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. 

— Emma Brustkern, Senior

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.

— Jeff Regan, ITS

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)!

Register for the conference with your Drake email.

Full conference details:  drake.edu/careerconference/.

— Annette Watson, Academic Excellence and Student Success

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 Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Voteby Elaine Weiss
• Women Making History: The 19th Amendment Book, essays compiled by the National Park Service
• Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha S. Jones
• Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells by Michelle Duster
• The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

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 40^th 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.

LTAI: Women’s Suffrage is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). To explore resources from past LTAI themes, visit the project website.

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 J-Term class Race, Art, and Personhood curated the exhibition “Decolonize: The Black Imagination: An Exhibition of Stacey Robinson’s Afrofuturism Art.” Please join us on Friday, Feb. 11, at 5:30 p.m. at FAC, Room 336, or via Zoom for an artist talk. Stacey Robinson will be our guest via zoom to discuss his Afrofuturist and the ideas that motivate them. His knowledge of Black/ American history is profound. Audience participation and questions are welcome.

Zoom link :https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82092958830

— Lenore Metrick-Chen, Art and Design

Drake University will be celebrating NIRSA Recreational Sports and Fitness Day on Tuesday, Feb. 22. Come to the Bell Center to enjoy a variety of activities and prizes for students. Some activities include pop-a-shot, log rolling, badminton, volleyball, basketball, mini-golf, and a prize wheel. Join us in the Bell Center on Feb. 22 for your chance to win, have some fun, and celebrate Rec Day!

— Emily Madsen, Rec Services

I am deeply saddened to share that our former Drake colleague Theresa Graziano passed away on Nov. 15, 2021. Memorial Services will be held Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022. A visitation will be held from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. with the service starting at 11 a.m. at St. Augustin Catholic Church, located at 545 42nd Street in Des Moines.

Theresa served Drake and our students for more than 20 years within the Office of Residence Life and the Division of Student Affairs. Theresa enjoyed working with students, meeting families at orientation, and serving on various campus and community committees. One of our former students may have said it best when they wrote a message in remembrance of Theresa saying, “There are few people who can get you in check and make you feel loved all in the same moment. Theresa was one of the brightest spots in my time at Drake.” Theresa was a wonderful person and colleague. Her spirit lives on, shining brightly, through all of the lives she touched. We extend our sincerest condolences to her family, friends, and the many employees and students who were graced by her kindness. Our sincere sympathy goes out to all of Theresa’s family.

Read Theresa’s full obituary

— Jerry Parker, Chief Student Affairs Officer