UNI Administrators Were Keeping An Eye on Price Lab Advocacy Group

The Facebook advocacy group "Keep Price Lab Open" caught the attention of administrators as they made plans to announce their recommendation to close .

Emails obtained by Patch in an open records request show Vice President for Administration and Financial Services Michael Hager sent UNI President Ben Allen and others an email about the group on Feb. 18.

The email describes the group's Facebook invitation to from Price Lab to the President's House on campus, planned after the possibility of closure had been made public in the media, but before the official announcement.

Hager describes the event and comments made about it on the group's Facebook page, writing:

"There are a series of comments... questions from a parent if appropriate for infants... to be on the protest, concerns about violence (I don't interpret it is a real threat though), 'children are welcome to attend this event'..."

Allen was apparently interested in the group, forwarding the message to Iowa Board of Regents executive director Bob Donley, with a note saying "FYI."

He also replied to Mr. Hager with, "Thanks for sharing. Interesting. ... The one question is: who is in charge of/responsible for the content of Keep Price Lab Open facebook -- an administrator, teacher, parent or student?"

If there was a reply, it was not included in the materials received in the records request.

Keep Price Lab Open's Facebook page was organized in part by Price Lab parents Barb Schiff and Dave Deibler.

"My gut level reaction was to be proud of what we’re doing. When you’re doing public relations work you want everyone to be seeing it and reacting," Deibler said of the emails. "My second reaction was it made me sad that the main concern was if a faculty member was doing it. It has never been about attacking anyone. We had to give Iowa's Research and Development School a voice."

UNI spokeswoman Stacey Christensen said Allen's inquiry about who was administering the group was part of normal university procedure.

"I think it’s a fair question," she said. "Do we hope that Price Lab officials are not posting during their working time? Yes. It's no different than a UNI employee of any other office on campus. This is really just looking at it, making sure we were not having any employees misusing university time or computers.”

Since its Feb. 16 launch, the group's Facebook page has garnered over 1380 "Likes." It has facilitated events and conversations about the plans to close Price Lab, with parents and community members chiming in. Along with the occasional faculty member.

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