The Daily Iowan sat down with the University of Iowa President Barbara Wilson on Friday afternoon to discuss DEI changes and federal funding.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

 The Daily Iowan: You spoke to lawmakers earlier this year saying you had concerns about DEI cuts and their impact on the University of Iowa. How is the university planning on navigating these changes while supporting students?

Wilson: We’re going to follow the law. We have to follow the law. We’re a state institution, and we had board directives that asked us to take a hard look at spending around DEI, and now we’ve got a state law that will go into effect in July, so we’ve continued to do the work that we think will be necessary to comply with the law.

We’re going to continue to support students from all backgrounds with all kinds of belief systems and with all kinds of experiences and philosophical viewpoints they have. We’ve continued to provide support across the institution in a variety of offices and places and spaces. I don’t think we’ve changed our values. We may change the way in which we do some of the work. We’re going to make sure it’s available for everybody. We’re not getting rid of any student orgs that support students. Those are not part of the mandates from the board or from state law.

What is your response to concerns that the dismantling of DEI structures may harm the university’s national reputation or accreditation — especially considering the impending enrollment cliff?

I’m always concerned if students don’t feel a supportive environment. The challenges around DEI are happening across the country, and indeed, some of it’s coming out of the federal government, too.

Even accreditation agencies are changing their requirements. So, if we were the only state or the only institution in this situation, I would be really concerned, but I think we’re joined by most of our colleagues across the country with the kinds of changes we’ve made. We may just be a little ahead of some of them because they’re in different places and spaces.

What will the closing of the university LLCs mean for students and housing options in the coming years?

 We’ve just closed three Living Learning Communities. We’ve continued to allow students to select roommates and live with and by people that they want to live with, and we’re not restricting any of that. Some of those activities that perhaps were happening in the LLCs will happen elsewhere through Student Life and other kinds of things. We didn’t want to get into a place where students moved into one of those, and then we had to shut them down later.

So, for us, it was, let’s anticipate where state law is going and make sure our students are supported and not disrupted in the middle of a year.

How is the university navigating federal restrictions on international student visas? What is being done to support international students?

Lots. Lots is being done. Our international studies program has been very active with all of our international students, making sure they have the resources they need, the information that they need, access to legal resources if they need it. Fortunately, we haven’t had very many instances, but it causes anxiety amongst students, and we know that, so we’re behind the scenes, working really carefully with our international students across all of our units and helping them navigate.

With more clarity following the House settlement approaching, how will Iowa navigate the opportunity for a pay for-play model of college athletics?

If the House case gets approved, and it could any day, we’re going to join in on this process and make sure that we have income opportunities for our student athletes, and we’ll comply with the House settlement.

I think one thing that the House settlement could do — hopefully will do — is allow us to get some guardrails around NIL, to be more proactive in helping our students navigate NIL, and then to make sure that we’re sharing income with our student athletes, at least in certain sports where the revenues are quite, quite a bit larger than others.

So, I think it’s a lot of change, but we’re ready for it. We’ve got a great athletic director. She’s been working in close contact with Big Ten and with the other conferences, and we’re ready if it gets settled.

The Iowa Legislature passed a bill requiring 80 percent of the College of Medicine and Dentistry admits to be Iowa residents or graduates. How could that requirement impact funding for the University of Iowa?

Well, if it’s a law, we’ll follow the law.

The good news is that right now, without doing anything, about 70 percent of our incoming students are residents, so if it gets passed, and it looks like it may, it’s not going to fundamentally change who we are and what we do, particularly because we help the state legislature craft the bill in a way where we can count four-year graduates of Iowa institutions as residents, even if they came from out of state, and that will allow us to more easily comply with the law.

The bigger goal is — we share this with the legislature — we want to serve the state of Iowa. We want as many students who are qualified to be admitted to our professional schools, and we’d like more of them to stay in the state and practice, so we have less control over that part of it.

They’re hoping that by having more Iowa residents in our professional programs, they’ll just naturally stay, and what we’ve been helping them appreciate is that there have to be good jobs and good incentives to keep people in the state once they graduate. It’s not just an admission issue, it’s a support afterward issue as well.

Athletics Director Beth Goetz has made some serious shake-ups regarding the coaching staff here at Iowa. What does this say about the future of athletics at our university?

We’re in great shape. She’s doing exactly what I hope she would do. We have made some great hires. She’s always got student athletes in the forefront of every decision she makes. We work together all the time on these issues, and I’m excited about where we are on several of our sporting fronts.

 What is your long-term vision for the University of Iowa in a time when federal support for higher education appears increasingly uncertain?

 Well, it’s not just my vision, it’s our vision, but we have a whole team of people working on our vision for the future. I hope that the federal government doesn’t give up on supporting universities. I know it feels a little bit shaky right now.

Universities are really good for the economy. They’re critical for health and welfare. If we’re going to continue to be a leader in the world, in technology and in medicine and in space science, we have to have universities, and we have to support these universities. So, I’m not willing to say they’re going to give up on funding yet, but I think we have to do an even better job as universities of making the case for why federal support is critical to what we do. Certainly, that’s my job, but I can’t do it alone.

RELATED: Q&A | UI President Barbara Wilson talks campus diversity, building updates

Does the university plan to compensate for the impact of federal defunding on the International Writing Program by reinstating or adapting programs, including distance learning courses and the mentorship program?

We are working with that program. We just were delighted to hear about some donor support for the program. We’re working with the director and his staff to talk with folks about alternative ways of funding. We will probably not be able to do everything we did in that program, because the state support just got yanked away. But I think our goal is to not lose that program. It’s been around for a long time. It brings amazing writers to campus every fall.

There seems to be a lot of excitement in the Iowa fan base around the hiring of Ben McCollum. How has that enthusiasm reached your desk?

I met him before we hired him, and I could sense that he was going to be an amazing individual. I think he’s got the right values. He’s laser-focused on building a team. He’s excited about the fan base here.

Iowa is currently executing its 10-year master plan. How could changes to federal funding impact that plan?

A lot of what we do, we fund ourselves through donors and through the IMU funding. We’re not relying on federal funds for that at all. In spite of all the noise around federal funding right now, we’ve only lost 2 percent of our grants and 1 percent of our funding.

I don’t want to lose that 1 percent. I’m not suggesting that it’s not important, but we have been really so far. We’re very lucky that most of our grants are continuing, and we’re going to continue to fight for that.

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