The University of Iowa Staff Council began in 1967 as the result of efforts by Don Volm, then the Assistant Director of Personnel Services and Jean Kendall, recently retired Director of IMU. The Council represented all Professional and Scientific and Merit staff and was mostly concerned with personnel issues. In 1973, the Council became the primary advocate for policy changes and charter committee appointments.

In mid-1970, the Iowa Public Employment Relations Act was passed and subsequently AFSCME gained the exclusive right to represent employees when voted to bargain collectively. Bargaining was set up on a state wide basis. The first unit to chose to bargain was the blue collar staff, security next, then technical, and finally in the early 80s, the clerical staff. In 1998, Health Care staff elected to have SEIU as their bargaining agent. As each group began to bargain, those representatives had to leave Staff Council so as not to interfere with AFSCMEs or SEIUs right to act as their exclusive representative.

Staff Council has made many accomplishments over the years including the Grievance Procedure, the Anti-Retaliation policy, review of At-will status, bringing MSE/C staff under the faculty/staff benefits policy, making extra-meritorious bonuses available for MSE staff, initiated the Staff Tuition Grant and Tuition Assistance programs, proposed and developed fellowship programs to reward and recognize staff, developed the recently revised classification review policy, initiated the catastrophic illness policy for staff and faculty, proposed the new staff and faculty orientation, and strongly advocated for a mandatory, formal offer letter for new staff appointments.