Doing lunch: President Coleman hits the road and talks with Iowans

In July, President Mary Sue Coleman greeted a Rotary Club member during a meeting of the Des Moines Noon Rotary Club. The visit was just one of Coleman’s efforts to share news of the University with the state. Photo by Steve Parrott.

Over the past 12 months, President Coleman has visited nearly a dozen towns and cities across the state of Iowa to speak to community groups, from chambers of commerce to service clubs like Rotary and Kiwanis. She outlines the benefits and services that The University of Iowa provides to the state and then takes any and all questions from audience members.

“Since we are a public university, we are obligated to be responsive to our state’s citizens,” President Coleman says. “And face-to-face contact is the best way to know what our constituency is thinking. At the same time, we also must keep Iowans informed about how the University contributes to our high quality of life. It’s crucial for maintaining the goodwill of the public that we serve and which in turn supports us.”

Usually, the centerpiece of these visits is a lunch or dinner speaking engagement with a community group, though sometimes these busy people meet at breakfast. One day last spring, President Coleman departed Iowa City at 4 a.m. for a sunrise Rotary breakfast in Des Moines. Attendees can be diverse. Besides the usual business and organization leaders, two former governors listened to President Coleman at a recent Des Moines noon Rotary meeting. A Kiwanis luncheon in Storm Lake last spring recognized local high school honor students, and President Coleman spent just as much time talking with these young people as she did with local business leaders. And very often, a president of a local college or university shows up, giving the UI president a chance for some informal time with her peer leaders.

“After I share the good news about the UI with these community leaders, they spread the word to the constituents they lead and serve,” President Coleman says. “But I also can take the pulse of these communities, learning about their concerns for higher education in our state as well as their pride in our institution.” While President Coleman talks seriously with citizens about such issues as education funding, economic development, and providing opportunities that will keep young people in the state, she also is reminded at every visit that Iowans beam with pride at Hawkeye accomplishments on the athletic field, in the arts world, in the classroom, and in the laboratory.

These community visits are not one-stop hops, however.

“If I’m going to visit Storm Lake or Clinton, I want to visit with as many people as possible,” President Coleman insists. So before and after the mealtime speaking engagement, she scurries about town, giving newspaper and radio interviews, visiting with local legislators, or taking a tour of the town. One of the most unusual trips was to Sioux City early this summer, when, after speaking with the local Rotary club, President Coleman toured several community organization sites connected with the M.S.W. program that the UI School of Social Work operates in that western Iowa community.

“I learn so much about our state–its people, its beauty, its problems, and its strengths,” she reflects. “And that’s important to my job as the leader of the largest public higher education institution in Iowa.”

As often as possible, President Coleman brings faculty members with her.

“It’s just as important for our faculty to connect with people in our state’s communities as it is for citizens to have the chance to talk with our professors,” she says.

And those interactions bear fruit, from a cooperative educational exchange between UI faculty and Council Bluffs school teachers set up before lunch one day last January, to new appreciation among faculty for the institution’s public obligations.

These visits can be fun, too. In Council Bluffs, laughter reigned as local Rotarians were “fined” one dollar for being mentioned in the local newspaper. In Marshalltown to speak to the chamber of commerce, President Coleman had to make her traditional stop at Stone’s Restaurant for a slice of pie, bringing back memories of her days growing up in Iowa. And those incorrigible singing habits of Rotarians and Kiwanians everywhere keep her vocal cords tuned up.

“Most importantly, though,” President Coleman concludes, “these community visits across Iowa keep us in touch with what we’re all about.”

Article by Thomas K. Dean