Faculty and staff are invited to attend the Drake Social this Thursday, Feb. 15, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Shivers Hospitality Suite.

— Drinda Williams, Provost’s Office

The Provost’s Council is now accepting break-out session proposals for the 2018 Learning Symposium, “Building Trust: Leading the Conversation.” This year’s Learning Symposium will be Monday, Aug. 20, at the Olmsted Center, and will feature Dr. Kathy Obear as keynote speaker. Please visit the Learning Symposium web page for more details and to download the Call for Proposals document.

— Drinda Williams, Provost’s Office

In January, an email simulating a phishing attack was sent to just over 400 staff; 96 percent of those who received the email either didn’t open the email, or didn’t click the suspicious link inside it. These results show that Drake employees are continuing to improve their identification and avoidance of these potential threats.

Indications that an email may be dangerous:

• A strange sender, or one that you don’t expect
• A request that you take ‘urgent’ or ‘immediate’ action
• Links or attachments that don’t match the message content or that you don’t recognize.

Slow down and take a second look before taking action.

ITS will continue to send out simulated attacks to faculty and staff. If you receive an email that you suspect is phishing, don’t click any links, download any attachments, or reply. Instead, forward the email as an attachment to informationsecurity@drake.edu.

Additional training will be assigned to faculty and staff members who repeatedly click links or open attachments in phishing emails, simulated or not.

For more information on how to report phishing emails, see the IT Service Portal guide, Reporting a Phishing Message (How-to).

— Peter Lundstedt, ITS

Faculty, midterm grades for spring classes are due by 10 a.m. on Monday, March 26. You may enter midterm grades anytime between now and the deadline through blueView, MyDUSIS, or Blackboard.

— Kevin Moenkhaus, Office of Registrar

A reminder: Nominations for the Levitt Teacher of the Year Award and Mentor of the Year Award are due Feb. 12.

— Art Sanders, Associate Provost

The next in a series of meetings focused on creating inclusive learning environments will be at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 12, in the Olmsted Center, Drake Room. These meetings provide an opportunity for anyone on campus to come and discuss the challenges, successes, and failures we have faced as we try to navigate the difficult issue of creating inclusive learning environments. For questions, contact Art Sanders at arthur.sanders@drake.edu.

— Art Sanders, Associate Provost

Looking for a unique Valentine greeting for friends, colleagues, or family? The Drake Choir will deliver singing valentines on Wednesday, Feb. 14. Each singing valentine is a special delivery and can be presented at work, a restaurant, a retirement center, home, or wherever you designate; the choir has sung at construction sites, schools, offices, hospitals, and many more venues, so creativity is welcome.

We deliver to the entire Des Moines metro, including West Des Moines, Clive, Johnston, Windsor Heights, and Urbandale from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the day and 5:30 to 8 p.m. during the evening. In Ankeny, Altoona, Waukee, and Norwalk, we deliver from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

To order a singing valentine, visit http://www.drake.edu/valentines/ or call 515.271.3024. The deadline is Feb. 9.

Choose from one of our three great packages:

True Romance—one rose and a song, $30
Cupid’s Favorite—six roses and a song, $45
Hopeless Romantic—one dozen roses and a song, $65

Add an appearance from Griff for an additional $25
A new feature of our singing valentines is the opportunity to have Griff join the Drake Choir singers in presenting your order. You can add a Griff appearance to any order package for an additional $25. Griff is available from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 14.

Please note that Griff is a certified therapy dog and loves people. However, if you’re having us deliver a valentine to a building in which security clearance is needed to gain entry, you’ll need to work out those details ahead of time with a building supervisor. Our students will not have time to negotiate that aspect of things when they arrive, so please make sure that Griff is expected and welcomed.

Why a singing valentine?
In addition to winning brownie points with your valentine, you’ll be supporting the Drake Choir’s May 2019 international tour. No University funds are used for these tours, so your support is important and greatly appreciated.

— Aimee Beckmann-Collier, Music

Due to inclement weather, the Drake Social has been moved from today to Thursday, Feb. 15. Faculty and staff are invited to attend the social from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Shivers Hospitality Suite.

— Drinda Williams, Provost’s Office

Last week, Drake’s All Staff Council Recognition Committee celebrated the University Communications (UC) team with a surprise cookie delivery (compliments of Drake Dining). The following spotlight provides facts about UC and how they make Drake a better place.

Primary function: The Office of University Communications works to advance the image and reputation of Drake. The team focuses on the University’s key priorities, developing and implementing comprehensive communication strategies tailored to key stakeholder groups: faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors, community members, and the media. They also support campus partners by providing valuable tools that enable them to be strong brand ambassadors.

Staff:  There are 16 members of UC. Currently, there are two open positions.

Longest serving team member: Jeremy Sievers, director, digital communications. Jeremey started in August 2004 (13 years).

Newest team member: Dexter Jacobs, senior strategist, digital communications. Dexter started in November 2017.

What has University Communications been working on that the Drake community should know about?

• UC is in the midst of implementing a new brand platform, with initial efforts focused on admission projects and key advancement needs.
• So far this fiscal year, they have 696 jobs on the books, with 284 active jobs currently in the queue. This doesn’t count PR or internal communication projects.
• They’re launching more self-service tools for campus partners every day.
• Academic websites are in the process of being redesigned and relaunched (see news websites for CBPA, SJMC, and SOE).
• UC planned and executed 31 print pieces in fall 2017 to push applications and encourage prospective students to visit, and helped Admission hit their target of 6,000 applications!

Resources: For great self-service tools, be sure to check out the Toolkit, which contains the recently updated Brand Style Guide as well as editorial guidelines, design standards, templates, social media tips, and more.

The Office of University Communications is located at 1229 25^th Street, which is next door to Public Safety and across 25^th Street from Old Main.

— Terri Howard, Law School/All Staff Council