Iowa Civics Center Faces Staffing Shortage
The University of Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom must offer required U.S. history and government courses to almost all undergraduates, according to a recent change in Iowa legislation.
This legislation states that only the Center for Intellectual Freedom can offer these mandated courses, starting in fall 2028, and the center needs to prepare for this change.
The university had more than 22,000 undergrads this past spring, but the civics center officially has just one faculty member: its interim director, who will need support to meet the new requirements.
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They will have to hire more faculty or get more affiliated instructors to significantly expand the center’s capacity, as the center’s interim director said it only taught 19 students last semester in its two courses, Political and Economic Institutions of the U.S. and American Culture and Values.
The center has a small window of time to prepare, and the scholars on the advisory council suggested that they start developing curriculum outlines, even before the permanent director’s hiring, to ensure they are ready.
They have two years to get a small set of classes ready that will be delivered to a massive number of people, and they need to start working on this now to avoid any delays.
The law requires undergrads to take a survey of all American history course, plus a second such course in American government, according to the Iowa Legislature website, which provides detailed information on the new requirements.
The only students exempted are those who have already completed substantially similar coursework or who are pursuing degrees that are supposed to take three years or less, and they will not need to take the new courses.
There won’t be any classes offered by the Center in fall 2026, which gives them some time to prepare for the new mandate.
There is concern that stopping course offerings until the mandate kicks in two years from now could exacerbate issues with hiring enough people quickly enough, making it difficult to go from nothing to teaching every student at Iowa, and careful planning and execution will be required, with a focus on critical thinking to ensure the center is prepared.
