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.
Student Press Freedom Day is an annual day of celebration founded by the Student Press Law Center in an effort to raise awareness about the importance of the First Amendment and student journalism. As part of the 2022 celebration on Feb. 24, and in coordination with the theme ‘Unmute Yourself,’ The Times-Delphic will hold a day of events to raise awareness about the importance of student press freedom while giving Drake students the opportunity to ‘unmute themselves’ through interactive events. View the full schedule.
Information Technology Services (ITS) is excited to announce the launch of its new internal department site for students, faculty, and staff. You can find ITS’ internal department site from myDrake by going to the Department Sites link in the Campus Resources section, and then accessing Information Technology Services from the Campus Services subsection.
ITS will continue to work with individual departments across campus to move their internal-facing content into their internal department sites. If your department would like to start creating your area’s internal site, please reach out.
Join us for a virtual career conference that celebrates being limitless and authentically you in the pursuit of your goals.
The event will be held virtually on March 4 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and features speakers from around the country. With the focus on inspiring you to be limitless, the conference is relevant for all majors, first-year students, and grad students.
Why should you attend?
Keynote speaker Christen Brandt, author and She’s the First co-founder will walk you through the process of creating your own impact plan, finding your North Star, and avoiding the biggest mistakes in social change.
Hear about career journeys and engage with professionals on a variety of topics on which you can learn today and practice tomorrow!
Get guidance on how to jumpstart your career, live authentically, and be confident in a professional setting.
Practical tips on how to be limitless in a changing work culture and tips to navigate burnout and reduce stress.
Sessions will be interactive to provide students with the chance to engage and network with presenters!
Build your True Blue Skills (career competencies)!
Drake Men’s Basketball will host Faculty and Staff Appreciation Day on Saturday, Feb. 26, at 3 p.m. during their final home game of the season. Each faculty and staff member can receive up to four complimentary tickets to the game. Redeem tickets here.
For more information on all Faculty and Staff Appreciation days, visit DrakeTix.com/facultyandstaffdays. Please remember that per Drake University policy, masks are required in the Knapp Center. Please email tickets@drake.edu with any questions.
With new dates of March 3–4 from noon-to-noon, All In 2022 is going to be bigger than ever. This tradition of collective generosity and impact helps Drake transform every day for our students, faculty, staff, and community. The challenge will reach new heights with a total of $100,000 being unlocked for Drake University if 1,250 donors go All In during the 24 hours. This match is made possible by the generosity of Trustee Lindsay Whorton, AS’08, ED’08; Doug Zinser, AS’96; Christopher Smith, AS’88; and an anonymous alumni couple.
There are also tens of thousands of matching dollars available with specific challenges for each college and school, athletics, fine arts, students, first time donors, and more! A gift of any amount, to any area, will be doubled or even tripled through these fantastic matching opportunities. When you support Drake during All In, you are embracing and empowering the innovations, connections, achievements, and opportunities that happen here each day. You are joining the ones who provide for the NOW that will build the better FUTURE for us all.
Learn more at drake.edu/allin and follow all the fun and excitement on the Drake University and Drake Alumni social media channels.
For the past 10 years, Drake University has been recognized by the Arbor Day Foundation as a Tree Campus (Higher Education) and once again our campus has received this award for 2021. To be honored with this prestigious award requires an annual application process. The benchmarks include maintaining a tree advisory committee, adherence to a Campus Tree Care Plan, dedicated expenditures for the Campus Tree Care Program, an Arbor Day Observance, and a Service-Learning Project. The application is approved by the Iowa DNR and the Arbor Day Foundation.
Drake has more than 1,500 trees on campus, including about 130 Ash trees. Decisions to remove trees are made only after careful analysis of whether the tree can be saved as well as evaluating potential safety issues. Our grounds team puts a great deal of time and effort into planting and caring for the trees we have on campus. Over the last five years, Drake grounds staff has planted 379 new trees on campus.
Recently, it was determined that an ash tree needed to be removed and an oak tree needed to be pruned near Meredith/Jewett. With warmer temperatures, our contractor was able to complete this work last week.
— Colin Atkinson, Facilities Planning and Management
Cowles Library is one of 25 libraries nationwide selected to participate in Let’s Talk About It (LTAI): Women’s Suffrage, a grant designed to spark conversations about American history and culture through an examination of the women’s suffrage movement.
During the spring semester, five conversations will be held, each focusing on one grant-nominated book. Each discussion will be led by one Drake faculty member and one Drake student. The programming is sponsored by Cowles Library, Department of History, and Women’s and Gender Studies Program and further builds on the discussions around the traveling exhibit, Toward a Universal Suffrage: American American Women in Iowa and the Vote For All, on display in the Cowles Library Reading Room from February 21–March 7.
As part of the grant, Cowles Library will receive the following books:
The first discussion in the Drake series will be on Elaine Weiss’s The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote. It will be co-facilitated by Professor Rachel Paine Caufield and Emma Brustkern on Wednesday, March 2, at 5:30pm in the Cowles Library Reading Room.
Celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2022, Let’s Talk About It is a reading and discussion program that involves groups of people reading a series of books selected by national project scholars and discussing them in the context of an overarching theme. The format for a Let’s Talk About It program involves a ten-week series. Every two weeks, a discussion group meets with a local humanities scholar to discuss one of the five books in the theme.
For more information on the series please visit researchguides.drake.edu/suffrage or contact any member of the LTAI: Women’s Suffrage Planning Committee: Jill Allen, Hope Bibens, Carrie Dunham-LaGree, and Karen Leroux.
— Hope Bibens, University Archives and Special Collections
The All Staff Council Special Interest Committee explores initiatives, questions, and/or concerns through research, planning, and collaboration with appropriate offices on campus.
To help ensure that the work of our committee is aligned with staff needs, please share any suggestions, concerns, or other feedback you’d like us to look into using this form. If you’d like us to respond to your feedback directly, please include your name and contact information, otherwise let us know your thoughts anonymously.
The Special Interest Committee chair is Laura Bjurstrom. Additional members of the committee are Megan Franklin, Lori Richman, Rashmee Virmani, Erica McGowan, and Diana Newman.
Also, mark your calendars for our next Bulldogs Connect Networking Lunch on Wednesday, March 30, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Come join us for a $5 lunch at Hubbell Dining Hall.
Drake staff can be on the look-out for some special Griff II magnets this month, as part of Staff Appreciation Month. Two hundred magnets are being distributed through All Staff Council, and will be circulating among staff throughout the month of March.
Here’s how it works:
The magnets will be given out as a high-five for a job well done—a way to say, “I see you, and I appreciate you.”
Once received, individuals are encouraged to keep the magnets for just a few days, but be watching for a colleague who also deserves a high-five.
The magnets can be handed off again and again, reaching as many of Drake’s amazing staff members as possible.
Feel free to add a note of appreciation, a treat, or a simple (masked) smile—just keep those magnets circulating.
This is a joint project through the All Staff Council Recognition Committee and Human Resources.
