It’s probably best not to dwell on what it says about life in Iowa that the names of two fearsome types of weather originated here. But in 1870, a northwest Iowa newspaper attached an already violence-laced word to the most violent sort of snowstorm, and 18 years later, a former UI professor borrowed the Spanish […]
University of Iowa history
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When the Iowa women’s basketball team packed Carver — in 1985
For most of her 62 years, “nobody cared about women’s basketball,” Lisa Bluder has said, especially when compared to the phenomenon it is today. Athletic scholarships were practically nonexistent before 1972. Attendance could range from a few dozen to a few hundred. Uniforms and facilities were often less than ideal. But the sport still had […]
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KRUI student radio celebrates 40 years fighting dead air and adult control on the University of Iowa campus
This is a scrappy story of young folks bum-rushing the airwaves through sheer force of will. With humble origins that can be traced back to a University of Iowa dormitory broom closet, KRUI is now celebrating 40 years of FM radio broadcasting thanks to the passion of students and other community members. In the beginning […]
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The Long game: A brief history of the six-on-six era of women’s basketball
More than 50 years before number 22 of the Iowa Hawkeyes was amazing basketball fans and creating new ones, number 55 on the girls basketball team of Union-Whitten High School in Harden County was doing the same. The six-on-six era of girls basketball in Iowa had a lot of dynamic players and high scorers, but […]
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Emlen Tunnell, heroic Coast Guardsman, groundbreaking NFL player and one-time Hawkeye, was born 100 years ago today
Friday, March 29, marks 100 years since Emlen Tunnell was born in eastern Pennsylvania. Tunnel made history on the football field, first as a Hawkeye, then in the NFL. After his playing days were over, Tunnell continued to make football history by becoming one of the first Black assistant coaches in the NFL. In 1967, […]
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Sue Gilbert — Saint Suzie to queer nuns everywhere — recalls all the drag, drama and action of Iowa City’s gay scene in the ’70s
It’s time for Sue Gilbert to come clean. At least, that’s what she told me in an email leading up to this interview. Gilbert played a supporting role in the growth of Iowa City’s drag and Gay Pride scene in the ’70s — and, thanks to a bizarre and surely predestined string of circumstances, planted […]
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The University of Iowa’s anechoic chamber — where soundwaves go to die
Deep within (OK, down a flight of stairs beneath) the University of Iowa’s Wendell Johnson Speech and Hearing Center is an anechoic chamber. The antithesis of an echoey cave, the ultra-soundproofed space prevents sound waves from bouncing off the wall or floor, creating a useful environment for audio research. The chamber, built during construction of […]
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Keith Haring left his mark on Iowa City. Thirty-five years later, it will go on public display for the first time.
From kindergarten through sixth grade, I spent countless hours staring at a wall in the Horn Elementary School library, daydreaming while an adult read a book to the class. Far more compelling than a fire alarm or a poster of LeVar Burton, I would fixate on a massive mural mounted on the wall of the […]
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University of Iowa Translation Workshop celebrates 60 years of supporting the art and labor of translation
The Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation at the University of Iowa is one of only a handful of similar programs worldwide. A key facet, the 60-year-old UI Translation Workshop, predates the MFA program by a decade. Boasting the title of “the country’s first translation workshop in a university setting,” it took shape during […]
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Elizabeth Catlett documentary captures a trailblazing UI grad who helped shape the 20th century art world
In a new documentary on artist Elizabeth Catlett, Heather Nickels, a curator at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, remarks that Catlett’s mission as a sculptor and printmaker was to excavate the stories of “nameless and faceless” Black women. Standing Strong, directed by Kevin Kelley — and screening at the Des Moines Arts Center on […]
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Self-styled ‘Iowa witch’ Kari Lake is hoping her MAGA mission from God will lead to D.C.
These days, Iowa-raised Trump ally Kari Lake is best known for losing — and refusing to concede — her 2022 bid for Arizona governor. But in May 2016, Lake was putting her journalism degree from the University of Iowa to good use, and even scored an interview with President Barack Obama. “I don’t remember at […]
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‘We all suffer from the loss of them’: How the AIDS crisis shaped the next generation of LGBTQ activism in Iowa City
This is the final article in a three-part series examining the legacy of HIV/AIDS in Iowa City. In the early 1980s, Rev. John Harper was a fresh-faced graduate student at the University of Iowa and a semi-active member of the Gay People’s Union. He’d heard about some disease affecting gay men in New York and […]
