All posts by Ashton Hockman

Campus Announcements Archive

Chance to win 100 flex dollars with Drake Dining survey

All students, staff, and faculty are invited to complete the Drake Dining Survey to help direct and enhance dining services throughout campus. We value your opinion. One entry per person. Survey ends Oct. 5, 2019.

Utilizing an independent online research questionnaire, the Drake Dining Survey will allow us to better understand your needs and work toward future solutions that will better serve the Drake community.

Your Voice Matters
Now is your chance to have your voice heard. We will make positive enhancements to dining services based on your feedback. Take the survey

If you have any questions please contact Jennifer Bowersox with Sodexo at (515) 271-2995 or jennifer.bowersox@sodexo.com.

—Jennifer Bowersox, Drake Dining

Campus Announcements Archive

Hurricane Dorian relief: How to help responsibly

The recent hurricane has left more than 70,000 people homeless and in need of shelter, food, medical and sanitary supplies. Life in paradise as we know it, will never be the same. The Bahamian people are fighting for survival and you may be asking, “How can I help?”

Donating Cash is Best
In the early stages of the response phase, most organizations are unable to accommodate any material goods. Unsolicited donations create a challenge of storage and sorting when focus is needed on response and recovery. Cash offers voluntary agencies the most flexibility in obtaining the most-needed resources, food, water, medicine, and equipment, from secure and familiar supply chains. Check out this Donate Responsibly Campaign video for more reasons!

Here are a few donation efforts we are aware of:

  • Iowans for the Bahamas
    Michael Cooper ‘20, current Drake student and Bahamian native, has connected with students at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University who have set up a GoFundMe.
  • Grand Bahama Disaster Relief Fund
    Set up by The Grand Bahama Port Authority and funds will be managed by the non-profit Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina with donations tax deductible in the US.

Volunteer Locally
Meals From the Heartland has a goal of packing and shipping 285,120 meals and raising $50,000 to fund the meals.  Sign up to volunteer here!

Educate Yourself & Others
Read up on the latest news and follow along on social media. Here are a few suggestions:

Trending Hashtags:
#BahamasStrong   
#IowafortheBahamas   
#BentnotBroken

Following the Aftermath:

Hurricane Dorian Science:

Missing People Search: https://dorianpeoplesearch.com

— Renee Sedlacek, director, Community Engaged Learning

Strategic Updates Archive

University Avenue streetscape/storm sewer update

The storm sewer and streetscape project on University Avenue is progressing as scheduled. Sidewalks and street paving have started at 31st Street and will continue east to Aliber Hall. As the contractor continues its work, there will always be at least one drive open for access to the GK parking lot.

Once the installation of the storm sewer adjacent to Cowles Library is complete, sidewalks and street paving will begin at 25th Street heading west to the Olmsted parking lot. Temporary gravel access will be made available for continuous access to the Olmsted lot. The contractor will then need to move the travel lanes on University Avenue from the south to the north in order to install storm sewer runs to adjacent streets. This switch will happen mid–late October.

It is anticipated that the contractor will complete its work by mid-December with finishing touches of new street and traffic lights, final grading and seeding, landscaping and bus shelter installations happening in the spring.

— Kelly Foster, Finance & Administration

Strategic Updates Archive

ICYMI: Parking closure and Harkin development

The following message was sent from Scott Law, director of Public Safety & Operational Services, to campus on Monday, Sept. 23.

Starting at 2 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 24, a portion of the Aliber parking lot (Lot #24) will be blocked off in order to prepare for the relocation of three houses. The houses, which sit along Brattleboro Avenue, will be moved to the Sherman Hill neighborhood on Oct. 3.

Starting this week, the homes will be moved off their foundations and placed on trailers in the Aliber parking lot. Parking will be blocked off in the Aliber lot until late November (see image). Alternative parking can be found in the Ross Hall and Tennis parking lots.

Once the houses are relocated, construction for the new Harkin Institute building will start immediately. The first phase of the Harkin project includes adding additional parking, which is scheduled to be completed toward the end of November.

We appreciate your patience with these parking changes. It’s an exciting time to be at Drake as we witness transformations to our campus landscape that will uplift our University and community.

— Scott Law, director, Public Safety & Operational Services

Campus Announcements Archive

Celebrate Founder’s Day Friday with centennial coin scavenger hunt

Drake University was founded on Sept. 20, 1881, making Sept. 20 Founder’s Day for the University.

Drake celebrated its centennial in 1981 with some limited edition centennial coins (pictured). On Friday, 139 of these coins will be hidden throughout campus. Follow @DrakeUniversity on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for clues to find one of the coins. If you post a picture of the coin and where you found it, and use #DrakeFoundersDay, then you will get an extra prize!

You may also want to follow some of these pages for clues: https://news.drake.edu/social-media-directory/.

—Niki Smith, University Communications & Marketing

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

IBM Skills Academy instructors wanted

Drake Online and Continuing Education is partnering with IBM Skills Academy to offer educational opportunities in the area of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, block chain, data science, cloud computing, and/or design thinking. The IBM Skills Academy is the integrated program incorporating a week of faculty training, pre-built curriculum, hands-on cloud based labs, use cases, quizzes, exams and badges.

All of the offerings in these areas will be non-credit and will take the form of boot camps, non-credit certificates, and smaller workshops.  To offer these non-credit workshops and seminars, we are seeking instructors to participate in the IBM Skills Academy.  Potential instructors must be good facilitators and have basic IT literacy, such as working within an operations system such as Windows, copying and pasting items, and using the Internet.  Instructors will attend training and must commit to teaching at least twice within a 12-month timeframe.  To become an instructor, there is a mandatory, weeklong training at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY.  Drake Online and Continuing Education will support the travel costs.  Instructors will be compensated for instruction of seminars, although detailed rates have not been set at this early stage.

All faculty and staff who may be interested in becoming an IBM Skills Academy instructor can contact Christina Trombley at christina.trombley@drake.edu or at extension 2506.

—Christina Trombley, Executive Director, Online Programming

Strategic Updates Archive

Big Ideas initiative next steps

Last year, Drake University introduced Big Ideas—a campus-wide initiative that called upon faculty, staff, and students to identify transformative ideas that, with support from passionate donors, will help to define the University’s future and positively impact society for generations to come.

Following a successful launch of the initiative, which generated participation from more than 300 faculty, staff, and students who put forth or collaborated on 50 Big Ideas submissions, we are ready to enter the second phase of the project: capturing the imagination of potential donors.

The Big Ideas process
As a reminder, in April, Drake’s Board of Trustees narrowed the 50 Big Ideas submissions to 29 following thoughtful discussion and per the recommendation of the Big Ideas Steering Committee. These 29 ideas were organized and classified into six themes:

  • Changemaker Initiative
  • Public Democracy
  • Digital Proficiency Platform
  • Intergenerational Campus
  • Sustaining Rural America
  • Drake University Center

What happened over the summer
Champions of the advancing ideas and steering committee members were invited to participate in a weeklong workshop in July with 160over90, the University’s branding and marketing consultant. During the workshops, stakeholders provided important feedback, which is currently being used to develop a case statement summarizing the six themes.

What’s next
Later this month, President Martin and University Advancement representatives will use the case statement to seek feedback on the themes from nearly 150 targeted University insiders. The purpose of these conversations is to invite our alumni and friends to offer their advice, counsel, and insight regarding the six themes. Feedback from these discussions will be shared and discussed with the Board of Trustees during their January meeting, during which the Board will ultimately determine which themes will shape the narrative and priorities of our next comprehensive fundraising campaign.

Throughout the academic year, we will share monthly updates with you on the progress of the Big Ideas—including details surrounding each theme and our future fundraising priorities as they are confirmed. Please reach out to me or a member of the Steering Committee with any questions.

I am excited about the possibilities the Big Ideas initiative creates, and sincerely thank the many members of the campus community who have shown great enthusiasm for the initiative. I am honored to work among such talented colleagues who are passionate about advancing the future of Drake.

—John Smith, Vice President, University Advancement

Campus Announcements Archive

Weekly health and wellness sessions

The Occupational Therapy Doctorate students are presenting various health and wellness information weekly in the Cline Atrium from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The following are the dates and topics to be presented:

September 11: Sleep Hygiene
September 17: Backpack Awareness
September 24: Meal Planning
October 1:  Brain Health
October 22: Life Balance
October 29: Fall Reduction
November 5:  Technology Detox
November 12: Mindful Occupation
November 19: Winter Health
December 3:  Stress Management during the holidays

Please join us!

—Denise Kluever, Occupational Therapy Program