All posts by Aaron Jaco

News & Achievements Archive

College of Arts & Sciences news: Week of Sept. 14

Maria Bohorquez, chair and professor of chemistry, started her two-year term as president of the Iowa Network for Women in Higher Education.

Mahmoud Hamad, associate professor of political science, had a truly international summer. During May 17-21, Mahmoud traveled to Cairo, Egypt, to work on organizing the fourth annual conference of the Arab Constitutional Law Association—he chairs its scientific committee. Mahmoud also attended the Brandeis University’s Summer Institute of Israel Studies with a select group of U.S. and foreign faculty. Mahmoud was then invited to attend the 2015 Central European University’s Summer University program on Constitution-building in Africa in Budapest, Hungary. Finally, Mahmoud traveled to Tunisia to work with the Libyan Constitutional Drafting Assembly (CDA) in finalizing the first democratic constitution for Libya. The CDA is expected to approve the final draft of the constitution in late October, before being put to a referendum later in 2015.

Debra DeLaet, professor of politics and international relations and department chair, is presenting a paper at a conference on Transnational and Transborder Familial and Gender Relations: Comparing the Influence of Blurred and Brittle Borders at the University of Oxford. Her paper is titled, “Female Genital Cutting and the Family as a Site of Cultural Contestation and Change in Transnational Migration Contexts.”

News & Achievements Archive

Office of Community Engagement and Service-Learning welcomes Amanda Martin

The Office of Community Engagement and Service-Learning is excited to welcome Amanda Martin to campus. She will serve as the new AmeriCorps and service-learning programs coordinator. In her role, Amanda will be responsible for the day-to-day management of the Iowa Community Health AmeriCorps Program and student-led service-learning programming.

Amanda is a graduate of Iowa State University with a master’s degree in education, student affairs and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Clarke University. Over the past three years Amanda has worked for the Corporation for National & Community Service NCCC Vinton Campus as the member development associate. In her role with NCCC, Amanda trained and advised 25 Service Learning Initiators and supported approximately 400 AmeriCorps NCCC members in preparing for their life after the AmeriCorps experience. Previous to NCCC Amanda served as the associate director of the Volunteer Center of Story County. She has worked with young adults in a number of service and leadership settings, and we are excited to welcome her to the Bulldog family! Amanda’s office will be in Old Main 319—please feel free to stop by to say hello!

—Submitted by Renee Sedlacek, Interim Director of Community Engagement & Service-Learning

Featured Events Archive

The Purity Myth documentary screening

Tuesday Sept. 15, 7:30 p.m.
Sussman Theater
Sponsored by: Office for Sexual Violence Response and Healthy Relationship Promotion

About the documentary:
This alternately hilarious and infuriating film adaptation of pioneering feminist blogger Jessica Valenti’s bestselling book makes a powerful case that conservative activists have been using irrational fears around young women’s sexuality to undermine women’s autonomy and roll back women’s rights. It depicts a wide-ranging analysis that moves from ‘purity balls’ and the abstinence movement, to attacks on women’s reproductive health care, while targeting the persistent patriarchal assumption that a woman’s worth depends on what she does, or does not do, sexually.

—Submitted by Alysa Mozak, Coordinator for Sexual Violence Response and Healthy Relationship Promotion

Featured Events Archive

Rock out to support the Adult Literacy Center

Walk to Lefty’s after work to enjoy Drake faculty and student ensembles in a benefit for the Drake Adult Literacy Center. Enjoy One Hundred Mondays, comprising School of Education faculty Tom Buckmiller, Michael Couvillon, Jerrid Kruse, and Matt Hayden, followed by a second faculty ensemble featuring Tim Knepper, Charlie Nelson, and Kirk Martin. Drake student Charlie Jaschek leads the student band, which also features:

  • Mike Wilson, saxophone
  • Ben McCartney, trumpet
  • Chris Walsh, bass
  • Steve Maynard, guitar

All proceeds from the $5 cover will go to the Adult Literacy Center, which relies on community donations to support its vital services in the community. More than 70 volunteer tutors from Drake and Greater Des Moines give 1–2 hours a week to assist adults learning to read. This is also the kickoff event for National Adult Education Family Literacy Week, Sept. 20–25.

Volunteer Tutor Training
Friday, Sept. 25, 5–8 p.m., and Saturday, Sept. 26, 9 a.m.–4 p.m.

Volunteers work one-on-one for 1–2 hours a week as a tutor/mentor with an adult who needs to improve his or her reading, writing, and comprehension skills. Tutoring is an opportunity to have a direct and positive impact in another person’s life. Learn how to structure lessons that teach reading basics and beyond.

—Submitted by Anne Murr, Coordinator, Adult Literacy Center

Featured Events Archive

Enjoy the first Comparison Project lecture of the year

Please join us for the inaugural event of the Comparison Project’s 2015–2016 series on death and dying. Dr. Allen Zagoren, associate professor of public administration in the College of Business and Public Administration at Drake, will give a lecture on the physiology of death and our medical attempts to forestall it. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held at on Thursday, Sept. 17, at 7 p.m. in Sussman Theater.

For more information visit our website.

—Submitted by Tim Knepper, Professor of Philosophy, Department Chair

Featured Events Archive

Cheer on the Bulldogs

Enjoy an athletic event this week with men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball at home.

Volleyball
Drake vs. Western Illinois
Sept. 15, p.m.
Knapp Center

Men’s Soccer
Drake vs. UMKC
Sept. 15, 7 p.m.
Cownie Soccer Complex

Men’s Soccer
Drake vs. DePaul
Sept. 19, 7 p.m.
Cownie Soccer Complex

Women’s Soccer
Drake vs. Iowa State
Sept. 20, 1 p.m.
Cownie Soccer Complex

—Submitted by Tom Florian, Assistant Director, Ticket Operations and Donor Management

Featured Events Archive

2015 Constitution Day Lecture to be held Sept. 17

Tracey Meares, Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law at Yale Law School, will serve as the 2015 Drake University Constitution Day Lecture speaker. Her speech is titled “Policing in the 21st Century.”

The event, which is sponsored by the Drake Law School Chapter of Order of the Coif and the Drake University Constitutional Law Center, will be held at 3 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 17, in Sussman Theater, Olmsted Center. It is free and open to the public. The Drake University Constitution Day Lecture is held each year to commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787.

Meares is one of the nation’s experts on race relations and law enforcement. Her teaching and research focus on criminal procedure and criminal law policy, and she has written widely on issues such as constitutional criminal procedure, the sociology of the neighborhood structure, and the social psychology of legitimacy in policing. You can find more information in the Drake Newsroom.