All posts by Linda Feiden

HR Information Archive

Healthy eating tips to boost your mood

Many people turn to food to cope with emotions. If you find yourself struggling with emotional or stress eating during this unusual—and often stressful— time, you are not alone.

Allowing yourself to enjoy an extra dessert or some sweet or salty snacks is understandable. However, if you cannot seem to step away from food, the quick fix of cookies or cake can ultimately make you feel worse, both physically and emotionally. This can drive anxiety and worsen your mood. Here are five tips that may help.

Make a schedule or daily meal plan. Just like scheduling your work routine, you can schedule your meals. This includes times for your main meals and snack breaks. If it helps, post it on a calendar. Select a location to eat your meals and snacks like your kitchen table and keep that place separate from where you work and relax. Finally, prepare your snacks in advance to control portion size and select healthier options.

Become aware of your triggers. When do you most often reach for food?  When watching TV or scrolling through social media?  When working on a project?  Next, ask yourself how hungry you are.  Are you eating from hunger or emotion?  Keep a record of your triggers in a journal.  By understanding what prompts the eating, you can learn to anticipate these moments and find a healthier way to cope.  Maybe it is calling a friend, deep breathing, journaling, meditation, or taking a walk.

Keep temptations out of the house. Make the healthy choice the easy choice by surrounding yourself with nutritious options. Buy fewer processed, high-salt or high-sugar snacks. Load up on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and lean proteins. Do not forget your beverages. Skip the soda and replace it with flavored water.

Get exercise and plenty of sleep. Both physical activity and rest are important for managing stress and emotions. The better you feel, the less likely you are to make poor eating choices.

Get support when needed. Sometimes you cannot do it alone. When this happens reach out to a friend or family member for support. Registered dietitians and counselors, including Employee & Family Resources, can help.

The bottom line: increased anxiety can cause you to abandon your healthy eating intentions. But, with a little thought and planning, you can continue to make good food choices and maybe even boost your mood and immunity.

—  Linda Feiden, Human Resources

Campus Announcements Archive

TeamDynamix upgrade planned for May 21, 7 a.m.

ITS is making updates to TeamDynamix in order to facilitate single sign on (SSO). TeamDynamix is the system behind our ITS and facilities portals.

After the upgrade at 7 a.m. on Thursday, May 21, if you’ve previously signed into any Drake website using your Drake credentials you will no longer have to re-enter them when you submit a request or report an issue to ITS or Facilities.

The ITS portion of TeamDynamix can be accessed from the ITS Support link in the myDrake portal or by going to service.drake.edu/its. You can learn more about how SSO works at Single Sign On (SSO) and Drake applications (FAQ).

View instructions on using the ITS service portal

— Carla Herling, ITS

For Faculty Archive

Writing group for faculty writers

Faculty Writers Workshop, Summer 2020
Wednesday, June 3, 10–1 p.m.; Wednesday, June 10, 10–1 p.m.

Drake faculty members are invited to participate in an intensive version of the Faculty Writing Workshop (FWW) focused on using the summer effectively for our scholarship. We will meet from 10 a.m.–1 p.m. on Wednesday, June 3, and Wednesday, June 10. The FWW will be co-facilitated by Nate Holdren (LPS) and En Li (History). Our goal will be to help set ourselves up to make progress on our scholarship over the summer. We will draw from Joli Jensen’s book Write No Matter What and discuss it to the degree that participants find it useful. The session will also include discussion ​on how to carve out time for writing while teaching, a workshop on better integrating research and teaching, and on-site writing time. We will also discuss coordinating writing support and intellectual community for Drake faculty writers over the summer.

This writing group is generously supported by the Center for the Humanities. There are spots for ten faculty participants. Should more than 10 individuals express interest, priority shall be given to 1) Those who actively participated in the previous Faculty Writing Groups, 2) Tenure-track faculty who are not yet tenured, 3) Faculty who are members of groups under-represented, and 4) Faculty members whose works are related to humanities

Participants who commit to the whole time for both sessions will receive a small stipend.

If you are interested in participating, fill out the interest form by the morning of Monday, May 25.

If you have questions, please contact the co-facilitators of the summer FWW, Nate Holdren (nate.holdren@drake.edu) and En Li (en.li@drake.edu).

— Nate Holdren, Law, Politics & Society

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

Final grades (non-Law School) due May 20

Faculty, final grades are due by 10 a.m. on Wednesday, May 20. Exception: Law School grades are due Tuesday, May 26.

You may enter your final grades directly in MyDUSIS or automatically send them from Blackboard to MyDUSIS (with proper configuration).

Due to the large number of students who have converted their grade mode from standard letter grades to credit/no credit, we are enhancing the Blackboard Grades Journey instructions, which will be available here.

The “Download Class Roster” link on the Faculty & Advisors tab in MyDUSIS will allow you to generate your class roster in an Excel document, which lists, among other things, the grade mode assigned to each of your students.

More details about final grade entry will be available soon.  Thank you for your patience.

— Kevin Moenkhaus, Office of the Registrar

For Students Archive

Bulldog Bucks can be spent at the Bookstore

Do you still have Bulldog Bucks to spend? You can shop online at the University Bookstore and use your Bulldog Bucks as a payment method.

Bulldog Bucks carry over from year-to-year (so returning students can use them next year), but they are not refunded when you leave Drake. If this is your last semester here (congrats, Seniors!), consider purchasing something to show off your Drake pride.

— Sara Heijerman, Student Services Center

For Students Archive

J-term 2021 travel seminar deadline May 15

Reminder: Apply for a J-Term 2021 travel seminar by May 15 for the priority deadline. Applications will be reviewed at that time and students will be accepted or waitlisted by June 1. Please carefully review the following information if you are interested in going abroad or on a domestic program for J-Term 2021:

  • Deposit: After acceptance, to secure your spot on a travel seminar, you will need to commit to the program in Terra Dotta, pay your $500 deposit, and complete Terra Dotta post acceptance steps. Given the impact of COVID-19 on students and families, we have temporarily revised our deposit refund policy. If you choose to independently withdraw prior to Sept. 1, your deposit will be refunded. As always, if Drake cancels a travel seminar, your deposit will automatically be refunded.
  • On campus registration back up plan: In addition to applying for a travel seminar, we ask that you also register for an on-campus course at Drake as a backup plan (if you need J-Term credit regardless of the travel component). Please register during the regular registration process and timeframe. If you have questions about registering for on-campus courses for J-Term, please reach out to your academic advisor.
  • Independent withdrawal: We want you to be clear on the financial implications of committing to a J-Term travel seminar. Given the impact of COVID-19 on students and families, we have temporarily revised our deposit refund policy. If you choose to independently withdraw prior to Sept. 1, your deposit will be refunded. If after Sept. 1 you decide you want to withdraw from the program, you will be subject to Drake’s withdrawal and refund policies. Because of this, we strongly recommend you familiarize yourself with our withdrawal and refund policies which can be found in Terra Dotta. In addition, we strongly recommend you purchase ‘Cancel for Any Reason’ travel insurance through an insurance carrier.

Please be assured that your health and safety is of utmost importance. Given that this is an ever-evolving global situation, applicants will be notified if we make a change to the policy regarding J-Term travel seminars. Should you have any questions, we encourage you to reach out to studyabroad@drake.edu.

J-Term Timeline:
— May 15: Priority Deadline
— June 1: Accept/waitlist Students who applied by May 15
— June 15: Students Commit in Terra Dotta and pay a $500 Deposit to secure their place in the program
— May 15–Sept. 1: Students can still apply if travel seminars have openings; deposits are due within two weeks of acceptance
— Sept. 1: Final day to apply and final day for deposit refunds

— Maria Rohach, Drake International

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

Do your passwords pass the test? 

Are the passwords you use “good enough” to prevent someone else from accessing your Netflix account, credit card, or bank? Password security (or lack thereof) is still one of the largest causes of data breaches for organizations and individuals, and in many cases, the hassle and hardship could be completely avoided if people widely follow simple password practices. 

While people primarily think of poor passwords as an individual issue, they are also an organizational issue. Passwords are used to secure large amounts of highly confidential data that we’ve been entrusted with by our students, alumni, and donors. Weak passwords are a gift to would-be criminals, making it far easier for them to get what they want. 

Good Password Practices 

You’ve probably read about the basic components of a good password dozens of times: complex, changed regularly, unique, etc. Here’s some specific advice around these components to help you to better protect your accounts. 

The right words, phrases, and strings make passwords harder to break while making them easier to remember. Things like song lyrics, family jokes, or a description of a family member or object with numbers and special characters mixed in make the password extremely difficult to break. Length also adds exponential complexity. Did you know that Drake systems allow passwords up to 30 characters? Add some of these elements and you’ll come closer to that maximum than you expect. 

Avoid overused practices like an exclamation point at the end, family members names, or incrementing numbers. These are all well-known and make attackers jobs easier. 

While raising awareness of these practices is one thing, practical application is another matter entirely. Poor practices aren’t necessarily caused by ignorance or laziness: the reality is we simply have so many online accounts that following this guidance to the letter would be tedious and time-consuming. Enter the password manager. Using a password manager can help you develop a complex password for every account, while only having to remember 2–3 at the most. These tools can also auto-populate password fields securely, alert you to a potential breach, and suggest changes when needed. LastPass, 1Password, and BitWarden represent just a few of the options available, but you’ll want to do your research to find out which is best for you and your family. 

While other components have been introduced for account security, such as 2-factor and bio-metric authentication, the traditional password is still the key component holding all of these new features together. 

ITS will continue campus-wide training on account security practices including passwords and phishing.

If you’d like to discuss any information security issues, please feel free to reach out to me directly, or email informationsecurity@drake.edu. If you believe you’ve been targeted by phishing, see the guide, Reporting a Phishing Message (How-to). 

— Peter Lundstedt, ITS 

News & Achievements Archive

Announcing the 2020–2021 Troyer Research Fellowship Award

We are pleased to announce that the 2020-2021 Ron Troyer Research Fellowship has been awarded to Professor Sandra Patton-Imani, Associate Professor of American Studies in the Department for the Study of Culture and Society.

Professor Patton-Imani has a long and distinguished research record.  Her second book, Queering Family Trees: Race Reproductive Justice and Lesbian Motherhood, New York University Press, is forthcoming. Her first, Birthmarks: Transnational Adoption in Contemporary America, was published by New York University Press in 2000.

Her current research builds on her forthcoming book. It is a digital storytelling project, exploring questions of family history and national belonging in the United States, focusing in particular on questions of race, gender, reproduction, and power. Drawing on oral history, participant observation, and archival research, it approaches family genealogy as an aspect of resistant history-making for multiracial and mixed-race families whose existence in United States history has often been misinterpreted or erased. It focuses on intersecting family trees that cross multiple racial-ethnic categories. The research will be analyzed and interpreted by students in her courses, resulting in a public online digital story-mapping project highlighting aspects of mixed-race family histories that have previously been erased. The stipend that goes with the Fellowship will help advance that research.

Professor Patton-Imani has been a member of the Drake faculty since 2001. Prior to that she was a member of the faculty at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota. She received her Ph.D and M.A. in American Studies from the  University of Maryland, College Park, and her  B.A. in American Studies and Communications (Radio-TV-Film)) from  the California State University, Fullerton.

— Arthur Sanders, Ellis and Nelle Levitt Professor of Politics/Associate Provost

For Students Archive

University Bookstore rental return

Spring rental textbooks are due Friday, May 15. While the due date for rented books has not changed, the “non-return charge date” has been extended 15 days past your current return due date to allow time for your mailed book to reach the store. To avoid late charges, please have your book in transit by the due date.

Two ways to get a Rental Return Label

  1. Wait for the rental reminder email that is sent 14 days before your rental due date. Email is sent again seven days, three days, and the day of your due date. This email contains a link to generate a free return shipping label and packing slip.
  2. You can immediately generate a free return shipping label on drake.bkstr.com in your account:
    • Click the Sign In link on the top right side of the page to sign into your account.
    • Enter the email address you provided at the register when you rented. Note: Even if you rented in the store, an account was created using the email you provided at the register. If you do not know your password, you can click Forgot Password link for a temporary password to be emailed to you.
    • Once you have signed in, click the link Rentals. You will be navigated to the Rentals page in your account.
    • On Rentals page, scroll down the page to see the books you rented. Click the link Return All Rentals by Mail. You can also click the button Return by Mail. Both open a pop up to select your rentals to ship back.
    • Follow the steps to generate and print the return label and packing slip. This option is available until your rental due date.

For questions, contact drake@bkstr.com.

— Katie Wilz, University Bookstore