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

Using generous support from donors who have created restricted and endowed accounts, Academic Affairs is able to offer financial support for faculty development in pedagogy, research, and creative activities.  This year we are focusing on supporting projects that facilitate direct student engagement with scholarly and creative endeavors; enable our faculty to reimagine pedagogy as we enter a post-pandemic teaching environment; and permit faculty to remain connected to their disciplines and fields of study through conferences and workshops.

Find more details at: drake.edu/fsdo/grants/ and reach out to renee.cramer@drake.edu with questions.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost for Academic Affairs

The BLM @ Drake series is dedicated to the improvement of education on racial justice and how to actively contribute to its advancement in our classrooms and our campus community.  Last year’s virtual events featured programming around racial justice and human rights, actions that can contribute to hostile classroom environments and what to do instead, and the perspectives of various guest speakers and students.

We are looking to include the voices of Black faculty and staff who are interested in working as members of our planning committee. Please join us as we continue to plan for the current academic year. If you are interested, please reach out to Student Body President Morgan Coleman at morgan.coleman@drake.edu for more information.

— Morgan Coleman, Student Body President

I have been in the role of Deputy Provost for three months now, and I am almost beginning to wrap my arms around the job and what it entails. I want to use a bit of space here, to help faculty know how my office can support them, what my priorities are, and how I’ll be managing communication streams.

This role combines much of the work done so excellently by Art Sanders as associate provost and Craig Owens as director for teaching excellence. As such, my office tackles faculty development and support across the areas of teaching/pedagogy, scholarship/creative activities, university-wide service, and work-life integration. I’ve already, this fall, had the honor of welcoming and orienting our new faculty, as well as chairs new to their roles in their departments. I have a small part of Keith Summerville’s role as deputy director of enrollment management in that I am working with our deans and graduate council to develop some strategic enrollment goals and plans around our graduate offerings, and sometimes, to my delight, Annie and her team ask for my help in representing Academic Affairs at undergraduate admissions events.

The other half of the role involves what I’m calling strategic initiatives. To my mind, this includes all the ways that we deliver on our core mission and vision from key parts of our curriculum (FYS, J-Term, AOIs, and Honors) to the ways we approach foundation and grant support as faculty and as an institution.

Of course there are intersections to these roles, and much of the faculty development around pedagogy that I have planned is in direct response to the findings that DCAC has shared me with around how we deliver our AOIs and what I’m learning from my engagement with Kevin Saunders and his team in OIRA regarding student perceptions of their educational experience.

As you have needs, thoughts, and ideas about all of these areas, please feel free to reach out to me.

A word about communication. For the most part, I will be using OnCampus to highlight development and grant opportunities (I will also place them on the University calendar). In order to avoid flooding folks with emails, it feels important to have a central place to access information—and OnCampus works well. Every Tuesday, I’ll have a Deputy Provost 2:10—two items that should take you around 10 minutes (at most) to engage.

As October progresses, the website for my office will be up-to-date, and these 2:10 messages will also be posted there. For smaller groups of faculty (those engaged in reading groups and the like) I will send emails with reminders/zoom links/details. Please get used to checking OnCampus for important announcements and information from the Deputy Provost’s Office.

Finally, Nicki Kimm will be joining the office as administrative support specialist, on Oct. 4. You’ll often hear from her, on my behalf, in scheduling and wrangling and assembling folks for meetings. Now, have a good rest-of-your-Tuesday!

— Renee Cramer, Deputy Provost

As we near the mid-term, those of us who haven’t yet explored BlackBoard Ultra’s gradebook function will want to do so. The gradebook in Ultra is significantly different from previous iterations—and it takes a bit of getting used to. This is true in terms of how items are weighted or categorized, and in terms of how the gradebook connects to Banner for grade submission.

Please remember that information about this transition, specifically to creating tests and assignments and using the assessment tools and gradebook, can be found on pages 15–18 of this guide. You can find more resources on the BlackBoard learning site, linked to from ITS.

Another area of technology stress that many faculty are encountering, comes with the various changes in and quirks of the LockDown Browser.  There are some excellent reasons to use this technology—and some excellent reasons not to—and I hope we can have some extended campus conversations about those bigger questions as the semester goes on. When faculty do choose to use this tool, though, for whatever reasons, it is especially important to use best practices for building an online exam, as well as best practices for distributing that exam. It can also be helpful to provide students with information tailored to them as the users of LockDown Browser often have questions that faculty might not be readily able to answer.

Remember, too, our Instructional Technology experts are ready to help with your pedagogical needs. The ITS Ticketing System is the best (most efficient, fastest) way to get a request to the team.

— Renee Cramer, Deputy Provost

If you manage a Drake University-affiliated social media account, consider auditing the managers who have access to that account. It is general practice to do so at least twice a year to account for turnover and students graduating. Make sure all admins are currently employed at Drake University.

If your account does not allow for admin access (i.e. Twitter or Pinterest), then consider changing the password and updating relevant managers.

The Office of University Communications and Marketing maintains a social media directory for every Drake University-affiliated social media page. Take a look around to see which departments have pages, follow them, and invite your friends to follow along: news.drake.edu/social-media-directory.

Contact us if your department page has changed, you would like help with page branding, or you have lost access to an account.

— Niki Smith, University Communications and Marketing

Drake Football will host Faculty and Staff Appreciation Day Saturday, Oct. 9, during its game against Dayton at Drake Stadium. Kick-off is set for noon.

Each faculty and staff member can receive up to four complimentary tickets and can purchase additional general admission tickets for just $5. Redeem your complimentary tickets.

For more information on all of our fall Faculty and Staff Appreciation Days visit DrakeTix.com/facultyandstaffdays.

— Aimee Lane, Athletics

Drake faculty and staff use Duo MFA to access campus information securely. Duo has just redesigned the Duo Mobile app to improve your overall authentication experience.  With the launch of this new version, you’ll find an updated look and feel and better accessibility.

The release schedule of the new version of Duo Mobile (4.0.0) :

• For iOS: Oct. 11–18, 2021.
• For Android: Oct. 11–15, 2021.

The timing of this release is not controlled by Drake and Duo users will be able to upgrade from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.

If you have automatic app updates enabled on your device, your Duo Mobile app will be upgraded once it’s available.

Major changes in Version 4 of Duo:

• The Duo prompt now verifies which system you’re logging into as part of the prompt.
• The approval and deny buttons have swapped positions.

Need more information on using Duo? Visit the IT service portal or watch this video from Duo: Introduction to the Redesigned Duo Mobile Version 4 Application.

—Jeremy Calvert, ITS

You probably know it’s a bad idea to use “password,” your pet’s name, or your birthday as a password. But the worst thing you can do with your passwords is reuse the same ones across multiple sites. If even a single account is compromised in a data breach, no matter how strong your password is, hackers can easily use it to access your other accounts.

The average person has at least 50 passwords. Remembering strong passwords for that many sites is nearly impossible without resorting to some sort of trick. The best trick is to use a password manager.

A password manager is a secure, automated, all-digital replacement for the little notepad, sticky note, or unencrypted Word or Excel file where you might keep your passwords now. Password managers generate strong unique passwords for each of your logins, and store all of your passwords—and, if you choose, your credit card numbers, addresses, bank accounts, and other information—in one place, protecting them with a single strong master password. As long as you remember your master password, your password manager will remember everything else, filling in your username and password whenever you log into a site or app on your computer or phone.

While many web browsers have integrated password managers, those options are not ideal as they generally store passwords on your computer in an unencrypted form. This means someone could access your computer’s password files and view them in clear text. Using a dedicated password manager that stores passwords in an encrypted file is a far superior solution.

While ITS does not recommend any specific password manager, there are a variety of options available for little to no cost. Taking the time to install and learn how to use a password manager greatly increases your security profile and makes it easier to enter your credentials, especially on a mobile device.

Protecting passwords is a critical step in maintaining online security. Remember to never enter your login credentials on a website unless you have verified its authenticity. Be especially wary when clicking on links in emails that take you to sites asking for a username and password. To help you recognize fraudulent sites, 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

A few weeks ago, you read about the three focus areas identified from Great Colleges To Work For (GC2WF) survey results. Last week, we started asking for detailed feedback on the first priority: ensuring a consistent and robust cascade of communication.

Communication has been a focus area based on GC2WF survey results for the past several years. Instead of doing what we have done in the past, we wanted to dig deeper—as the GC2WF survey results provide big-picture insight but not necessarily detail. Last week, we facilitated two brain-storming sessions and we shared a pulse survey both focused on just this first priority. The short survey will only take a minute to complete. It remains open through Oct. 5.

While the brainstorming sessions were not well-attended, those who did participate brought forth meaningful feedback and great ideas. Based on that, and initial pulse survey results, some themes are already emerging. The most prominent is that employees desire greater opportunities to provide input and be heard. Additional themes include:

• Leadership Visibility: Many faculty and staff would appreciate increased visibility of leadership and more face-to-face interactions, especially after the separation and isolation experienced during the pandemic.
• Townhalls/Team Meetings: Townhalls and department/unit meetings facilitated by the relevant President’s or Dean’s Council member appear to be meaningful to both faculty and staff. Such events should reserve time for questions and discussion and not merely be events for information flowing out.
• Institutional and Departmental Planning: Additional opportunities to get involved in planning—both at the institutional level and within departments—would be appreciated. There seems to be continued interest in utilizing focus groups, task forces, surveys, and pro-actively engaging faculty/staff who are subject-matter-experts in the area.
• Training for Managers: Training for front-line managers to better appreciate the connection between communication and employee engagement and active-listening would be valuable. Additional manager training may also help level-set, as there seems to be wide variations in how employees view the effectiveness of their mangers in communicating.
• Leverage Faculty Senate & All Staff Council: Better utilize and leverage these bodies for sharing information, collaborating on projects and improvements, and using as sounding boards.
• Benchmarking: Fresh benchmarking on best practices internal communication—not just within higher education but other industries, too. Information sharing is something that evolves and requires a complex solution, given employees’ varied preferences.

If you have additional ideas or suggestions relating to this focus area, there is still time to respond to the survey. Please also feel free to share thoughts directly with Nate or Maureen. In fact, if you have thoughts, ideas, or suggestions relating to the GC2WF survey in any way, please reach out to us. We want to take more intentional and meaningful steps to respond and react to the survey responses. Let us know if there are additional efforts we should be considering.

Once the pulse survey period is closed, we will work on a more comprehensive outline of areas for improvement, reconsideration, and innovation and go from there.

Later this month, we will turn our attention to the second priority area focusing on facilitating reconnection and attending to our culture. We will again provide opportunities for you to provide insight and input into how to make improvements in this important area.

— Maureen De Armond, Human Resources, and Nate Reagen, Office of the President