Protest Connected to Price Lab Greets Regent in Cedar Falls

Many in Cedar Falls weren't very pleased with the Iowa Board of Regents after they approved plans to close and dozens of undergraduate and graduate programs at University of Northern Iowa.

If today is any indication, the anger still lingers.

Parents and other backers of Price Lab showed up to protest Regent Katie Mulholland, who was visiting this morning. She was speaking at an event called "Leadership in Times of Change" at Schindler Education Center lecture hall.

Mulholland, of Marion and a UNI alumnus, oversaw a regent subcommittee that shepherded the academic cuts through.

Owen Riley, a Cedar Falls businessman, was among the protesters.

"What we hope to accomplish with things like this is keep supporters together and communicating and keep this in the public eye," Riley said. "It serves the purpose that while we are , we are still here and pushing the facts...

"Regents see themselves as a division of the state government. I am much more concerned about Cedar Valley and Cedar Falls," he said.

Riley said Mulholland walked by them and read their signs but did not interact.

The protest was backed by a group that calls itself the Support Price Lab/Iowa's Research & Development School community.

"Regent Mulholland and the Iowa BOR's lack of transparency and disregard for stakeholders in the unethical attempted closure of Iowa's Research & Development School is the reason for this protest," the group said in a statement.

Emily Christensen of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported that about a dozen protesters took part.