Regents History: September 16, 1999
Board Membership
- Owen Newlin, President, Des Moines
- Lisa Ahrens, Osage
- David Fisher, West Des Moines
- Clarkson Kelly, Charles City
- Ellengray Kennedy, Bancroft
- Roger Lande, Muscatine
- David Neil, LaPorte City
- Beverly Smith, Waterloo
- Deborah Turner, Mason City
Meeting Highlights
Iowa State announced it had received an $80 million gift to its College of Agriculture. At the time, the gift ranked as the largest ever given to a college or university in Iowa and the eighth largest given to any university. ISU President Martin Jischke noted the gift was from anonymous benefactors, though the Des Moines Register had named the donors as the late Raymond and Mary Baker of Des Moines. Regardless of source, the Board approved the gift as the initial seed of ISU’s Plant Sciences Institute, which serves as an umbrella organization over several centers focused on plant sciences to this day.
The Board received a status report on Year 2000 (Y2K) Readiness at Iowa’s public universities. The Board’s Peer Review Team, in conjunction with the state’s Emergency Management Division, had run test simulating the forthcoming Y2K date changeover, which was known to cause software problems and crashes. The team stated that all three universities were in compliance with statewide Y2K operations. Final testing and simulation was completed September 29, 1999 and the Year 2000 changeover occurred with few issues on January 1, 2000.
The Board approved the appointment of Gary Steinke as ISU Director of Governmental Relations. Steinke held this position until 2004, when he was appointed Interim Executive Director of the Board of Regents. The interim tag was removed in 2005 and he served until 2008.
