All posts by Amanda Martin

Campus Announcements Archive

Community Engaged Learning year in review

The Office of Community Engaged Learning celebrates the collective work of the Drake campus and community over the past year. Students, faculty, staff, and community members worked together to learn, grow, and act. Volunteers recovered nearly 1,700 pounds of food that was delivered to local organizations and pantries; prairie plants and native trees were planted in the new Sprout Garden & Food Forest space, along with 350 pounds of food grown and donated; and 12 AmeriCorps members served more than 3,500 hours of service to the local community. And much more!

To learn more about community engaged learning initiatives at Drake and to get involved, visit www.drake.edu/cel or contact servicelearning@drake.edu.

— Amanda Martin, Community Engaged Learning

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

Information security is everyone’s job

Last fall, Howard University made headlines as the victim of a ransomware attack that forced the cancellation of online and in-person classes. The Washington, DC, institution is not the only university to be impacted by cybercriminals. With vast repositories of sensitive and personal data from students, faculty and staff, colleges and universities are a prime target for attack.

One of the most common attack vectors for ransomware is phishing, which has been around for decades. Phishing is a social engineering technique that uses email to entice or trick unsuspecting people to click on web links or attachments that appear to be legitimate but are instead designed to compromise the recipient’s machine or trick the recipient into revealing credentials or other sensitive information. Phishing presents adversaries with a low-risk method that offers a high potential for financial gain.

Phishing is challenging to fight with technology alone. Many email security solutions still allow up to 20% of phishing emails to be delivered.  Also, anti-phishing technology usually won’t stop email from a compromised University email account because the messages are being sent from a legitimate source. As a result, stopping phishing threats requires vigilance by everyone. People must learn to recognize the signs of a phishing attempt and report these attempts to the proper security staff.

Here are five signs of a phishing attempt

  • An unexpected email that prompts you to change a password, send funds, open an attachment, or log into a website.
  • An email whose body appears to be legitimate but was sent from the wrong domain (e.g., an email that says it is from your bank but was sent from a Gmail account).
  • An email with misspelled words, bad grammar, or poor formatting.
  • An email that contains suspicious file attachments.
  • An email containing web links that are from fake or unknown web domains when the cursor is hovered over them.

To help us all recognize phishing emails, ITS will continue to simulate phishing and assign training to those most susceptible. If you believe you’ve been targeted by phishing, see Reporting a Phishing Message (How-to).

— Chris Mielke, ITS

HR Information Archive

Wrapping up Mental Health Awareness Month: Let’s talk

As we reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic, there are some surprising silver linings. Employers are finding ways to be more flexible with where, when, and how work is performed. There are suddenly more obvious and easy ways to accommodate employees with disabilities. In many ways, we are finding it easier to empathize and give others space to be human. This is all great—drawing positives from this difficult chapter is important and meaningful.

One of the additional pandemic silver linings is that more and more people are talking about mental health—stress, anxiety, depression, grief. And this is great! The more open people are the less stigma attaches. However, mental health conditions, resources, and conversations can still feel, well, complicated.

It is important to recognize that there is often no one single cause for a mental health condition. Instead, there are many possible risk factors that can influence how likely a person is to experience a mental health condition or how serious the symptoms may be.

Some risk factors for mental health conditions include trauma, which can be a one-time event or ongoing; your environment and how it impacts your health and quality of life (also known as social determinants of health, like financial stability and access to health care); genetics; brain chemistry; and your personal habits and lifestyle, such as a lack of sleep.

Naturally, understanding the risk factors for a mental health condition can be more difficult when it’s your own mental health. Take time to ask yourself about your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to see if this is part of a pattern that may be caused by a mental health condition. Here are some questions to get you started:

  • Have things that used to feel easy started feeling difficult?
  • Does the idea of doing daily tasks like making your bed now feel really, really hard?
  • Have you lost interest in activities and hobbies you used to enjoy?
  • Do you feel irritated, possibly to the point of lashing out at people you care about?

Our society focuses much more on physical health than mental health, but both are equally important. If you are concerned about your mental health, there are several options available. We wrote about mental health care options through Broadlawns and our EAP on May 3. We offered some self-care tips on May 10.

Another free resource to check out is a page hosted by Mental Health America featuring a range of screening tools you can take (with two offered in Spanish). I completed one of the screening tools and it only took a quick minute. The results do not constitute a diagnosis but are helpful. They include some possible “next steps” and a variety of related “Info & Resources.”

Take time to assess your mental health and to take care of you!

— Maureen De Armond, Human Resources

News & Achievements Archive

Law School announces 2022 Faculty Award winners

Drake Law School recognized two outstanding faculty members for their contributions to the Law School’s teaching, scholarship, and research during the 2021–2022 academic year.

Allan Vestal, Dwight D. Opperman Distinguished Professor of Law, was recognized as the 2022 Stevens Faculty Scholar of the Year. The Stevens Faculty Scholar of the Year award honors the faculty member who made the most significant contribution to academic scholarship during the previous year. Professor Vestal published seven articles in the last three years on topics ranging from religious freedom to legal history. In addition, he completed an innovative new course book for Contract Drafting that promises to see wide adoption nationwide.

Matt Doré, Richard M. and Anita Calkins Distinguished Professor of Law, received the Student Bar Association’s (SBA) Leland Forrest Outstanding Professor Award. The Outstanding Professor award recognizes a faculty member for their contributions to the quality of legal education both in and out of the classroom. The recipient is chosen by vote of the third-year students and will lead the class in the graduation procession in May. Students selected Professor Doré for his extensive knowledge, passion for the subject matter, and willingness to go above and beyond to serve students and the Drake Law community. He has served on many crucial faculty committees including the promotion and tenure, and admission committees. He has coached Drake’s Client Counseling Team for 30 years, advancing to the national finals several times. “But most importantly,” noted Riley Noble, 2021-2022 SBA president, “Professor Doré is always there for his students. He is careful to make sure they are supported and that they always have the resources they need to succeed.”

Award winners were announced during the Drake Law Supreme Court Celebration in April. For a list of previous faculty award winners and this year’s Supreme Court Celebration student award winners, visit the Supreme Court Celebration website.

— Theresa Howard, Law School

HR Information Archive

Time to recharge and refresh

As we approach the end of Mental Health Awareness Month, and close out the academic year, now is a great time to reflect on your well-being.  Though the last two years ushered in tremendous change, one fundamental fact has not changed: we all need time to recharge.

Ultimately the responsibility of taking care of “you” starts with you.  It is not selfish to take care of your own needs — it is imperative.  Studies have shown that taking time away from the job can have physical and mental health benefits.  People who take vacations have lower stress, less risk of heart disease, a better outlook on life, and time away can even spur greater creativity.  Did you know that Lin-Manuel Miranda conceived the play Hamilton while on vacation?

Here are some guidelines to help you reap the benefits of vacation, wherever you go.

Get a change in scenery. Vacation doesn’t need to entail extensive travel. The fun of it is going somewhere that is different from your daily life. This may be a short drive from home, an extended road trip, or an excursion to the other side of town. For day and weekend trips, consider checking out one of Iowa’s amazing state parks.

Plan. Being spontaneous on occasions can be exciting, but pre-planning gives you something to look forward to, creating a sense of joy.  Even if you’re only going across town, you can still identify which days you’re going to take off and plan what you’re going to do in advance. Not interested in a long drive? Check out the events highlighted on the Catch Des Moines website.

Identify the type of experience you want to have. The ideal vacation is different for everyone. For some, it’s soaking up the sun by the water. For others, it’s a creative pursuit, exploring a new location, trying new cuisine, or engaging in an adventure sport. Knowing this will help you decide potential destinations and activities. If trying a new food or restaurant sounds good to you, check out the list of DSM restaurants on the Catch Des Moines website.

Spend time outdoors. Spending time in nature can benefit you both mentally and physically. Whether you’re traveling or staying home, build in time outdoors as part of your vacation.  Take a morning walk, fish on a lake, watch the waves crash at the beach or enjoy a picnic in a park. If you are looking for a new walk adventure, check out a Des Moines trail that you haven’t explored before. There are plenty to choose from!

Unplug. Unplugging from work can be difficult, but it is a big part of what makes vacation feel like vacation. It’s down time for your brain, creates the space for creativity to emerge and allows you to be fully present with your family and travel partners. Unplugging is easier said than done. Here are a few tips that may be helpful.

Create memories. Vacations are a great opportunity to create lasting, positive memories.  Recalling those happy memories can head off stress, anxiety, and depression. Capture fun moments with your smartphone, through journaling, or start a gratitude jar. You’ll enjoy revisiting these memories in the months and years to come.

As easy as it might be to keep on working and skip a vacation, don’t. Taking some time away can provide you with an experience that leaves you refreshed and re-energized, and you don’t have to go very far to do it. So, get packing and go. You’ll be glad you did.

— Linda Feiden, Human Resources

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

All Staff Council kickball tournament is back on

All Staff Council has rescheduled its kickball tournament for Wednesday, June 15.

Register your team or as a free agent and view the attached flyer for details.

Spectators are welcome and encouraged! Yard games and refreshments will be provided and you may enter the All Staff Council drawing for a chance to win an awesome prize. We look forward to seeing you there.

— Sydni Jennings, on behalf of All Staff Council

Campus Announcements Archive

System service outage June 11

On June 11, ITS will be performing required maintenance on the University server storage system. This maintenance will begin at 6 a.m. and be completed by 12 p.m. During this maintenance window, Banner, Transact (eAccounts) and printing services will be temporarily migrated to Drake’s secondary data center. These services will be down from approximately 6–7 a.m. during the transition. They will be down again for approximately one hour as the services are migrated back to the primary data center in Des Moines. The timing of the second outage will depend on how long it takes to complete the storage maintenance, so an exact estimate is not available.

Network and Internet services should not be impacted by this change. Also, any services fully hosted in the cloud, such as Blackboard, Zoom, Email, myDrake, and Teams will not be affected.

All other services will be down during the entire maintenance window, including, but not limited to, Drake BI, Citrix, and EMS. We will work to make this outage as brief as possible.

— Chris Mielke, ITS

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

Deputy Provost 2:10: Meeting our students where they are, opportunities

The Office of the Deputy Provost hosted two and a half days of faculty development at the close of the spring semester, drawing on Drake colleagues’ expertise to facilitate conversations around “meeting our students where they are.”  More than forty-five faculty and staff gathered to learn from and with each other and participated in engaged learning about who our students are (incoming first years to our graduate and adult learners), what they’ve experienced in the past two years (with COVID-19, and changes in high school education), and how our perceptions of their preparation impact how we meet them where they are in writing intensive courses, first year courses, and STEM courses.  We spent time together engaging in improvisational learning and leadership development, and had a terrific four hours of development around making our course materials accessible to all of our students by using best practices for universal course design. We were honored to welcome the executive director of Anawim Housing, one of our community partners, as part of a design clinic in Community Engaged Learning, facilitated by that office and Assistant Professor Elizabeth Talbert (SCSS).

If you missed this opportunity but would like to know more about the work we did, there are a couple of ways to plug in over the summer.

First: feel free to watch the videos of several of the sessions, posted here.

Second: you can join a learning community on STEM education, First Year Seminars, universal course design, Community Engaged Learning, and/or Writing Instruction by simply sending an email renee.cramer@drake.edu with the subject line: Learning Community [STEM, FYS, Course Design, CEL, or Writing].  Those of us who facilitated the workshop are putting together Teams units for those groups, with electronic resources for learning and engaging over the summer and a plan for fall face-to-face engagement.

Third: you can agree to be part of mentoring cohorts that my office is launching in the fall.  These cohorts will be intergenerational and interdisciplinary, and resourced for hospitality and mutual support/learning.  Each cohort will include two or three incoming faculty, and one or two faculty at each rank (including consecutive term appointments and clinical/faculty of practice).  Email renee.cramer@drake.edu with the subject line Mentoring Cohort, and I’ll be in touch as I grow this program and the training and support associated with it.

Finally: you can think ahead to the Drake University Learning Symposium—Thursday, Aug. 18, which is on the theme of Return.  Please know that we will gather as a university to talk about, think through, sit with, even make art about (and potentially, make sense of!) what we’ve gone through as an institution and a community in the past two years.  We gather with the hope that we can Return to our classrooms, our offices, our roles reinvigorated and trusting that, like our Core Values state, we really *are* all in this together.  If you’re interested in being part of planning and programming for that day—you know it—email renee.cramer@drake.edu with the subject line Planning Learning Symposium. I will be in touch in June!

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost