Responding to scrutiny over the Stead Family Children’s Hospital construction project, University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld mounted a defense to the Board of Regents last week, noting that UI has only received lawsuits from two contractors out of dozens. However, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reports, UI has closed out just nine of 25 bid packages on the Children’s Hospital project in more than a year since the hospital began treating patients in February 2017. The Cedar Rapids contractor Modern Piping, which won a $21.5 million award that UI is appealing, disputes that it and Merit Construction, also of Cedar Rapids, are the only two fighting the university in court.