Water shutdown

Drake will experience a water shutdown tomorrow, Dec. 20. The shutdown will last approximately seven hours. The shutdown will begin at 10 p.m. tomorrow, and the water will be back on at approximately 5 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 21. The buildings included in the water shutdown are Howard Hall, Old Main, Sheslow Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, Harmon Fine Arts Center, Turner Jazz Center, Opperman Law Library, The Knapp Center, Cartwright Hall, Jewett Residence Hall, Collier-Scripps Hall, Olin Hall, Fieldhouse, Bell Center, and Facilities Planning and Management .

Power outage

Facilities Planning and Management needs to make minor repair to an electrical switch located near Aliber Hall.  Electricity will be shut off to Aliber Hall and Olmsted Center on Friday, Dec. 22, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

—Jolene Schmidt, Facilities Planning and Management

Blackboard will be migrating to a different kind of environment without much change to its users. In order to complete the migration, Blackboard will be unavailable from Dec. 23 to 27. Please be sure to plan accordingly for this migration timeline. After the system is available, faculty may generate course materials and finish their preparations for J-Term and spring courses.

Our move to Blackboard’s SaaS (Software as a Service) will make new tools available and position Drake to provide better online offerings for years to come. The planned migration from managed hosting, which is housed on Blackboards servers, to SaaS, hosted on Amazon Web Services data centers, will occur during winter break to have the least amount of impact.

Once the migration takes place, we will continue running the current experience on Blackboard known as version 9.1. By moving to SaaS, we gain some major benefits from the new environment, which will also allow us to make future upgrades and patches to our environment with little to no downtime.

—Karly Good, ITS

Drake reimburses mileage for use of personal automobiles by employees for actual miles driven during business travel. The reimbursement rate is based on the current standard mileage rate issued by the Internal Revenue Service.

Effective Jan. 1, 2018, the standard mileage rate issued by the IRS is 54.5 cents per business mile driven, which is up from 53.5 cents in 2017.

The standard mileage rate is evaluated annually by the IRS and is based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile.

If you have any questions regarding the reimbursable mileage rate, please visit the IRS website or contact Accounting at accounting@drake.edu.

—Jenifer Baugher, Accounting

The new parking lot north of Opperman Hall is now open. The south end of 27th Street will remain fenced off due to construction until spring. View a map of the construction area and review your future walking paths.

—Jolene Schmidt, Facilities Planning and Management

Facilities Planning and Management is pleased to welcome Patrick Williams to its team. Patrick will serve as grounds supervisor. He holds a Bachelor of Science in horticulture from Iowa State University and has more than 10 years of experience in turf management, including several years as a head golf course superintendent and operations manager. We are excited to have Patrick on board to lead the grounds day-to-day operations and to take our beautiful campus to the next level.

—Aaron Edwards, Facilities Planning and Management

Protex Central, a fire alarm systems vendor, will be on site Dec. 21 beginning at 8 a.m. to inspect fire alarm panels in each building on campus. The alarms will sound briefly, but evacuation is not necessary. The inspection will ensure that alarms are working properly and ring directly to Public Safety. The inspections will conclude at the end of the day.

—Jolene Schmidt, Facilities Planning and Management

OnCampus will not be published Dec. 26 or Jan. 2 due to the winter break. Publication will resume on Tuesday, Jan. 9. To submit content, email oncampus@drake.edu by noon on the Friday before you’d like your news to be featured. For questions, contact Ashton Hockman, assistant director of campus relations, at ashton.hockman@drake.edu.

—Ashton Hockman, University Communications

Last spring, Drake completed a facility feasibility study of Cowles Library. As a result, the University decided to move forward with improvements to the east side of the library’s main floor. One of these improvements includes new furniture.

To help determine what furniture to purchase, Cowles staff are soliciting feedback from the campus community. Furniture is set up and on display now through Dec. 15 for students, faculty, and staff to test out and provide feedback. Please stop by the library during this time to have a say in determining the new furniture.

—Leslie Noble, Cowles Library

Surprise the Bulldog fan in your life this holiday season with one of our Bulldog Basketball Holiday Gift Packs. For just $44, you will receive four tickets to a basketball game, four hot dogs, four souvenir sodas, and one miniature basketball. This package is perfect for fans of all ages, especially the little Bulldog fans in your life.

Offer is valid for all men’s and women’s basketball games from Dec. 9 through Jan. 14. To purchase, visit draketix.com/holiday or The Knapp Center Ticket Office.

For more information, contact the Drake Athletics Ticket Office at 515-271-3647 or tickets@drake.edu.

—Ryan Harris, Drake Athletics