The Iowa Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s public universities, would no longer have a voting student member under a bill advanced by a House subcommittee on Wednesday. House Study Bill 534 replaces the one voting student member on the board with three non-voting student members.
A lobbyist for the Board of Regents raised concerns about taking away the student member’s voting abilities. They said the board values input from students and feels that rotating student representation between the universities has worked well.
The bill would also add a ninth appointed regent, plus four non-voting state lawmakers to the board. And it would change voting members’ terms to four years instead of six.
Currently, Iowa Code states that the board can’t have more than five members of the same political party. The bill changes that cap to only apply to voting members.