Category Archives: Campus Announcements Archive

University launches new campus calendar

Watch the video above produced by Giada Morresi, Student Activities Board President and Student Senate VP, for a quick look at how to use the calendar. 

With nearly 5,000 students, 1,000 faculty and staff, and more than 160 clubs and organizations, there’s always something happening at Drake. In an effort to better promote our vibrant life on campus, University Communications & Marketing, in partnership with Student Senate, is excited to launch calendar.drake.edu, a new online calendar for the University.

The calendar will replace the previous University calendar and serve as the central hub for all campus events—important academic dates, athletic events, music performances, lectures, readings, films, job fairs—you name it. The calendar is user-friendly, efficient, and allows anyone with a drake.edu email address to submit events. Other benefits include increased awareness and web traffic. The tool will help University events to appear at the top of Google search results, increasing traffic to our website. The calendar can be accessed through the drake.edu website by clicking News & Events or by simply going to calendar.drake.edu.

To date, there are already more than 300 events on the calendar.

Submitting events
Anyone with a drake.edu email address can submit events—and is encouraged to do so. Click on the orange “Submit an Event” button, and you will be prompted to login using your Drake ID. When filling out the submission form, enter as much information as you can and then click “Add Event.” Your submission will go into a pending queue where it will be approved or rejected by your respective area’s calendar editor. Submissions that don’t have a complete description, are not a University organized/sponsored event, or violate the University’s Statement of Principles, will not be accepted. Please be aware that it may take 2–3 days for a submission to be approved and appear on the calendar. Submitting events at least seven days before the start date of your event is encouraged.

Customizing your view
A scrolling slide of “Featured Events” is displayed at the top of the page, followed by trending events. Click the “Upcoming” button to see everything happening this week, or select “All Events” to see events by day, week, or month. To further customize your view, you can filter events by type, audience, or topic, such as “Arts & Entertainment” or “Science & Technology.”

Add events to your personal calendar
Want to add all of the upcoming lectures to your calendar automatically? It’s easy. Just select the category you want on the right-hand side of the page, such as “Equity & Inclusion.” A new page will open listing the events within this category. Click on the appropriate calendar icon at the top of the page (Google, Outlook, iCal). All future events in this category will be added to your calendar.

For complete how-to guides and tips for calendar users, visit calendar.drake.edu/help/about. Localist, the company that developed the new Drake calendar, also has a collection of helpful resources to access as well. See the list.

If you have any additional questions regarding the calendar, please contact Kelsey Faybik, associate director of brand integration, at kelsey.faybik@drake.edu.

Jeremy Sievers, University Communications & Marketing

Preferred name policy

In January of 2017 the university adopted the preferred name policy. Since that time, we have experienced success with students finding it easier to update their preferred name. This policy is helpful for many students, and is especially meaningful for international and transgender students.

Places the preferred name currently shows up are:
· Drake ID card
· Residence hall roster (for on-campus students)
· Blackboard listing
· Class list with photos
· Advisor list with photos
· MyDUSIS classmate search
· Email

Documents that list legal name:
· Transcript
· Diploma
· Document with the Office of Student Financial Planning
· Official University records
· Visa verification

We continue to work to update our extensive systems that display student names to confirm that preferred names are displayed where appropriate. As you navigate engaging preferred names, below are some tips for navigating respectfully and thoughtfully.

Why is this important?

What to do if you accidentally misgender someone/misuse someone’s name:
While misgendering/misusing someone’s name can be harmful and uncomfortable for both parties, we are all human and make mistakes. How someone responds after making a mistake is important. Often, the best thing to do is simply correct the mistake by saying something like, “Sorry, I meant ‘she’ is attending the event” and then move on with conversation. Try not to call too much attention to the situation or apologize profusely—this puts the person who has been misgendered in the position of comforting you and can make them feel even more uncomfortable. It’s best to say a quick apology, move on, be more diligent in the future.

Keep it confidential:
If you notice a document that uses a legal first name (besides the areas listed above), continue to refer to the person by their preferred name. Notify the department/area in charge where you noticed the discrepancy so it can be evaluated and updated.

What if you know a student who would like to update their preferred name?
Check out this FAQ.

Tony Tyler, Student Engagement, Equity, and Inclusion 

Heat to turn on soon in campus buildings

Drake University will switch from cooling to heating season within residence halls Oct. 10. For other campus buildings, heat will be turned on Oct. 15. An important reminder, once the University switches to heating, we cannot switch back to cooling. Normally, we will experience a few warm fall days and we will not have cooling available.

Jolene Schmidt, Facility Planning and Management

National emergency notification test

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will conduct a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) tomorrow, Oct. 3.

What’s happening?
On Oct. 3 at 1:18 p.m., FEMA and the FCC will conduct a nationwide test of both WEA and EAS. The test will assess the operational readiness of the infrastructure for distribution of national emergency or disaster messages and determine whether technological improvements are needed. This is the first national WEA test to cell phones. The message will be a Presidential Alert and will read “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.” The WEA test will be sent through IPAWS as part of the nation’s alert and warning infrastructure that automatically authenticates alerts.

These test notifications are occurring outside of our Bulldog Alert (Rave Alert/Rave Guardian) platform, Drake is not initiating or using our systems for the alert. However, as this is the first time FEMA is testing a Presidential Alert, it is likely that all or a majority of the campus community will receive this alert (there is no way to opt-out of the Presidential Alerts). It is our hope that this does not cause confusion as to the origin of the alert.

If Drake University initiates a Bulldog Alert tomorrow, as always the alert will start with the statement “Bulldog Alert” and then the appropriate information will follow.

Questions on the national test can be sent to FEMA-National-Test@fema.dhs.gov.

Scott Law, Public Safety and Operational Services

Town hall meeting on parking tomorrow

Last spring, Drake entered into an agreement with Walker Consultants to help look at the present parking demand for the University in light of planned growth and projects that are being considered. The consulting company spent the spring semester evaluating Drake’s present parking demand and is returning Oct. 3 to speak to campus about what it found and to gather feedback from various campus areas. A town hall meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, Oct. 3, from 12:45 to 2 p.m. in Sussman Theater. Anyone is welcome to attend to hear Walker’s findings  and ask questions.

Scott Law, Public Safety and Operational Services

Parking lot closure

On Friday, Oct. 5, starting at noon, Lot 16 (Olmsted Parking Lot) will be closed for a special event. Lot 16 (Olmsted) will re-open at 6 p.m. for normal permit parking.  We apologize for any inconvenience or disruption that this may cause.

Scott Law, Public Safety & Operational Services

Family Weekend events with Drake Wellness

Drake Wellness is hosting Family Yoga and POUND classes the morning of Oct. 6 for Family Weekend. Bring your parents and siblings to Yoga starting at 8:30 a.m. and to POUND starting at 10 a.m. The Bell Center will open at 8 a.m. for Yoga and will be open at 9 a.m. for open recreation. You can register through the Drake Rec app or through the IMLeagues website. This event is also a part of our Wellness bucket list. Make sure to stop by for some fitness and get one step closer to that free hat.

Drake Wellness

Principal Community Scholars nominations

The Principal Community Scholars Program is a collaboration between Principal and Campus Compact that supports the leadership development of undergraduate students seeking a business or business-related degree. Students are selected through a competitive process to receive a $1,000 scholarship, participate in a civic leadership learning community and complete a community-based experiential learning project. The curriculum and project help students develop critical skills for their careers. Students must be nominated by a faculty or staff member no later than Oct. 8. If you are interested, reach out to a faculty or staff member today. Read more information.

Amanda Martin, Community Engaged Learning and Service