With the University’s fiscal year-end (June 30, 2022) approaching, below are recommended guidelines for efficient and effective year-end processing of financial transactions.

Accounting for departmental expenses:
In accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, Drake is required to report transactions in the proper fiscal period. For that reason, expenses are recorded in the period when goods are received and/or services are rendered.

In short, items expensed to the FY22 budget will need to be received before ‘end of day’ on June 30, 2022.  Factors such as budget allocation, invoice receipt, or payment issuance would not have an impact on the application of expenses within a fiscal period.

Exceptions to this general rule apply when a benefit of service or receipt of item extends into multiple fiscal years. In such cases, the following guidelines will be applied.

• Expenses less than $5,000: will be charged against the fiscal year in which the majority of the expense will be incurred. (For example, if a subscription is purchased for $3,000 and covers the period of 7/1/21 through 12/31/22, the expense would be charged to FY22)
• Expenses greater than or equal to $5,000: will be split into the fiscal years according to the percentage of benefit received during each fiscal period. (For example, if a subscription is purchased for $10,000 that covers a period of 7/1/21 through 6/30/23, $5,000 would be charged to FY22 and $5,000 charged to FY23)

The University’s guidelines for year-end purchases are subject to external audit. As you make purchases during this period leading up to and overlapping our fiscal year end, it is important to note when the goods or services were received so they are expensed according to reporting requirements. If the timing of receipt is not clearly noted on the invoice, it would be beneficial to help call the receipt date to accounting’s attention by clearly noting the appropriate fiscal, based on the above guidelines, in the business description in Finance Self Service.

Please review the notice for processing year-end transactions through the new Finance Self Service tool as well as a timeline for processing year-end transactions.

For questions, contact Jeni Baugher at extension 4509 or jenifer.baugher@drake.edu.

— Jeni Baugher, Accounting

The Provost’s Drake Social scheduled for today (Tuesday, May 3) and the Thelma’s Ice Cream giveaway scheduled for Thursday, May 5, have been canceled due to the increase in COVID-19 cases on campus. For more information, read the latest COVID-19 update sent from President Martin to the campus community Tuesday, May 3.

The Office of Finance invites faculty and staff to a retirement open house in honor of Nancy Crittenden on Monday, May 16, from 2–4 p.m. in Levitt Hall, Old Main.

Please bring a copy of your favorite, easy recipe to go in a collection for Nancy.

— Heather Winslow, Administrative Services Specialist

ITS is pleased to announce that we have completed the final steps in the campus phone system upgrade. On Friday, April 8, ITS and our service provider, Lumen/CenturyLink completed moving the remaining campus telephone numbers to Voice over IP (VOIP) service. Though there may be some additional minor configuration changes, this was the last major milestone in migrating away from Drake’s outdated phone system to Microsoft Teams Calling.

This has been an extensive project, and we thank you for your patience throughout the process. It was of the utmost importance that we updated our phone system, which was comprised of multiple systems connected through an unsupported 30-year-old main phone switch. Microsoft Teams Calling is built on cloud technology that provides the campus community a convenient and secure way to communicate wherever they are.

We hope that you are enjoying all the features that are included in Teams Calling, and Microsoft Teams in general. Not only does this provide a new way for us to receive and make calls, but it is a great way to collaborate and stay connected.

Learn more about the project and the resources available by visiting the Teams Calling System FAQ page which includes links to knowledge base articles, video resources, and quick reference guides to help you make calls, set up your voicemail, and learn about advanced calling features.

— Chris Mielke, ITS

Students utilizing Drake’s Tuition Waiver benefit for undergraduate degree programs in the Fall 2022 or Spring 2023 semesters are required to complete the 2022–2023 FAFSA before July 1, 2022. See Drake’s Tuition Waiver Policy for more details.

Employees should complete the Tuition Waiver Application for each semester that the employee or eligible dependent wishes to utilize this benefit.

— Ryan Zantingh, Director of Financial Aid

As we head into the final week of classes, those of us in the Office of the Deputy Provost want to say thanks to our faculty and our staff who are teaching. This semester, as we’ve crept toward what might be a ‘return’ to something-like-it-used-to-be, has been—by all accounts I’ve heard—a difficult joy. Faculty have worked hard to maintain a challenging and supportive learning environment, to meet our students’ academic needs while tending to their—and our—needs for well-being and community.  Our students achieved so much this year, across all of our disciplines, and it is because of the tremendous effort and care from our faculty.

So, as you prepare to write finals, grade papers and presentations, watch performances and assess your students’ work, please know how much you are appreciated.

One of the professional and personal mantras I engage is the phrase, “always begin again,” which I take to mean: always be willing to return with an attitude of beginning.  As I plan development opportunities for next academic year, I do so having learned from you this year—what engages, what falls flat, what is too big an ask, and what is just right.  I know that our faculty (9- and 12- month) take that learning with you as you plan your fall courses—and I’ll feel the solidarity as we plan, this summer, together, to return yet again in the fall with an Aug. 18 Learning Symposium on the theme of Return.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost

Several opportunities are closing in the coming weeks.

1) The last chance for you to send your students to the Writing Workshop is May 8.

2) The last chance to sign up to attend a virtual lecture by Cathy Davidson on Wednesday, May 4, at 7 p.m. is …. right now (by 5 p.m. on Tuesday,  May 3).

3) The last chance to register for a May Faculty Development workshop (May 18– 20) on the theme Meeting Our Students Where They Are, is Friday, May 6.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost

Mental Health First Aid is an international, evidence-based program that teaches people to identify, understand and respond to signs and symptoms of mental health and substance use challenges. Just as CPR helps you assist an individual having a heart attack, Mental Health First Aid helps you assist someone experiencing a mental health or substance use-related crisis. In the Mental Health First Aid course, you learn risk factors and warning signs for mental health and substance use-related concerns, strategies for how to help someone in both crisis and non-crisis situations, and where to turn for help. If interested in taking this course, please contact Sarah Grady (sarah.grady@drake.edu) or Christine Urish (christine.urish@drake.edu). We’ll be offering a MHFA course on Thursday, June 2.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost

June 13–16, 2022, the Honors Program will offer an Honors Teaching Workshop which will meet from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. (or longer if participants would like) each of these days. This workshop is for anyone who is interested in teaching Honors courses in the future and would like to be part of a community working through some of the most recent work on most effective practices for student learning.  The workshop is limited to 10 participants who will receive stipends for their time.

The purpose of this workshop is multifold.  Primarily, to encourage and prepare participants to teach more courses that will count for Honors.  Additonally, to create a community of instructors and to further each participant’s thinking about pedagogy as informed by some of the most recent (as well as some of the classic) work in the field.

Honors courses at Drake are not exclusively for Honors students and many are cross-listed within departments (and thus count toward major/minor/concentration requirements).  The defining characteristics of Honors courses are

(i) Discussion dependent: in the classroom, students are primary contributors to each other’s learning

(ii) Broadly interdisciplinary: putting into conversation disciplines which are not routinely in conversation with each other – ideally, the arts, humanities, social science and natural/physical sciences are included along with attention to professional fields.  The ideal rarely happens but the goal is to accustom students to working with different disciplines even those where they are not experts and to accustom students to talking with people who do not have shared vocabularies

(iii) Capped at 20: to make healthy discussion routinely possible

(iv) Writing intensive: critical thinking and communication skills are fundamental to learners growth and we know that routine writing improves both of these.

Another unofficial common characteristic of Honors Courses is that the instructor is a co-learner with the students. Of course, the instructor is a more experienced learner and has expertise that shouldn’t be ignored, but instructors visibly participating in the practice of learning is identified by many Honors students as important to them.

Prior to the workshop, I will send out a list of possible books to read together and ask participants to identify which books they’d like to work through together.  The Honors Program will purchase for participants books that are not available electronically through Cowles.

Please email Jennifer McCrickerd (Jennifer.mccrickerd@drake.edu), director of the Honors Program, and Charlene Skidmore (Charlene.skidmore@drake.edu), assistant director of the Honors Program, to express interest or ask any questions you may have.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost

You are invited to participate in a one-week faculty/staff development workshop, sponsored by the Office of the Deputy Provost/Center for Teaching Excellence, on the topic of “Responding to Student Writing in and outside of the Classroom.” This workshop will include both FYS faculty and faculty from across the disciplines, and will be coordinated by Jody Swilky.

Participants will meet on five mornings from 9 a.m. until 12 p.m. The first three meetings will be Wednesday–Friday, May 25–27. The workshop will then break for the Memorial Day Weekend and continue Tuesday and Wednesday, May 31 and June 1.

Participants will be asked to read and respond in writing to articles that address both the theory and practice of teaching writing in a variety of classroom settings. We will begin the workshop focusing on the different kinds of response one might give to student writing, depending, for example, on the purpose of the writing assignment, the academic discipline, the professor’s goals at different points in the term, etc. We will take up issues of how to help students develop their thinking within their writing, as well as ways of addressing error and other problems students have with written expression. Since any feedback faculty provide to student writing should be considered in relationship to the assignments students respond to, we will also investigate different approaches to designing assignments.

Participants will be asked to respond in discussion to the writing we ourselves produce in the seminar, as well as to sample student essays.

Participants not on a 12-month contract will receive a summer stipend in the amount of $625. All interested faculty/staff are invited to apply. Participation is limited to ten people. First priority will go to people teaching FYS for the first time. Beyond that, preference will be given to full-time continuing Drake faculty or staff, with an attempt to provide broad representation across various schools/colleges/departments.

Please register here by April 30 if you are interested in attending the workshop.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost