University of Iowa

The University of Iowa is often regarded as "The Writing University" because of its world-renowned Iowa Writers' Workshop, but an appreciation and commitment to great writing is evident across the entire UI campus-including the Carver College of Medicine. The college's Writing and Humanities Program offers elective courses and activities that focus on the humanistic and creative aspects of medicine and medical education. The program also provides consultation and assistance to students preparing their written personal statements for residency interviews or developing research papers or abstracts. The Writing and Humanities Program also oversees the Humanities Distinction Track, which is designed to encourage and support students interested in scholarship and learning opportunities in creative writing, philosophy, visual arts, social sciences, and related topics. This fall, with the support of an anonymous donor's gift, the Carver College of Medicine held a poetry competition for students in the MD, PT (physical therapy), and PA (physician assistant) programs. Three of the competition's entrants were honored Oct. 17 at the college's annual scholarship luncheon. First-place ($400), second-place ($300), and third-place ($200) scholarship prizes were awarded and will be applied to the students' tuition, fees, or academic travel.

University of Iowa students recently creatively addressed an existing critical global health challenge in the UI's annual IIPHRP Global Public Health Case Competition, an activity of the nationally ranked University of Iowa's College of Public Health. The competition offers an innovative student learning experience that adds to the education and training of future public health leaders. It is structured similar to that of a business school case competition where student teams formulate recommendations for business-oriented problems.

University of Iowa students were recently singled out for "bringing ideas to life" as members of teams competing in the annual Iowa Startup Games, an activity of the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center. The Iowa Startup Games is a three-day event where students from all areas of study pitch their ideas to have an impact. After a student pitches, teams are formed and work together to bring the best ideas to life. By the end of the third day, each team will have had the opportunity to make their four-minute pitch to a group of panelists for a chance to win cash prizes.

University of Iowa students were recently singled out for "bringing ideas to life" as members of teams competing in the annual Iowa Startup Games, an activity of the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center. The Iowa Startup Games is a three-day event where students from all areas of study pitch their ideas to have an impact. After a student pitches, teams are formed and work together to bring the best ideas to life. By the end of the third day, each team will have had the opportunity to make their four-minute pitch to a group of panelists for a chance to win cash prizes.

Jaison Marks, a master's student in both the University of Iowa's Roy J. Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering and the UI Department of Finance recently won $25,000 in the annual Pappajohn Iowa Entrepreneurial Venture competition to help fund transformational change to the management of posttraumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA), a debilitating medical condition that is typically managed by clinicians symptomatically, meaning that care is only targeted at managing symptoms and not treating the underlying cause of the disease.

Earlier this fall, the University of Iowa Orchestra performed a concert exclusively for fourth grade students in the Iowa City Community School District. The annual event, staged in the UI's Voxman Music Building, attracted more than 1,400 students.

There is an intellectual side to being a goalkeeper on a NCAA Division I women's soccer team. Senior Claire Graves has that type of analytical mind as well as the physical attributes that have made her a four-year starter for the University of Iowa soccer team. "I like to say goalkeeping is an intellectual position," said Graves, a Noblesville, Indiana, native who intends to pursue a career in medicince. "You have to think and read. You're only called upon every 10-15 minutes, if that. You have to be mentally engaged to what might happen. My ability to think analytically is what gives me an edge, but sometimes it can bite me if I overthink, but most of the time, I have the ability to think ahead, and that helps."

20 University of Iowa students this fall are participating in an embedded peer tutoring program that helps meet two goals of the UI Strategic Plan 2016-2021: (1) to increase course-linked academic support options for gateway courses such as rhetoric and (2) for 60% of all undergraduates to participate in three or more high impact practices before they graduate.

More than 100 Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) students to participated in the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy's annual White Coat Ceremony staged in late August at the UI's Hancher Auditorium. The event officially welcomed the Pharm D Class of 2023 into the profession and the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy. In addition to reciting the Oath of the Pharmacist, the students were "coated" by members of the UI's College of Pharmacy Genesis Board, a group of young alumni whose mission is to provide opportunities that enhance the student experience and facilitate student success.

Two University of Iowa students are discovering that the skills and training that made them elite athletes are a surprisingly good fit with another role on campus - a researcher.

About 200 University of Iowa College of Dentistry students, faculty, and alumni participated in the Iowa Mission of Mercy dental clinic in Davenport in September, providing free care to people without dental insurance. The event provides Iowa students with the sort of experience they can't always get in a collegiate clinic.

More than 70 University of Iowa bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) students celebrated a significant personal milestone earlier this fall when they participated in the UI College of Nursing's biannual White Coat Ceremony. The donning of the white coat symbolizes a nursing student's transition to clinical nursing course work and live patient care. The recently white-coated BSN students officially joined a college with a rich tradition of more than 120 years of nursing and a mass of alumni who have impacted health care across the country and around the world.

260 current University of Iowa students are members of the 2019 Hawkeye Marching Band, one of the "top ten college marching bands in the nation," according to CNN Headline News and one of the Big Ten Conference's marching bands whose halftime show is "worth the watch," according to Sports Illustrated. The 2019 Hawkeye Marching Band - affectionately known as "Band 139" by its membership - is once again the sound of Iowa Football and the heartbeat of historic Kinnick Stadium at each of the nationally ranked Iowa Hawkeyes' seven home games. Iowa has won its first three games of the season; the Hawkeyes' next home game is Sept. 28 against Middle Tennessee State.

Earlier this month the University of Iowa welcomed the most academically accomplished class in its 172-year history. This fall's incoming undergraduate class at the UI topped previous records in achievement with a higher average high school GPA, at 3.76, than any previous class. The average high school GPA for the Classes of 2022 and 2021 - the two previous bests - were 3.71 and 3.69, respectively.

Jane Huffman, a 2019 graduate of the University of Iowa, was one of five winners of the 2019 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships awarded annually by the Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine. The fellowship program is in its 30th years and has honored 89 writers since its creation in 1989. Each poet receives a $25,800 prize, making the felllowship among the largest and most prestigious awards available for young poets in the United States.

The University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine held its 25th annual White Coat Ceremony in August for first-year students beginning their medical education at the UI. The event welcomed the Carver College of Medicine Class of 2023, and represented the first time the 152 future physicians recited the Oath of Hippocrates, calling attention to the importance of the doctor-patient relationship.

Katelyn Weisbrod of the University of Iowa's School of Journalism and Mass Communication traveled to India to cover how Alleppey city leaders in Kerala are dealing with a waste management system rendered inefficient due to the effects of climate change. Katelyn is the managing editor at the Daily Iowan where she oversees all reporters and digital platforms. Katelyn's Report: http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/navigating-alleppeys-obstacle-course-waste-management-its-us-change

For one Iowa high school senior, research was always a part of her future plans. To achieve this aspiration, undergraduate Margaret Mungai began her journey toward that goal of research shortly after stepping on campus, when she met first Antentor Hinton, Jr., PhD, at an on-campus networking event. A year later, as a sophomore, Mungai became Hinton's mentee, working in the lab directed by E. Dale Abel, MD, PhD. Now a senior neurobiology major, Mungai spends 20 to 30 hours of her week in the lab, focusing on the mitochondria's effect on the development of diabetes.

Three University of Iowa undergraduates, Megan Hynd, Elizabeth Kruse, and Madison Merfeld, were recipients of 2019 Iowa Neuroscience Institute (INI) Summer Scholar Award. The INI Summer Scholar Program supports University of Iowa undergraduates planning to pursue research during the summer in the lab of an INI faculty member. As INI Summer Scholars, the students received a stipend of $5,000 and had the opportunity to attend a summer undergraduate seminar series and a variety of informal events.

Chosen from thousands of applicants from colleges and universities across the United States, three University of Iowa undergraduates have been awarded the competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, to study abroad this fall (2019).

260 current University of Iowa students are members of the 2019 Hawkeye Marching Band, one of the "top ten college marching bands in the nation," according to CNN Headline News and one of the Big Ten Conference's marching bands whose halftime show is "worth the watch," according to Sports Illustrated. The 2019 Hawkeye Marching Band - affectionately known as "Band 139" by its membership - will once again be the sound of Iowa Football and the heartbeat of historic Kinnick Stadium at each of the nationally ranked Iowa Hawkeyes' seven home games. The HMB typically travels to one or two away games each season - and the bowl game when Iowa qualifies for postseason competition - and, therefore, will also support the Hawkeyes when the football team visits to Ames for the annual Cy-Hawk Series game against intrastate rival Iowa State. Iowa opens its season in Kinnick against Miami (Ohio) on Saturday, Aug. 31.

Megan Lough knew she would get a quality education at the University of Iowa College of Nursing. The school had popped up when she searched for the best nursing colleges. What she didn't expect was how her academic experiences abroad would unveil her true passions in health care. "I have a greater worldview because I went to the University of Iowa," says Lough, a native of Eagan, Minnesota. "I understand diversity more. I am able to see the value of an environment that continually cares about teaching and learning and researching and being innovative." By the time she graduated from Iowa with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2019, Lough had spent five months in Peru studying Spanish, five weeks in Colombia performing nursing research, and two weeks in Eswatini, a small country in southern Africa where she learned about community and public health nursing. These experiences, she says, helped her determine the kind of nurse she wants to be.

The Office of Outreach and Engagement at the University of Iowa partners with Iowa communities on dozens of projects each year. One of the most popular requests: public art. In fact, the office often receives more requests for public art than resources can provide. Thanks in part to a new residency program to train students in the intricacies of creating public art, boarded-up windows, concrete walls, and fertilizer bins will become canvases for large-scale public art projects in 10 Iowa communities this summer. One city also will welcome a large-scale, solar-powered sculpture to its downtown plaza. "Public art has been positioned as a driver of economic reinvestment," says Vero Rose Smith, associate curator at the UI Stanley Museum of Art and one of two faculty members working on the inaugural Grant Wood Public Art Residency. "It's hard to document; it's obliquely provable. But it does at the very least demonstrate a renewed sense of value and investment on an emotional level in the fabric of a place."

University of Iowa Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) student Brittany Hamm, BSN, RN, has been selected as an American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA) Board of Directors Student Scholar. Hamm, who is a candidate in the DNP's Psychiatric/Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) and Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) programs, is honored and fully aware of the positive impact this scholarship program will have on her professional development.

Nearly all University of Iowa students take an introductory rhetoric course to fulfill the speech and writing portion of their general education requirements, but only 59% of students who receive a D, F, or Withdrawal in their rhetoric course stay on campus. In addition, students who earn a C or lower in their required rhetoric course report that they feel less prepared for upper-level college courses. Troubled by these statistics, Dana Thomann, a lecturer in the Department of Rhetoric, partnered with ASR to create Success in Rhetoric (SIR), a new and growing embedded peer tutoring program.

When 10,000-ish RAGBRAI riders hit tiny Libertyville, Iowa, on July 25, those who are good at math knew how much the burg's population of 324 would multiply. And with the help of two University of Iowa students, residents were ready for them. Seniors Ryan Light and Ryan Raaf worked with the town's organizing committee, planning and putting together events that encouraged riders to stop for a few minutes during their cross-state ride.

The University of Iowa's graduating PharmD Class of 2019 included eight students who -- for the first time in the history of the College of Pharmacy at the UI -- earned a university-sanctioned Palliative Care Certificate. Graduates with the certificate are prepared to practice as palliative care generalists. The certificate is also a larger step toward the UI College of Pharmacy becoming the preeminent hospice and palliative care program in the nation.

Summer interns at 3M -- the multinational conglomerate operating in the fields of industry, worker safety, health care and consumer good -- don't make copies and fetch coffee. They are placed into the heart of projects that have the potential to impact future products, and eventually the world. For 3M intern and University of Iowa senior Zach Ingram, his impact has been significant, possibly leading to his first patent.

Scott Shaw, associate professor in the University of Iowa Department of Chemistry, wanted to minimize that learning curve for select incoming students at the UI by creating the Rural Scholars program. The initiative, beginning its fifth year this fall, is for rural Iowa students who have been accepted to the UI and live in communities not located near an in-state research institution. The idea, Shaw says, is to expose rural students to research the moment they step on campus and thus reduce, if not eliminate, the challenge of learning about and benefiting from a research setting. The most recent group of Rural Scholars completed its project, which compared the costs of creating various blends of ethanol fuel with the cost of producing unleaded gasoline. That group included -Evangeline Holyoake and Erick Fadness from Decorah, Iowa, and Camryn Norton from Pella, Iowa-spent the academic year designing its project, performing experiments, and gathering results that they presented in a poster session at the ICRU research fair in May. The students say they knew next to nothing about research before becoming Rural Scholars. The experience was eye opening, they say, highlighted by weekly meetings with Shaw and frequent interactions with graduate students in Shaw's lab, who introduced them to lab equipment, practices, and other facets of a successful research enterprise.

The American College of Veterinary Pharmacists student chapter is an organization that provides opportunities for pharmacy students to explore a career path in veterinary pharmacy. This organization engages pharmacy students who are interested in the field of veterinary pharmacy, by increasing awareness of the need for more veterinary pharmacists and the need for an enhanced education in animal pharmaceutical care. The ACVP student chapter partners with local animal shelters and animal hospitals to support programs related to veterinary cancer, diabetes, poison control, and animal safety