Category Archives: For Staff Archive

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

LGBTQ+ affinity group social Dec. 15

Drake LGBTQ+ faculty and staff are invited to an affinity group happy hour on Wednesday, Dec. 15, at 5 p.m. This Drake LGBTQ+ affinity group is still in its early stages, but join us for a casual gathering where you can meet colleagues and discuss ideas for the future of this group.

Please contact Evan Favreau at evan.favreau@drake.edu for more details about the happy hour, or if you would like to be included in messages about future events.

— Jen Harvey, Associate Provost, Campus Equity and Inclusion

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

Deputy Provost 2:10: Spring Writing Workshop

Every Tuesday in OnCampus the Deputy Provost shares two articles with a read time of 10 minutes.

Reminder: Faculty and staff are encouraged to participate in the Spring Writing Project. The project consists of a one-semester commitment that will include: working with Director of Writing Jody Swilky on the development of a writing assignment, writing activities, or a writing project for one of his/her spring classes; meeting no later than the first or second week of the semester with the coordinator to discuss the assignment and project as well as issues related to instruction such as responses to writing; and attending 60-minute meetings of all participants in the program in February and March 2022. These meetings may be structured as two sessions each month, half of the participants at each session, in order to facilitate more in-depth discussion. There will be required meetings of all participating instructors held in late April or early May 2022. An additional aspect of the project is that faculty will require all students enrolled in their class to attend The Writing Workshop at least twice during the semester as the student works on the writing assignment/activities/project.

After the initial meeting(s) with the coordinator of writing instruction to develop a writing assignment or writing project, participants will receive a stipend of $500. After completing the project and attending the final meeting, participants will receive an additional $500.

Participation is limited to 10 individuals, and the deadline to respond to this call is Dec. 12.  If you are interested in participating, please contact Nicki Kimm (nicki.kimm@drake.edu). If you have questions, contact Director of Writing Jody Swilky (jody.swilky@drake.edu).

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

Deputy Provost 2:10: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning luncheon

Every Tuesday in OnCampus the Deputy Provost shares two articles with a read time of 10 minutes.

If you have engaged in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, please consider joining our new faculty at the final luncheon of the semester, Friday, Dec. 10, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., in Howard Hall, Room 210. We will discuss the way that SOTL helps inform our teaching and our research, and this will be a great way to meet some of the folks who are newer to campus.

Please email nicki.kimm@drake.edu to register.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost

For Staff Archive

Cookie decorating with All Staff Council

The holidays are right around the corner. Join the All Staff Council in celebrating this joyous time of year while decorating festive cookies. Lynne Cornelius will be showing us her expert decorating skills starting at 3 p.m. on Dec. 17 via Teams. Join the event here (and look for it on the University Calendar).

This is a virtual, family-friendly event for decorators of all ages. Participants can order kits for the session for $10 that will include 3 large cookies and 3 frostings. You can submit orders for cookie kits by Dec. 10 using this form. We will raffle off a dozen cookies to a lucky participant.

Please contact ascspecialevents@drake.edu with any questions or comments. The event is sponsored by ASC events and community service committees.

— Drinda Williams, on behalf of All Staff Council

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

Next steps: Great Colleges To Work For Survey

As we’ve shared in prior OnCampus articles, one of our focus areas this year is to attend to our culture.  This is based on feedback from the Great Colleges To Work For survey and given that we are adjusting to working in an ongoing pandemic.

We recently invited all of campus to participate in focus groups to discuss ideas of how to attend to our culture and what’s possible yet this academic year. Through these sessions, we were able to gain valuable insights and feedback as to what’s important and possible. Thank you to those that participated!

As a summary, here’s what we discussed and discovered:

  • Culture Varies by Department: It’s clear that culture and perceptions of culture can vary tremendously depending on the area where people work.
  • Internal Growth: There are areas that have reputations for good culture—Advancement, the Admission Office, the Ray Center were three that came up. What are those areas doing well and how can we replicate it? Where we have strong leaders who can teach, train, or speak about leadership, are we over-looking and under-utilizing these internal assets?
  • Leadership Training and Tools: As we look at leadership training and development, building culture has to be part of this. Leaders create culture. Are we teaching leaders how to create culture?
  • Improved New Employee Orientation (and Onboarding): It’s a priority for HR to reinstate new-employee orientation. In addition, we’ll discuss some complimentary ways we can build on that orientation from others outside of HR as well.
  • Intentionality: We discussed that culture has to be intentional, proactive, and routine. We spent some time in both sessions talking about making time to build relationships outside of our immediate work areas. We can also think about an annual communication plan for culture and values. How do we routinely sprinkle culture/values/mission/inspiration into our communication practices?
  • Socializing Matters: We need to bring back regularly scheduled social events—and make them part of our routine.
  • Networking Cohorts: We’ll explore creating more opportunities for cross-departmental cohorts including mentoring programs.
  • Increase Visible Recognition of Achievement: We need a greater culture of recognition and stronger utilization of the recognition tools we already have (such True Blue Awards).
  • Communicating Across Departments: We heard about department-to-department silos and the need to enhance communication, horizontally across departments.

As there are many ways to tactically implement the above, we’ll be reviewing these outcomes of the focus groups at an upcoming President’s Council meeting and circling back with both managers/supervisors and all of campus on specific next steps.

In the months ahead, you’ll start to see more opportunities to engage in our culture and be a part of making Drake a great place to work.  Speaking of, here’s a great example!

Thanks for reading and all you do to attend to our culture.

— Maureen De Armond, Human Resources, and Nate Reagen, President’s Office

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

Men’s Basketball Faculty and Staff Appreciation Day Nov. 20

Drake Men’s Basketball will host Faculty and Staff Appreciation Night on Saturday, Nov. 20, when they take on Richmond at 12 p.m.

Each faculty and staff member can receive up to four complimentary tickets. Redeem your tickets.

For more information on all Faculty and Staff Appreciation days, visit DrakeTix.com/facultyandstaffdays. Please remember that per Drake University policy, masks are required in the Knapp Center.

— Aimee Lane, Athletics

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

FPM shares results of Administration Services Survey

An objective of Drake’s Continuous Improvement Plan is to “Elevate Service Excellence”. The Survey of Administrative Services (SAS) directly supports our continuous improvement in this area.  The feedback helps Facilities Planning and Management understand where service gaps may exist and how to improve our services to the University.

Survey respondents provided largely positive feedback about FPM services. Responses were provided on a five-point scale, with five being the highest.

Satisfaction with FPM staff – Total Average 4.38 (4.41 last year)
Respondents assessed their satisfaction with FPM staff including their courtesy, professionalism, knowledge, timeliness, resolution of issues and communication regarding work orders and projects.

FPM Staff are courteous – 4.82

FPM Staff are professional – 4.74

FPM Staff are knowledgeable – 4.62

FPM Staff respond to requests in a timely manner – 4.26

FPM staff provide regular communication about the status of my request – 3.96

FPM keeps me aware of projects or construction that will impact my work – 3.86

Satisfaction with services provided by FPM – Total Average 4.48 (4.50 last year)
Respondents assessed their satisfaction with the services FPM staff provide for all campus buildings and grounds.

Moving – 4.72

Carpentry – 4.66

Custodial – 4.62

Grounds – 4.61

Electrical – 4.57

Painting – 4.57

Plumbing – 4.51

Trash/Recycling – 4.43

Snow Removal – 4.35

Capital Projects – 4.18

Cooling and Heating – 4.09

Overall satisfaction with FPM —Total Average 4.13 (4.39 last year)
Overall satisfaction is above average, slightly down from the previous year.  FPM has opportunities for improvement and we are actively developing strategies to improve our services and overall quality. The preservation of historic buildings can be demanding when maintaining and updating mechanical systems.  It is our goal to heat and cool to establish a comfortable environment, but understand the capacity of the system along with individual preferences. Moving forward we promise to continue to service all customer needs on campus through collaboration and communication.

In reviewing the data and reflecting on the comments provided by the respondents, we make the following commitments.

FPM will:

  1. Ensure that FPM meet the promised response and resolution timeframes.
  2. Collaborate to find reasonable and supportable long-term solutions.
  3. Confirm the request was completed to satisfaction.
  4. Improve communication related to work order requests and construction projects.
  5. Work as a team to provide facility-related services on behalf of Drake.

FPM has been working on updating websites to better deliver communications. This, coupled with more direct reporting, we anticipate that we can booster our lower administrative service areas. Please visit:

https://www.drake.edu/build/

https://www.drake.edu/sustainability/

— Kevin Moran, Executive Director Facilities Planning and Management

For Staff Archive

Policy update: Customized work arrangements for staff

The new Customized Work Arrangement (CWA), Dress for your Day, and revised University Closings, Delays, and Class Cancellations policies were posted for review and comment. That posting period has now closed. Thank you to those who offered comments and questions. Overall, we received 17 comments—7 on the University Closure policy, 6 on the Dress for Your Day policy, and 4 on the CWA policy.

The task force will be going back to each of those policies to make some additional edits based on your feedback. This is exactly why we have a policy review and comment period. When you are working on a policy it is easy to get lost in the details and having fresh sets of eyes consider the drafts can be immensely beneficial. The policies will end up being stronger and clearer based on the feedback provided. Thank you!

On November 10, we offered a one-hour BUILD session on Moving Forward: Discussing Drake’s Updated Customized Work Arrangement Policies and Practices. We had over forty people attend, which is a great turn-out. That training was recorded and you can access the recording here. On November 17, we will offer another one-hour BUILD session, Supervisor Spotlight: Thinking Through Flexible Work Arrangements—Key Variables & Considerations. As the title implies, we are hoping for people in supervisory positions will consider attending this session. This training will largely be scenario-based. If you plan on attending the November 17 session but did not attend the November 10 training, please watch the recording in advance.

Throughout the rest of November and December, we’ll be finalizing the policies—which will likely take effect in January. We are also working diligently on a detailed guide that will be a great resource for managers and staff alike. We plan to roll out the draft guide in December, so we have a chance to receive some feedback on it before the policies go live.

We will be offering managers additional guidance on reviewing position descriptions, which is part of any CWA request process. Additionally, we will offer guidance on how CWAs will be folded into the annual performance evaluation process. More training and guidance to come!

If you have any questions about CWAs, the process, or timeline, you can reach HR and the task force by emailing drakehr@drake.edu using the subject line “CWA Question.” We’ll get back to you!

— Maureen De Armond, Human Resources

For Faculty Archive, For Staff Archive

Get prepared for multi-factor authentication changes coming in January

Earlier this month we shared in OnCampus that we will adding systems that require multi-factor authentication (MFA), and changing our MFA method from Duo to Microsoft Authenticator so that all students, faculty, and staff can be better protected.

Starting on January 4, when you login to a system set up with multi-factor authentication, you will be prompted to prove that you are the person logging in by using the Microsoft Authenticator app to verify your identity.

In order to help you prepare for this change, we’ve created a FAQ and some knowledge base guides linked below.

To encourage early preparation, we’re offering an incentive to the first 150 people who submit proof of downloading the Microsoft Authenticator app and connecting it with their Drake account. They will receive a $1 off coupon to use at the campus Starbucks. One coupon per person, and a screenshot of your phone is required. Visit https://forms.office.com/r/HGSY0L1JSf to enter and see complete rules.

We will continue to expand the FAQ and provide additional OnCampus updates as the January deadline approaches.

— Jeff Regan, ITS