This past spring, the Faculty Senate created an ad hoc committee focused on a review of Drake’s ability to be a student-ready institution and ways the campus community, and in particular faculty, can play a role in achieving this goal. If you are not familiar with the term, a student-ready institution provides holistic support to its students and restructures systems to support student needs.

Also, this past spring, the ad hoc committee met with campus stakeholders and assessed faculty practices and university systems related to this area to understand where we are. While this helped us develop a picture of Drake’s current practices, WE NEED YOUR HELP to better understand what faculty are already doing in this area, how faculty are using current related university systems, and what improvements can be made to achieve the goal of being a student-ready institution.

We invite you to participate in one of several faculty focus groups dedicated to assessing our university’s preparedness to be a truly student-ready institution. These sessions will gather your insight into how we currently are and, in the future, can do better to support our students and effectively prepare them for both academic success and future careers.

Please note that for efficiency, artificial intelligence will be used during the meetings to record and transcribe the discussions. The findings from faculty focus groups will be combined with data from corresponding student and staff focus groups to generate a comprehensive report outlining actionable changes and best practices for faculty and suggestions for institutional system modifications to make Drake a more student-ready institution.

Friday, September 18^th, 9:00a to 11:00a, Johansen 301: https://calendly.com/maria-valdovinos-drake/ad-hoc-student-ready-institution-focus-group-faculty1

Friday, September 25^th, 1:00p to 3:00p, Johansen 301: https://calendly.com/maria-valdovinos-drake/ad-hoc-student-ready-institution-focus-group-faculty2

Friday, October 2^nd, 9:00a to 11:00a, Johansen 301: https://calendly.com/maria-valdovinos-drake/ad-hoc-student-ready-institution-focus-group-faculty3

Friday, October 9^th, 1:00p to 3:00p, Johansen 301: https://calendly.com/maria-valdovinos-drake/ad-hoc-student-ready-institution-focus-group-faculty4

— Maria Valdovinos, Professor of Psychology