takes her into prisons and juvenile homes, where she hopes art will touch lives and act as a catalyst for social change and a catharsis for those who need healing or inspiration.
  

Link to present and past press releases created by University of Iowa News Service