The Iowa Board of Regents approved new policies today regarding sexual misconduct among students at the state’s three public universities, but it asked the institutions to continue working on their policies to deal with some concerns, the Iowa City Press-Citizen reported.

The board had requested the new policy documents in the wake of a scandal over a sexual-assault case at the University of Iowa last year. A law firm that investigated the university’s handling of the case reported in September that the university had made a number of missteps.

Some of the regents complained today that the University of Iowa’s policy was not as clear as those submitted by the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University, the Press-Citizen reported. They said it did not urge victims strongly enough to go to the police and did not explain confidential options to victims of sexual assaults as well.

But the board praised the documents as improvements over previous policies. “I think it is so important now that we have a formal process and a path that has to be followed each and every time,” the board’s president, David Miles, said.

The University of Iowa’s president, Sally Mason, said she stood by her institution’s policy, but expressed a willingness to continue working on it. An official with a consulting firm that helped develop the policy said the three universities’ documents were substantially the same. —Charles Huckabee