The project team reviewing faculty recruitment strategies will soon start drafting recommended tools and templates for consideration and possible adoption. The workgroup—consisting of Jennifer Harvey, Ann Guddall, and Drinda Williams in Academic Affairs; Maureen De Armond and Marli Jefferson in Human Resources; and Renée Cramer and Sue Mattison as the project’s executive sponsors—remains excited about opportunities to modernize practices and refine strategies when it comes to recruiting new faculty.

Through due diligence efforts, the project team also dove into some recent faculty searches to draw more data-informed conclusions about what we are seeing in current pools. We found that recent applicant pools have ranged in size from 3 to 277. We are seeing that more and more candidates are finding our job postings on sites like HigherEdJobs, professional organizations, and through word of mouth. Gone are the days when The Chronicle was “the place” to look for faculty openings.

One topic of interest shared by deans was interest for a dual career/spousal hiring program. Many universities offer a range of support to the spouses and partners of top candidates, who will also be seeking work in Des Moines. The project team listened to suggestions from deans, benchmarked practices at peer institutions and other universities, and are working up the outline of an initial program for Drake University. While this project’s focus is recruitment, the adoption of a dual career program will also support faculty retention.

In consultation with Kevin Saunders, director of institutional research and academic assessment, the project team will be very intentional in assuring any draft documents it proposes speak to the faculty qualification standards established by the Higher Learning Commission. HLC standards should co-exist with Drake’s faculty recruitment materials and the project team will assure this happens.

The project team will also be reviewing search committee chair and search committee training to assure we are using the most modern and best practices to assure our search committees are informed, supported, and prepared to manage searches.

The project team has been thrilled with the feedback and input it has received from new faculty, former search chairs, academic chairs, business office managers, and deans. While the list of work yet to do remains long, this is an ideal time to revisit recruitment. More updates to come in August.

If you have questions or suggestions relating to faculty recruitment that you would like the project team to hear, please email drakehr@drake.edu, subject line: Faculty Recruitment and the team will get the message.

— Jennifer Harvey, Campus Equity and Inclusion; and Maureen De Armond, Human Resources

To ensure the safety and security of the Drake community and remain compliant with federal and local regulations, ITS will be enabling E911 calling within the Teams Phone System. This will allow Teams to send an approximate location to emergency services personnel when a user dials 911 from that device. 

E911 services will roll out to Drake faculty and staff using the Teams client in early August. It will not impact any other calling features. Once the feature has been released, individuals calling from the Teams app on their computer or cellphone may receive a notification within the Teams Calls module to confirm or manually update their approximate location displayed in the lower left corner of the Calls module. This location will update as a wireless device is moved around campus. The location of “fixed” handsets will be configured by ITS and no action will be needed by the user.

The location feature is only used to send to emergency services personnel when a 911 call is made and is not available to any other individual or organization you call.

To learn more about the E911 calling feature within Teams please see E911 Calling with Teams (FAQ).

— Jeff Regan, ITS

Drake University will be transitioning their procurement card program from PNC Bank to UMB Bank on Sept. 1, 2022. This was a decision made by the University for several reasons.  First, Drake recently negotiated a debt restructure.  As part of this agreement, Drake agreed to consider moving the Pcard program to UMB.  After researching UMB’s Procurement Card Program, it was determined UMB is able to offer better overall customer service compared to our current Pcard provider.  The contract terms were also more favorable for the University.  Although cardholders will log into the UMB system, the platforms are very similar which should allow for a seamless transition.

What does this mean for cardholders?  All cardholders will receive a new card.  We have worked with UMB to design a card with a picture of Old Main on it.  We are hopeful the new design will make the Pcard more distinguishable from cardholders’ personal credit cards. UMB will be providing in person training Aug. 22, 23, and 24 at various times to review the online platform where cardholders will submit receipts/documentation and approvers will approve charges.  They will also be reviewing the mobile app option.  This option allows cardholders a convenient way to manage receipts.  An online option will be offered at a later date for those not able to attend in person.  Please note: all cardholders are required to attend one of the trainings in order to receive their Pcard.  A separate calendar invite will be sent for the training sessions. You can reach out to us at any time with questions at pcard@drake.edu.

— Erica McGowan, Finance and Administration

The Office of Global Engagement is excited to kick off the Fall 2022 intake for Drake Intercultural Community Exchange (DICE). This volunteer program matches faculty and staff (and their families) with incoming international students for a term (or longer), with the goal of fostering meaningful connections beyond the classroom.

DICE hosts would be expected to reach out to their student two or three times a semester to grab a meal, participate in a shared interest, or meet up at DICE/ISSS-sponsored events. Participating as a DICE volunteer is open to ALL Drake faculty and staff. The only requirement is that you have a strong interest in developing an inclusive community and the desire to make our international students feel welcome.

This second year is also unique – we will now be opening our search for hosts to Drake-affiliated community members in the greater Des Moines area. If you know any interested parties, feel free to send the application to them.

If you are interested in becoming a DICE host, please complete our online application: http://drake.qualtrics.com/DICE_HostApplication

If you have any questions about the program, please send inquires to Jorona Johnson, international student advisor, at jorona.johnson@drake.edu.

— Jorona Johnson, Global Engagement

Join us in July for HealthyU BINGO.  The goal is to fill up a blank BINGO card (or two), during the month, with healthy activities completed from a provided list.  Then, in August, we will get together to play games of HealthyU BINGO for prizes.

You are welcome to fill out the HealthyU BINGO card without playing the BINGO games, but who doesn’t like playing BINGO!

To get started, send an email to linda.feiden@drake.edu. Deadline to register is Thursday, June 30.  All participants will receive an email with an attached packet that includes directions, a list of HealthyU BINGO activities, and a blank BINGO card.  You are welcome to make multiple copies of this card.

Please feel free to reach out with questions.  This is a great event for the whole family!

— Linda Feiden, Human Resources

Finance has completed a periodic review and update to its existing policies. As part of that review, a comprehensive travel policy is being implemented and will become effective July 1, 2022.

The policy combines and replaces two previously existing policies titled Accounts Payable Guidelines and Group Travel. The purpose of the policy is to provide guidance for expenses incurred while traveling on University business. It is intended to comply with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations and the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) definition of an Accountable Plan.

Starting this Thursday, June 30, the travel policy will be available for public review and comment on the Policies under Review webpage. The policy will be posted for comment for two weeks. Please take a moment to review the policy.

— Heather Travis, Finance

As some of you already know, Drake’s current applicant tracking system (ATS), Hire Touch, is being sunset by the parent company at the end of this year. Drake HR vetted a number of platforms as a possible replacement. We are thrilled to share that our new ATS will be supported by PageUp.

PageUp has a well-established and impressive presence in higher education. Through their platform, we will be able to configure the public facing job page to reflect Drake’s brand in new and better ways than ever before. We will enjoy a more user-friendly design—for both external (applicants) and internal (HR and hiring managers) users. We will also have better ways to run reports and track data—which will help support our efforts to modernize our recruitment practices and strategies.

We are trying to come up with a clever name for the jobs page (and how we refer to it), rather than relying on the vendor name (Drake Careers, Jobs@Drake, something like this). If you have any catchy or clever suggestions, please feel free to share them! If we select your suggestion, we’ll buy you lunch and give you bragging rights over the new name! Send your ideas to drakehr@drake.edu.

As mentioned, we will have some latitude in how we configure the look of the jobs page through PageUp. If you are curious about what the public facing jobs board could look like, here are several examples of other institutions of higher education already using this vendor:

• Texas Christian Univ.
• of Mass.
• of Florida
• CalPoly – Pomona
• Michigan State Uni.
• of Alabama
• NSU Florida
• Illinois State University
• UConn
• Butler University

The project team is working on the transition to the new ATS (big shout out to ITS for being amazing partners in this endeavor!), which will likely go live sometime between late September and early November. We need to be off Hire Touch completely by the end of the calendar year.

If you have questions or comments about this transition, please reach out to drakehr@drake.edu.

— Maureen De Armond, Human Resources

Last fall, Howard University made headlines as the victim of a ransomware attack that forced the cancellation of online and in-person classes. The Washington, DC, institution is not the only university to be impacted by cybercriminals. With vast repositories of sensitive and personal data from students, faculty and staff, colleges and universities are a prime target for attack.

One of the most common attack vectors for ransomware is phishing, which has been around for decades. Phishing is a social engineering technique that uses email to entice or trick unsuspecting people to click on web links or attachments that appear to be legitimate but are instead designed to compromise the recipient’s machine or trick the recipient into revealing credentials or other sensitive information. Phishing presents adversaries with a low-risk method that offers a high potential for financial gain.

Phishing is challenging to fight with technology alone. Many email security solutions still allow up to 20% of phishing emails to be delivered.  Also, anti-phishing technology usually won’t stop email from a compromised University email account because the messages are being sent from a legitimate source. As a result, stopping phishing threats requires vigilance by everyone. People must learn to recognize the signs of a phishing attempt and report these attempts to the proper security staff.

Here are five signs of a phishing attempt

• An unexpected email that prompts you to change a password, send funds, open an attachment, or log into a website.
• An email whose body appears to be legitimate but was sent from the wrong domain (e.g., an email that says it is from your bank but was sent from a Gmail account).
• An email with misspelled words, bad grammar, or poor formatting.
• An email that contains suspicious file attachments.
• An email containing web links that are from fake or unknown web domains when the cursor is hovered over them.

To help us all recognize phishing emails, ITS will continue to simulate phishing and assign training to those most susceptible. If you believe you’ve been targeted by phishing, see Reporting a Phishing Message (How-to).

— Chris Mielke, ITS

Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART) needs help to finalize plans for major changes to transit service in West Des Moines. DART is proposing replacing some current routes and services with a new DART On Demand zone. To learn more about DART’s upcoming meetings and to complete the survey, visit: ridedart.com/WestDesMoines.

— Ryan Arnold, Community Engagement