As part of an Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities project and using graphic designs from students in the School of Art & Art History, recent UI Informatics alumna Kaisha Billings built, during her last semester at Iowa, a community-based mobile app on behalf of the City of Mason City and Visit Mason City that connects residents and visitors to the local activities and resources. The Iowa...

“We wanted to show people that the North End isn’t that different from other parts of the city,” says Steven Van Steenhuyse, UI alumnus (BA ’83, MA ’87) and director of development services for the city of Mason City. “We want to share the good news about some of the new businesses and provide opportunities for people to come and see for themselves that what they thought all along is just not true...

Student, actor, director, teacher, and singer Tempestt Farrar confidently stepped up to the podium Wednesday, May 9, at the 2017-18 Annual Year-End Celebration for the Office of Outreach & Engagement to accept her award for Student Excellence and Service. She looked upward and sang out the first verse of Greatest Love of All. “This is how I feel,” she told an audience of faculty, staff, students...

A park that can take care of itself. It's an idea for a plot of land next to the Terry Trueblood Park in Iowa City. The University of Iowa's Urban and Regional Planning Department has been studying the area and it thinks taking it back in time is the right plan for the future. "We're talking pennies on the dollar for something that, if you were going to come in and clear cut the sight completely...

Early on in the course, University of Iowa urban and regional planning professors Lucie Laurian and Scott Spak asked their students to imagine the perfect landscape. When asked what they saw, many of the students said they envisioned a peaceful place with soft grass, a few shade trees, and a gentle stream or fish pond. Laurian and Spak told students they were thinking too narrowly. They showed...

The Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities has announced Webster City as the next community to partner with to promote sustainability. Webster City is a community located in Hamilton County with a population of 8,000. The group aims to promote sustainability in Iowa communities while transforming teaching and learning at the University of Iowa. When students work in the communities, they get...

The Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities at the University of Iowa Wednesday announced Webster City as its next community partner. Webster City’s resilience and grass-roots recovery initiatives reportedly inspired the IISC advisory board to choose the community for IISC’s engaged-learning partnership that will bring 150 or more university students, faculty, and staff to work alongside...

After a 2010 flood on the Maquoketa River caused the Lake Delhi dam to collapse and the lake behind it to drain, residents in this northeast Iowa community thought they might never get back their picturesque water views. But seven years later, thanks to an influx of state funding and the construction of a new dam, the lake and its prized scenery have returned. However, Lake Delhi residents still...