This is real. The chaos and uncertainty you are wrestling with — that you feel as unease and fatigue — is real. The pandemic is really happening, and that is the most important thing for you to remember. When you feel overwhelmed or disoriented, consciously remind yourself that the coronavirus pandemic is real.

The Story So Far
Late in 2019 a virus made the leap from animal to man, precipitating an outbreak in China. Because of a delayed response to that outbreak by the Chinese government, the virus was able to leap to other countries, precipitating a pandemic. Because of a delayed response to that pandemic by the American government, the virus was able to overrun the United States.

Following varying degrees of mitigation over several months, the federal government and the governors of America’s states and territories are now relaxing restrictions in service of economic recovery. Despite this easing of restrictions, however, the virus persists, and nothing about the biological threat posed by the pandemic has changed.  [ Read more ]

I will continue to add updates about J. Bruce Harreld and his illegitimate presidency to this threaded post. If this post scrolls you will be able to find it by clicking the link in the sticky post at the top of the home page. You can also bookmark this post, or search for it using various keywords and phrases, such as Harreld, fraud, co-conspirator, or carpetbagging dilettante.

05/31/20 — As detailed exhaustively in prior posts, one of the truly corrosive administrative accomplishments of illegitimate UI president J. Bruce Harreld involved kicking Diversity, Equity and Inclusion out of his office and out his cabinet, and instead foisting responsibility for those concerns onto the provost’s office and the academic side of campus. In that context, let’ us consider once again the following spectacular exchange from Harreld’s Daily Iowan interview on 02/16/20 — only three and a half months ago — in which he dismisses concerns about “representation” and instead focuses on “behavior”:

DI: Going back to the VP for Student Life search specifically, there have been some questions at those forums about the candidate’s role, should they be chosen for the job, in a predominantly white President’s Cabinet. With you, of course, being the leader of that core group of administrators, how would you ensure that the next VP for Student Life feels supported in that space, and that they also serve students from all backgrounds — whether they’re one of the candidates from an underrepresented community themselves, or whatever the situation may be?

Harreld: If they’ve got an open mind, have an appropriate skill set, and have a broad set of collaborative skills, they’ll be fine. I think in a lot of this, we’re trying to find another Melissa [Shivers], and I think that is a mistake. Melissa is Melissa. She’s wonderful. But now we need to find somebody else that can actually do the job here. So, now we’re focused on how we have just an overly white cabinet. We’ll be fine. So, if this is the only position on campus in the senior leadership that will actually improve our diversity, we’re really in trouble, and I don’t buy that. Behavior is most important. Representation is important, but behaviors are by far more important.

Personally, I’m still astonished that a very old white man — who only managed to land himself in the president’s office at UI because of his crony connections to a small cabal of other old white men — would just come right out and say something like this, but okay. Perhaps Harreld’s very white and largely old superiors at the Iowa Board of Regents, and in the governor’s office, are just fine with the idea that “representation” has no real value. Now that the United States is blowing up over the murder of a black man by a white police officer, however, with protests and riots across the country, it also not particularly surprising that Bro Bruce decided to issue a statement today, along with his hostage provost, announcing the impending release of an update to the university’s DEI ‘action plan’.

Now, if you’re not familiar with the UI DEI action plan, it’s a largely meaningless document which Harreld routinely refers to in order to obscure the fact that he intentionally ejected diversity, equity and inclusion from his own office. So while he may not be concerned with hiring people of color into positions of power in his presidential cabinet — because well-behaved white people are just as good, if not better — he is once again willing to wave pieces of paper around which speak to a higher good that he himself does not believe in. In that spirit, then, and in the face of a rapidly accelerating cultural crisis, Harreld is announcing that some time later this week he will one again wave those pieces of paper around, only this time in the apparent hope that they will keep people from actively protesting. And I would assume that includes Iowa’s student-athletes, many of whom are set to return to campus one week from tomorrow.

05/30/20 — If I learned anything over the past five years or so, in the aftermath of the rigged hire of J. Bruce Harreld as illegitimate president of the University of Iowa, it is that if you really want to know what’s happening at the Iowa Board of Regents or its subsidiary universities, all you have to do is follow the money. Speaking of which, for all the wailing that the UI Athletic Department is already doing about the revenue it expects to lose to the pandemic — and it will certainly take a hit — that hasn’t dissuaded the school from spending. Which is to say that so far business as usual is business as usual.

From the Daily Iowan’s Robert Read: UI asking regents to approve new women’s soccer complex. Without making any judgment as to need, if you are plowing ahead with a $3.9M investment for a collegiate soccer team in the middle of a global health crisis, then objectively you do not have any real problems. Because if you did have real problems you would be pushing that project back and hoarding cash, and that clearly isn’t happening.

* Recently you may have heard that a number of colleges and universities are abandoning the ACT and SAT altogether. In the context of higher-ed that is interesting in itself, but on the economic side it is particularly relevant to Iowa City, Iowa, which is home to ACT. And as expected, those academic decisions are having a big impact on business at that company.

From Valerie Strauss at the WaPo: Testing giants ACT and College Board struggle amid covid-19 pandemic.

In Iowa City, ACT, Inc., chief executive Marten Roorda, who aggressively lobbied against the UC decision, is suddenly out of his job. The organization posted a news release on its website announcing Roorda’s departure without saying why he was leaving and introducing Janet Godwin, the chief operating officer who is a 30-year veteran at ACT, as interim chief executive.

ACT also announced that it was taking “a series of cost-cutting measures to enable it to continue to serve students into the future, despite the current negative business impact of covid-19.” And, it said, no one would get a raise next year while some fringe benefits would be reduced. “Further cost reductions are expected,” it said.

Given the downturn in nationwide enrollment that was already anticipated, to say nothing of the negative enrollment effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the ostensible and burdensome ranking service that ACT provided may simply be unnecessary in the higher-ed industry going forward. Whether ACT survives or goes the way of the buggy whip I don’t know, but testing is probably not a growth industry in the near term.

05/29/20 — There will be a lot of news spilling forth today because the Iowa Board of Regents finally posted the agenda for its “virtual” June 4th meeting in Iowa City, and because the Iowa Revenue Estimating Conference is meeting today in Des Moines, in anticipation of the legislature reconvening on June 3rd. In terms of long-term effects, the most important news today is contained in this document from the board’s agenda, which details the names and titles of the people who will now begin dismantling Iowa’s three independent state universities under cover of the coronavirus pandemic, and remaking them into a single system focused on revenue generation and the funding of entrepreneurial ventures with tuition and fees. In effect, the Iowa Board of Regents will be converting public education into a quasi-governmental corporation which sells degrees in order to generate more and more profit for the state — both directly, and indirectly through startups, intellectual property, sponsored programs, and other business mechanisms. And as long as the individuals named on that document continue to get paid, they won’t stop it.

* The official numbers informing today’s meeting of the Iowa Revenue Estimating Conference are here. In typical fashion, the head of the REC, Dave Roederer, was idiotically optimistic, but the numbers themselves don’t lie. (I don’t believe the losses at the tail end of FY2020 will trigger clawbacks — opportunistic or otherwise — but FY2021 is going to be tight.)

From the Des Moines Register’s Stephen Gruber-Miller: Iowa expecting $65 million year-over-year drop in revenue due to coronavirus.

From the AP’s David Pitt: Panel says virus reduced $360M from next year’s state budget.

One thing to keep in mind is that just because Iowa’s governor is pretending the worst of the pandemic is over, that doesn’t mean the worst of the pandemic is over. In fact, we have no idea about coronavirus transmission when K-12 and colleges are in full swing, because in-class education stopped in its tracks in mid-March. We are all still guessing about what happens next.

* From Kelsey Harrell and Katie Ann McCarver at the Daily Iowan: UIHC expected to take unprecedented $100 million hit this fiscal year due to COVID-19 with more losses on the horizon.

Interesting additional info in the .pdf version of the presentation that UIHC will give to the Iowa Board of Regents at next week’s meeting.

* Two days ago the following tweet appeared from the Corridor Business Journal, complete with a large photo of a photogenic woman, and a smaller and wildly out of date picture of illegitimate University of Iowa president J. Bruce Harreld:

Register now for the CBJ’s Mid-Year Economic Review. The June 24 live webinar will examine how the economy has changed in 2020 and discuss challenges facing Corridor businesses. Panelists include Bruce Harreld of @uiowa and Lura McBride of @VanMeterInc.

For those outside Eastern Iowa, the ‘corridor’ in question is actually a marketing name for the economic union of Iowa City (home to UI) and Cedar Rapids, which sits about twenty miles or so to the north. What is particularly ironic about asking Harreld to shoot his mouth off at such a gathering is that only a year or two earlier, Harreld devoted himself to destroying the reputation of a venerable Cedar Rapids company called Modern Piping. In fact, along with impugning the integrity of Modern Piping in the press, and in public testimony before the Iowa Board of Regents, Harreld blew millions of dollars trying to fight Modern Piping in court over their performance on a bungled, botched and badly managed UI construction project, and lost every case every time.

Proving that hell hath no furry like a toady scorned, Harreld finally succeeded in exacting revenge by pissing away $4M in state money to ban Modern Piping from future UI projects. So yeah — I can’t imagine a better speaker to explain to the corridor business community how to position themselves to advantage for the remainder of 2020. First, make sure you have plenty of government money to throw around….

05/28/20 — One interesting byproduct of the sociopathic disregard that Iowa’s governor has for human life, is how her bloodless attitude informs the leadership at the University of Iowa. Only recently we discussed how illegitimate UI president J. Bruce Harreld believed that the entire pandemic might already be behind us by now — which would have allowed him to put the football team on the practice field, and launch the fall semester as if nothing had happened — even as COVID-19 shows no sign of abating, and we have no treatments or cure. Coincidentally, yet perhaps also inevitably, today’s malevolent UI administrator is none other than UI Athletic Director Gary Barta, who seems to have the same brain damage.

From the Daily Iowan’s Robert Read: Iowa AD Gary Barta not ruling out full capacity of fans in Kinnick Stadium this season.

Iowa Athletic Director Gary Barta said Thursday on a video conference that he is not ruling out Hawkeye football games being played in front of a full capacity Kinnick Stadium this season.

“I’m still, and my staff are still, planning for several different scenarios.” Barta said. “And the scenarios we plan for seem to change by the hour, by the day, by the week. But as of today we are still planning to open Kinnick up and have as many fans join us as want to join us. That’s one of our scenarios and we haven’t closed that scenario down yet.

By way of review, while the university has already committed to crowding +32K students back on campus in order to generate multiple COVID-19 outbreaks in the fall, even Harreld recognizes that cramming a lot of people into a relatively small space would be asking for trouble. And he’s a dolt.

From the Daily Iowan’s Josie Fischels, on 05/12: UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences planning for large classes to be at least partially virtual.

Fall courses with an expected enrollment of 50 or more students are planned to be offered in either blended or entirely online modes. A blended course could include an online lecture paired with an in-person discussion section or lab, according to the email.

So on the academic side of campus it has already been determined that a group of 50 or more will require mitigation, but because he’s money-grubbing garbage Gary Barta is still trying to figure out how to jam 70K fans into Kinnick Stadium — because after the game most of them will head home and get sick or die somewhere else. But it gets better.

From the Gazette’s Marc Morehouse: Iowa AD Gary Barta says the goal is a full Kinnick Stadium this fall, but that path isn’t going to be easy or clear.

The two big takeaways: Barta said the UI is looking into numerous ways to mitigate the risk of contracting the virus. He also pledged transparency on what Iowa is doing to mitigate.

“Once fans know what we’re doing to mitigate, then they’ll make a choice to attend or not attend and they’ll also make a choice to protect others around them,” Barta said.

Now…let’s take a moment and marvel at the fact that the UI Athletic Director just made it optional — “a choice” — for a fan in one seat at Kinnick, or Carver-Hawkeye Arena, to “protect others around them”. As to why he may have done that, however, I can think of two reasons. First, the university doesn’t want to police disputes between people who are or are not wearing masks or face shields or coughing or vomiting all over the people in the seats around them. Second, as a general objective, the university wants to preclude any legal liability from consequent injury or death, and as such intends to make clear that if anyone gets sick or dies after attending a Hawkeye sporting event, it’s their own damn fault.

* Update 5/29/20 — Rob Howe at Hawkeye Nation posted a full transcript of Barta’s presser. There is plenty more insanity to go with the quotes above, but Barta does know what he’s doing. Whatever perspective reporters want to adopt as a frame, Barta makes sure there are plenty of handy quotes which serve the university’s revenue-generating interests.

05/26/20 — A busy ten-day run is coming up for the higher-ed news cycle in Iowa. Following the Memorial Day weekend — which came early this year — the coronavirus pandemic is effectively over from a bureaucratic point of view, both at the federal and state level, and individual citizens are now on their own. And among those individual citizens, of course, are the students, faculty and staff that make up the higher-ed communities at the University of Iowa, Iowa State and Northern Iowa.

On this Friday, Iowa’s Revenue Estimating Conference will report on its best estimate of the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on Iowa’s economy. On Monday of next week the University of Iowa will put football coaches on the field and symbolically ‘kick off’ the 2020 season, primarily as a means of helping J. Bruce Harreld save face for his failed prediction that practice would begin on June 1st. On Thursday of next week the Iowa Board of Regents will convene for a “virtual” meeting on the UI campus, and I still do not know what that means. (Will the regents be present but the meeting closed to the public? I dunno, but clearly the regents don’t feel like it’s safe to come out and play.) The very next day, Friday, the long-suspended session of the Iowa legislature will reconvene in Des Moines for what will certainly be an abrupt session as legislators also attempt to shield themselves from COVID-19, while still passing all sorts of abusive, party-line laws which provide liability protection for business and government. Finally, on Monday of the following week — meaning June 8th — the Iowa football players will be ‘allowed’ to participate in ‘voluntary’ workouts, which are of course both a test of loyalty and an opportunity for the university to use said loyal athletes as lab rats.

* Speaking of which, if you’re still under the binary illusion that people either die from COVID-19 or have a mild case, take a moment to read the following:

> A 05/14/20 NYT editorial from Mara Gay: ‘I Wish I Could Do Something for You,’ My Doctor Said.

> A 05/24/20 report from the AP’s Ryan Foley: Waterloo father, 35, recovering after nearly dying of COVID-19.

While college and university campuses teem with students in their late teens and early twenties, the majority of faculty and staff at any institution of higher learning are in their 30’s or older. Putting a large group of socially active students — who also know they are at relatively low risk of serious negative outcomes — in contact with a large group of people who could have a severe reaction to COVID-19 is insane on its face, and once again reminds us that the precipitating factor in opening up campuses for the 2020 fall term is not healthcare or even education, but revenue generation.

* On that point, even if you are a young student you should think about avoiding in-class, on-campus instruction for the 2020-2021 academic year if at all possible. (And that goes double if you are on faculty or staff, but that obviously presents significantly greater obstacles compared to students taking a year off.) In this case, however, the primary reason for doing so relates to your own financial welfare, which is precisely what college and universities don’t want you thinking about.

If you are concerned that a ‘gap year’ might look bad on your transcript, please understand that anyone who tells you that is not worth listening to about anything — and that would be true even if there wasn’t a lethal pandemic on the loose. Schools were already loosening enrollment requirements prior to the pandemic, as the pool of recruits began to shrink nationwide, and they are going to have their doors wide open for the foreseeable future.

If you enroll at a four-year college or university for the coming year, whether as an on-campus or off-campus resident, you will be paying full price for a product that will inevitably be diluted in quality because of the pandemic, to say nothing of making it much more likely that you will become sick or make others sick. If you can live at home and take online courses through a much-cheaper community college, I guarantee you will never regret that choice. Even if you pay for your own place, however, taking online courses through a community college, or even a few part-time, online-only courses at a four-year school, will save you precious dollars at a time when the economy may yet spiral into a depression.

05/23/20 — After a lot of really dumb comments from illegitimate University of Iowa president J. Bruce Harreld over the past month or so, we have entered a blessedly quiet period leading up to the next regent meeting on June 4th. That meeting is still listed on the Iowa Board of Regents website as a “Virtual Meeting originated from the University of Iowa”, and I honestly still don’t know what that means. Will the nine regents and XD/CEO be in Iowa City in person, but the meeting will not be open to the public? Because if that’s the case I’m note sure why the board would make everyone travel for a meeting that could be done telephonically, and yet the meeting itself is not listed as telephonic, as is customary on such occasions.

In any event, while the Board of Regents still seems to have some concern about the lingering pandemic, the University of Iowa has announced that not only will athletics gear up at about the same time, but the University of Iowa intends to use Iowa’s coaches, staff and student-athletes as lab rats, to help dial-in Iowa’s untested mitigation policies. While the families of UI’s student-athletes are understandably a bit nervous, if you want playing time for your kids the university has to know your kid is loyal and willing to sacrifice.

From the Daily Iowan’s Josie Fischels: University of Iowa to begin phased reopening of select campus operations.

Select coaches and staff will be returned to Iowa’s Department of Intercollegiate Athletics beginning June 1, according to the update, while football student athletes can return beginning June 8 to participate in voluntary workouts.

Men’s and women’s basketball student athletes can return for voluntary workouts beginning June 15. The email stated that all student athletes who choose to return will undergo a formal clearance process supervised by UI Health Care medical staff.

One thing we have not yet heard is how UI has altered its athletic waivers and enrollment contracts to ‘respond to’ the coronavirus pandemic. By which I mean, of course, added language which shields the school from legal liability if a student, staff or coach becomes sick, is hospitalized, or dies. Given that UI is ready to put non-employee test subjects (student athletes) through “voluntary workouts” in a couple of weeks, one would assume the UI Office of the General Counsel, if not also the legal staff at the regents office, have already nailed these new provisions down, and would thus have them available for perusal by the press. (New clauses in employment contracts would also be necessary, but as a ‘personnel matter’ could be shielded from the public.)

In any event, it looks like Bro Bruce’s promise to have football practice underway on June 1st is a bust, and even when players return on June 8th they won’t be engaging in official team activities. Perhaps not surprisingly, there is also a meeting of the Big Ten Conference’s ass-covering coronavirus committee scheduled for the 7th, during which the long-term plan to play football will probably be revealed. And then it will be time for Head Football Coach Kirk Ferentz to decide how eager he is to get himself killed by hanging out with a bunch of socially active college students.

* There are several short reports out this morning (here and here) that make it sound as if UI also just announced that it will be holding in-person classes in the fall, but as regular readers know that is not the case. That statement was included in a post on UI’s Campus Coronavirus Updates page (which now has yet another new name, because why not) on May 1st.

Fall Reminder

The University of Iowa plans to resume face-to-face instruction this fall.

I don’t know whether various news outlets and even some members of the UI community have not been paying attention, but the fact that UI will be holding in-person classes on the UI campus for the fall term is not only not news, the regents made that clear with regard to all three state campuses during their meeting on April 30th.

* There were a couple of stories this week about University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. First, from the Press-Citizen’s Aimee Breaux: University of Iowa Hospitals losing $20M-$30M every month as fewer Iowans seek health care amid COVID-19 pandemic. While UIHC is clearly not generating the same revenue compared to before the pandemic, money can be recouped in a number of ways. What matters right now is not only that UIHC was not overrun during the initial shock from the coronavirus pandemic, but that the hospital seems to have provided excellent care while keeping its own staff relatively safe. (There have been reports of UIHC staff being infected, but no reports of deaths.)

(Relatedly, from Lyle Muller at the Des Moines Register: More than $500M in federal aid heading to Iowa hospitals would cover only half their COVID-19 losses. The pandemic is going to put a tremendous squeeze on the bottom line of every business in America, and the healthcare industry will not be spared. There will be personnel cuts and closures, and the truth is we haven’t even gotten to the real economic pain that will follow. It is also possible, however, that there will be more stimulus pumped into the country’s financial system to ward of an entrenched depression.)

Second, we have this report from the Gazette’s James Q. Lynch: UIHC encourages Iowans to keep washing hands, social distancing, because it has worked. At a public research university defined by the crony obedience of its toady president — who will not and indeed cannot talk to the local or national press without revealing himself to be a colossal boob — it has been extraordinarily reassuring not only that UIHC CEO Suresh Gunasekaran has routinely made himself available to answer questions, but that his answers are always care-focused and health-focused even when he is talking about financial issues.

After a wobbly first year, it feels as if Gunasekaran has not only filled his role, but accepted personal responsibility in a way that J. Bruce Harreld is incapable of doing. While central administration at UI is anonymously pursuing branded masks and kicking the football program into gear, Gunasekaran is once again out front, reminding people to wear masks, wash hands and continue to social distance so we don’t give back the local gains we made against the pandemic over the past few months. (And he is almost certainly doing that, in part, because he knows what’s coming, when Bro Bruce floods Iowa City and Johnson County with +32K students in August.)

* Speaking of medicine and UI, there was a report out today that the University of Iowa expects to receive approval for a new COVID-19 test which people can self-administer at home. From the Gazette’s Vanessa Miller: University of Iowa researchers expect their coronavirus at-home spit test to be approved within weeks. While the test will be sold “at cost”, which is expected to be “below $100 per test”, it is not yet clear whether the FDA will authorize the test without restriction, or under an emergency exception (EUA). Unfortunately, because Harreld has infused a lust for entrepreneurial ventures into the academic bloodstream at UI, what should be greeted as prideful news must instead be met with skepticism, and particularly if an EUA is granted.

A related concern is that UI could also use this in-house test to ‘prove’ that the UI campus is safe, and that could involve serious conflicts of interest. Especially given Harreld’s track record at UI — and particularly the attempted theft of $4.2M from UI students and families in early 2017 by administrative fraud — the university itself cannot be trusted to use in-house tests to prove that individuals in the UI community are disease-free. At the very least, the State Hygienics Lab (SHL) — which, unfortunately, is also on the UI campus — should conduct rigorous validation tests of the UI spit kit to certify that the tests are accurate.

Additional concerns involve how these kits would be processed because the SHL is already working around the clock, and how data from this program would be integrated into reports from the Iowa Department of Public Health, which also includes data from the murky TestIowa program. It is also possible that @UIowa might charge itself for these tests, and that the regents might purchase tests to use at the other state universities, thus broadening conflict-of-interest concerns to include accounting practices by the board. And of course given the sketchy audit that the regents conducted when former ISU President Leath was found to be using a state airplane for personal business, the Iowa State Auditor should certainly review any such transactions.

* Over the past few weeks it has become abundantly clear that the main driver of bureaucratic decision making throughout Iowa state government is revenue generation, not public health. We see that in the zeal with which Iowa’s governor is relaxing restrictions to spur supply and demand, both of which will shore up tax revenue. We see that in the zeal with which the Board of Regents has already committed to in-class instruction in the fall, to shore up tuition and fee revenue. And of course we see that in the zeal with which J. Bruce Harreld has pursued football practice at UI, in order to generate as much money as possible from both television and gate revenue. If money is involved, and the state gets a cut, then it’s a damn fine idea even in the middle of a pandemic.

Proving that thesis, Iowa’s court system — which, so far, is not an entrepreneurial enterprise — just extended its ongoing suspension of jury trials. From Laura Belin at BleedingHeartland: Iowa Judicial Branch not rushing back to normal practices.

Under an order Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Christensen issued on May 22, in-person bench trials will remain on hold until July 13, and jury trials won’t resume in Iowa until September 14.

In terms of prevention, it would be much easier to conduct a jury trial using social distancing and other mitigation protocols — perhaps with the aid of technology — than it would be to put 100 athletes on the training field or in the weight room, even with staggered start times. Breathing heavily and shedding sweat, to say nothing of physical contact, are vectors for disease transmission, yet on the same day that the courts put off any possibility of a jury trial for four months, UI was gearing up for football practice in coming weeks. And yet that’s really only the beginning of the dissonance we will see from government officials in Iowa.

Early last week Ohio cancelled its 2020 state fair, followed Friday by Minnesota — even though Minnesota’s state fair doesn’t take place until September. So far, the Iowa State Fair is still scheduled from August 13th to 23rd, and the very next day classes commence at the three regent universities on the 24th. Given that athletics are about to begin at the state schools, and students will be moving back to campus on the final weekend of the fair, it will be very hard for the fair’s governing board — which, notably, includes Iowa Governor Reynolds and Iowa State President Wendy Wintersteen — to cancel that ten-day-long celebration of agricultural excess. At the same time, cancelling would also make clear that the regent universities cannot be made safe regardless of any testing and social distancing protocols.

As to what the Iowa State Fair board will ultimately decide I have no idea, but such is the insanity of state government in Iowa. What I can say is that in Iowa City (Johnson County), which is home to the University of Iowa, the city just cancelled fireworks for the 4th of July, and the downtown Englert Theatre just cancelled the previously rescheduled 2020 Mission Creek Festival in September, and is now aiming for 2021. And yet on the UI campus, which occupies much of the center of Iowa City, J. Bruce Harreld insists that the pandemic games begin.