Guest Opinion: 2 Asian-American UI medical students weigh in on COVID-19, xenophobia
March 26, 2020
COVID-19 has officially landed in Iowa. This new virus has led to misguided panic and an exacerbation in displays of racism. Having done my undergraduate and now medical studies at the University of Iowa, I (Destinee) have seen first-hand how Asians are treated by their peers. An article published in Th...
Guest Opinion: Iowans, we stand with you, UI Hospitals and Clinics CEO writes
March 24, 2020
Fellow Iowans, In these times of facing the pandemic of COVID-19, there is a message that the state’s health-care workers and I wish to share: We stand with you. We’re making sure we have every tool in our toolkit to fight this thing together. From my vantage point, there is a lot of ...
Guest Opinion: Physicians shouldn’t condescend to those preferring alternative medicine
March 11, 2020
The divide between homeopathic and allopathic medicine dates back to the 1800s and, albeit shrinking, is still very much present today. As much as public interest in alternative medicine seems to have grown outside of clinic doors, the irritation and dismissive avoidance of the matter among healt...
Guest Opinion: Immigration detention centers have devastating health impacts on children
February 24, 2020
Children are dying at immigration detention centers. More are leaving the detention centers with psychological trauma. With more than 70,000 children apprehended at the border in 2019, it is critical to address the treatment of detained children migrants. Children can be found in three different arms ...
Guest Opinion: Faculty Senate has power to fix catastrophic leave
February 20, 2020
Last semester, months of meetings and back-and-forth between some of my contingent faculty colleagues, members of Faculty Senate, and representatives of the University of Iowa Human Resources department came to a sudden halt when the faculty senators decided to push through a catastrophic sick-leave po...
Guest Opinion: All Democrats should vote for whoever wins the primary
February 12, 2020
As a 19-year-old first-year student, this is my first go at a presidential election. That’s not to say I wasn’t politically active as a 16-year-old for the 2016 election, but I wasn’t able to finish the job by casting a ballot. In 2016, I was a huge supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. It is...
Guest Opinion: New catastrophic leave policy for UI faculty is faulty
February 6, 2020
Nobody chooses to get catastrophically ill. It just happens. At a large institution like the University of Iowa, this raises a policy question: What will we do when employees get very sick? This is a policy question because we can reliably predict that some small but nonzero number of people wil...
Guest Opinion: New psychological building gives the department much-improved home
February 5, 2020
At long last, students in the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department have a home. Sure, we’ve had the Spence Laboratories of Psychology since 1968, and clinical folks have Stuit Hall. But the department office, faculty offices, and several labs — including my own — were in Seashore Ha...
Guest Opinion: The Doctor Is In: Let’s talk about sex(ually transmitted infections)
February 2, 2020
While you might think sexually transmitted infections are a topic too taboo for regular conversation, the increasing rates of STIs in Iowa emphasize the need to not only talk about STIs, but to actually get tested and treated for them as well. According to the Iowa Department of Public Health, the...
Guest Opinion: Joe Biden’s quiet power is why I’m caucusing for him
January 30, 2020
Iowans have the privilege of meeting a lot of presidential candidates. I have been able to meet, shake hands, get face time, take selfies, and generally take stock of many, many candidates. The current nomination cycle has produced a crop of such opportunities given the 20-plus candidates running for p...
Guest Opinion: Provide excused absences for classes during Iowa caucuses
January 29, 2020
On Sunday, the Association of Big Ten Students passed a resolution calling on professors and student organization executives at all 14 Big Ten universities to provide excused absences for students participating in federal elections. College students already face multiple barriers to voting, and c...
Guest Opinion: Warren is the right presidential candidate on education
January 20, 2020
A question has emerged in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination: Does every American have the right to a high-quality, low-cost public education? For those of us who believe it is, it’s time to make public college free for all who wish to pursue it. Because our state government in Io...