Center for Intellectual Freedom advisers debate oversight of activities, curriculum

Members of the executive committee advising the Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa expressed concern Tuesday about potential limitations on director decisions  and the intricacies of establishing required civics curriculum.

The center advisory council’s executive committee, in their first meeting of the school year, discussed the next steps in the search for a permanent center director, as well as efforts to plan individual and collaborative programming and get started on the center’s academic staffing and offerings.

Christine Hensley, a member of the Iowa Board of Regents and chair of the advisory council, said there have been discussions addressing “the center for intellectual freedom becoming an independent entity,” but there are still questions that need answers.

“The relationship between the center and the university is absolutely important, so I’m very glad that these frameworks are in the process of being established,” said Thomas Gallanis, George Mason University law professor and executive committee member. “The academic relationship between the center and the university is particularly crucial. The center’s ability to hire both the director and faculty, and the center’s ability to offer courses for credit, minors, majors, etc. all depend on the academic framework that will be established.”

Concerns over board, university oversight

Luciano de Castro, interim director of the center for intellectual freedom, said he’s received multiple invitations from other centers to conferences “related to American culture” and the 250th anniversary of its creation but was told by members of a new board of regents committee he should not attend them in order to focus on the speaker series and director search.

The board approved a new regents committee with the mission of overseeing the center for intellectual freedom and its advisory council in July.

“There (are) other conferences … for instance, events that were organized by the other centers in UNI and Iowa State University that I was invited and planned to attend, but I have also to obtain the authorization to attend those conferences,” de Castro said.

Members of the executive committee expressed confusion and concern at the board’s restriction on de Castro’s activities, with University of Texas at Austin associate professor and committee member Richard Lowery saying “these are exactly the sort of conferences you need to go to if you’re going to be recruiting faculty and raising the profile of the center.”

Decisions to go to conferences or other events are usually left up to the faculty member or official going to them, Lowery said, and he doesn’t believe this is an “acceptable approach to governance at the center.”

Hensley said the timing of the conferences de Castro requested to attend “is inappropriate” as he focuses on the speaker series, and she doesn’t believe that this will be an issue in the future.

“I think the director of this center, whoever it is, is going to make a big sacrifice. But we need to make this center intellectually attractive, and this is not the signal we want to give to anybody, frankly,” committee member and Stanford associate professor Iván Marinovic said. “So I think this was a big mistake, and I think we shouldn’t make it again.”

Lowery also shared concerns about the advisory council’s scholar committee efforts to begin thinking about hiring faculty or crafting curriculum when the academic framework, as well as a permanent director who is supposed to be involved with these processes, are not yet in place.

De Castro suggested creating subcommittees within the scholar committee to focus on either hiring or curriculum curation, for which Lowery and Hensley both voiced support.

Hensley said the scholar committee should move ahead in its work with the understanding that the UI Provost’s Office and academic officers with the board of regents are also identifying currently offered courses that could meet these requirements, and “you’re going to have to come together at some point.”

“It’s going to be a three-legged stool,” Hensley said. “You’re going to have the scholar committee at the advisory council, you’re going to have the new director that’s going to want to have significant input, and you have to have an understanding of what’s currently being offered at the university.”

Lowery said he’s hesitant to “burn people’s time” on developing courses if the end result is “whatever the provost wants to happen is going to happen,” which Hensley countered by saying the council will only receive input from the Provost’s Office.

Gallanis and Lowery proposed holding a scholar committee meeting, without Hensley present but receiving minutes and other information after the fact, in order to inform members of what’s been happening with the center.

“It would be very valuable, I think, for the scholars to be able to talk among themselves about where the center is, where the center may be headed, where the center should be headed,” Gallanis said.

Candidate pool narrowed for director position

The committee received 62 applications for the center director job, Hensley said, with six that could be discussed in open session. Of the six applicants mentioned in open session, only one was moved forward in consideration — #45, whose last name is De Castro. No first names were provided during the meeting, and it is unclear whether the de Castro named as an applicant is the same as the center’s interim director.

Officially posted in mid-June, the job description for the center director position stated applications should be filed by Aug. 14 “to ensure best consideration,” with search committee chair Richard Lowery saying at a June advisory council meeting that the board of regents hopes to have someone selected in its September meeting.

Hensley told board members in a June meeting that “everything else will be on pause” with the center beyond establishing a speaker series, including offering courses during the fall semester, as the search for a director is ongoing and the council must create courses by 2028 to satisfy new requirements in civics education.