Friday, March 4, is Employee Appreciation Day. Believe it or not, this unofficial holiday has been around for 27 years—though it has only recently grown in popularity. In 1995, Bob Nelson, a founding board member of Recognition Professionals International, called for a holiday acknowledging all employees, not just administrative professionals. And, thus, Employee Appreciation Day was born.

The primary purpose of this day is to recognize employees for their hard work, dedication, and effort throughout the year. Hopefully, we can all agree that employers ought to regularly take time to show appreciation for their teams (i.e., certainly more than once a year!). However, it is meaningful to have dedicated time for deeper reflection and gestures of gratitude.

Drake will be celebrating Employee Appreciation the entire month of March, not just on March 4. We encourage you to read tomorrow’s HR Monthly email, which will provide a list of events and activities happening throughout the month of March. Please monitor your email for special messages from leaders. We also are excited to feature articles about employee appreciation in OnCampus every week during March.

It has been another year of challenge and tenacity, uncertainty and growth. Drake faculty, staff, and student workers have done amazing work, despite the roller-coaster ride COVID-19 forced upon us. Take time to feel pride in your ability to persevere. It is easy to forget that we are slogging our way through a historic event and—at least for some of us—it’s been exhausting and scary. Some of us have suffered sickness, loss, isolation, and many different forms of hardship. Yet, this community has sustained a focus on our students and kept its forward momentum going.

Although I am still new to Drake, I have picked up on a theme when speaking with managers and academic leaders—they are so terribly proud of their teams and departments. If you look back at all you’ve accomplished in the last year (or two), you should also be proud.

Thank you for caring about our students. Thank you for wanting this community to grow, improve, and evolve. Thank you for your agility, resilience, and dedication. Thank you staying on this roller coaster ride—even when the path forward has been murky. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

— Maureen De Armond, Human Resources; Nate Reagen, President’s Office

The Provost’s Drake Socials will resume in March. Dates and locations for the remainder of the semester are:

• Wednesday, March 23, Cowles Reading Room
• Monday, April 11, Shivers Hospitality Suite
• Tuesday, May 3, with the annual Human Resources retirement and years of service recognition, Shivers Hospitality Suite

The Socials will begin at 4 p.m. and are family friendly. There will be snacks, beer, wine, soft drinks, and water.

We will have Drake Core Value recognitions in March and April. If you would like to recognize a colleague for demonstrating our Core Values, please go to this Qualtrics page to provide information. Everyone entered will be recognized via a scrolling PowerPoint and several will have their names drawn for prizes.

— Drinda Williams, Office of the Provost

Every Tuesday in OnCampus the Deputy Provost shares two articles with a read time of 10 minutes.

Good faculty mentoring increases our ability to retain high quality faculty; it also helps create and sustain job satisfaction across the lifespan of a faculty career.  There are several models for creating a good mentoring program—one that supports faculty from the moment they are hired until the moment they retire.

Are you interested in being part of a faculty mentoring program—either as someone who receives mentoring, or as someone who provides it? I’d like to have a conversation about what your needs, expectations, experiences, and capacities might be as I look forward to launching a comprehensive faculty mentoring program as part of the Center for Teaching Excellence over the summer.

Please plan ahead to participate in a conversation after spring break, Friday, March 25, from 1:30–3 p.m. in Howard Hall, Room 210.  Register here, so we can provide hospitality. If you cannot attend but would like to be a mentor—or be assigned a mentor—please email renee.cramer@.drake.edu to inform me.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost

Every Tuesday in OnCampus the Deputy Provost shares two articles with a read time of 10 minutes.

Our March read for Books for Breakfast is Nathan Grawe’s Agile College: How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Change.  You will remember Professor Grawe from the 2019 Learning Symposium, and before that through faculty senate’s engagement with his work during the 2018–2019 school year. This book is his newest, and it constitutes a follow-up to the one about the dreaded demographic cliff.

Even better, we have guest facilitators for this book: Sean Severe (CBPA) and Natalie Bayer (A&S). Please join Sean, Natalie, and me on March 8 and March 22, from 8:30–9:30 a.m. in Howard Hall, Room 210. Register here by Feb. 25.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost

The Midwest Conference on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning takes place at Indiana University at South Bend April 1.  The theme is Authentic and Joyous Learning, and my office is (joyfully) able to offer financial support to two faculty who wish to attend and share what they learn, with a preference for funding to those faculty who are currently engaged in SOTL work. Please email renee.cramer@drake.edu and nicki.kimm@drake.edu by March 1 if you would like to access this opportunity; we will contact you by March 4 for planning purposes.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost