Capacity & Commitment

The organizational structure at Iowa State University promotes widespread communication, thus enhancing the institution’s efforts to match constituents’ needs with educational programs. These programs reach across the state, not only through Extension and distance learning efforts, but also through efforts to connect Iowa State students, faculty, staff, and administrators with communities outside of the university.

Iowa State has various structures and processes in place that enable it to communicate with Iowans about their ongoing education needs. Two important structures are the Board of Regents, State of Iowa, which ensures that University programs are of the highest quality, and Iowa State Extension, which delivers programming in all 99 Iowa counties. More information on both groups follows.

The Board governs five state institutions, including all three state universities: Iowa State, the University of Iowa, and the University of Northern Iowa. It establishes policies and exercises broad oversight of the institutions to ensure high-quality education and service to Iowans, effective and efficient use of resources, and public accountability. The Board also fosters cooperation rather than competition among its institutions in providing education and service and seeking state funding. The state of Iowa has had a combined governing board for higher education since 1909, and this approach has served citizens well since that time.

For more than 100 years, ISU Extension has been building partnerships and providing research-based learning opportunities to improve the quality of life for all Iowans. Please refer to previous sections of the self-study including 5.1 and 5.2 for more information and/or the ISU Extension reports.

Iowa State provides various co-curricular activities and educational programs that connect students, staff, administrators, and faculty with external communities. Several examples follow.

• Service learning is a pedagogical strategy utilized in many academic departments, leadership development programs, and community development initiatives.

• Student Scholars programs such as Carver Academy and Multicultural Visions Program incorporate service into their program requirements.

• The Volunteer Center, a component of Student Activities, regularly matches thousands of students to community volunteer opportunities, thus enhancing the potential for civic engagement after graduation.

• The Partnering Landscape and Community Enhancement (PlaCE) program matches local government leaders with College of Design students, who help establish a new community visions through collaborative efforts to understand, envision, and promote a fundamental enhancement of physical environment.

Drawing from a campus of world-renowned scientists, artists, teachers, economists, historians, veterinarians, writers, musicians, and others, the Iowa State University Speakers Bureau can provide an expert on a wide range of topics, including weather forecasting and patterns, Web usage trends, high-speed computing, violence prevention, childrearing, age-proofing a home, wind energy, church architecture, use of robots in factories, and other topics. The Bureau provides speakers for civic, service, and professional groups. In 2003-04, more than 3,000 Iowans attended presentations given by Iowa State faculty.

Other sections in this self-study explain how virtual environments, off-campus environments and extension services support educational initiatives.

A detailed listing of Iowa State support for its visitor program and the impact of visitors on learning activities can be found in section 4.2.6—Visitor Programs of this self-study.

Iowa State is a leader in preparing its graduates for the type of delivery methods that will underscore future education efforts. One prominent example is Iowa State’s Teacher Education program. With support from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, this program will be the first in the nation to prepare undergraduate teacher education students for teaching in virtual classrooms.