Congratulations to Sally Haack, professor of pharmacy practice in the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, on winning the 2021 Global Citizenship Award!

The Principal Global Citizenship Award is awarded annually to a Drake University faculty or staff member, recognizing outstanding contributions to global engagement and internationalization of the campus and curriculum. This award is sponsored by the Principal Center for Global Citizenship.

This award was presented to Professor Haack by Provost Sue Mattison March 4 at the Global Citizen Forum. This presentation is available on YouTube to watch on-demand.

— Hannah Sappenfield, Global Partnerships Coordinator

Drake Online Design Dialogues will recommence March 11 at 11:30 a.m. and continue every other Thursday. The sessions have been added to the University calendar. The sessions will be led by the instructional designers and technologists from Drake Online and Continuing Education and will focus on Blackboard Learn Ultra.

Visit the links below to learn more about each session and to register. All sessions will be recorded and uploaded to the Drake Online and Continuing Education Faculty Resources website. Here is the schedule of topics:

March 11:  Ultra Base Navigation (UBN) and Transition Preparation
March 25: Copying Courses in Ultra
April 8: Build and Organize Content in Ultra
April 22: Assignments and Rubrics in Ultra
May 6: Communicating with Students in Ultra
May 20: Groups in Ultra
June 3: Assessments in Ultra
June 17: The Ultra Gradebook

— Christina Trombley, Drake Online and Continuing Education

We’re excited to announce that faculty and staff are welcome to dine-in at Hubbell Dining Hall beginning Wednesday, March 3. We do ask that everyone be respectful of fellow diners by sitting in smaller groups and observing the COVID-19 safety guidelines put forth by Drake University while dining at The Hubb.

Due to continued seating capacity restrictions, we will not resume the $5 Wednesday lunches until further notice. These dining arrangements are subject to change at any time.

If you have questions or comments, please send us a message at dining@drake.edu.

— Casey Morgan, Dining Services

The days of foreign princes wanting to give us millions of dollars via email are gone. Today, large, organized, international criminal syndicates make massive investments in methods to trick us into believing that we should click on links in innocent seeming email messages. This is called social engineering—using deception to manipulate individuals into divulging confidential and/or personal information. Fortunately, some basic steps can help us avoid social engineering traps.

Following these three basic rules for reading email messages will dramatically reduce your risk of unknowingly falling victim to a social engineering trap.

Slow down – Take the time to determine if the message makes sense. At first glance, a message saying you need to reset your Facebook password (for example) may seem very reasonable. But pause to think before clicking, opening attachments, or entering confidential information. Does the request make sense? Has something changed that requires an action? If it doesn’t make sense, report the message or ignore it.

Pay attention to the details – Look at the message specifics. Does the sender’s email address match the purpose of the message? Be careful–sometimes the differences are subtle, like facebook.com vs. ffacebook.com. Do the links point to a site that makes sense within the context of the message? Do you know and trust the sender?

When in doubt, check it out – If you have any reason to question the message, take the time to verify before responding. Reach out directly to the sender or visit the site rather than clicking the link in the message. Not sure? You can always report the message by emailing informationsecurity@drake.edu and ITS will review it for you. The bottom line is, if you have any doubts, don’t respond directly or open links or attachments.

If we all follow these practices, we can protect ourselves and others and prevent social engineering attacks from succeeding.

ITS will be continuing phishing education this month using emails that mimic real attacks. A short training lesson will be assigned to any faculty and staff who repeatedly click links or open attachments in phishing emails, simulated or not.

— Information Technology Services

Out-of-State Work Policy FAQs
The following FAQs have been developed in response to the excellent feedback provided by the campus community regarding the newly published Out-of-State Work Policy establishing a mandatory University-wide process for securing approval for employee out-of-state work arrangements.

Does this policy apply to temporary out-of-state work arrangements? 
No, the Out-of-State Work Policy does not apply to short-term, temporary out-of-state work arrangements such as arrangements that are made to attend a conference or to allow an employee with an approved remote work arrangement to temporarily work from an out-of-state location on a short-term basis. If an employee is working more than twenty-five (25) consecutive days outside the state, the work arrangement should be evaluated to see if the policy applies.

What prompted the University to adopt this new policy? 
The University has adopted this new policy to address the increase in requests for out-of-state work arrangements in connection with remote work arrangements that have been adopted across the University in response to COVID-19.  Because long-term and/or permanent out-of-state work arrangements may require the University to comply with additional or conflicting out-of-state laws and regulations (including state employment, labor and/or taxation rules), it is necessary for the University to be aware of, and explicitly agree to, long-term out-of-state work arrangements with its employees.  

Why does the new Out-of-State Work Policy require a 60-day notice period? 
As previously mentioned, long-term out-of-state work arrangements may require the University to comply with additional or conflicting out-of-state laws and regulations put in place by the state in which the employee will be working.  In many cases, the University must file with the Secretary of State and is subject to the filing timelines of each state. Although the University will make every effort to accommodate a request for a shorter approval period for an out-of-state work arrangement, the requirements of other states may not make it possible to comply with all legal requirements if we have less than sixty (60) days to do so.

New Capital Projects Policy
Drake University has formalized a new policy for the identification, prioritization, approval, development, and delivery of Capital Projects at Drake University.  All interested members of the Drake community are encouraged to review and comment on these policy revisions by March 15, 2021.

After the switch to Teams calling, old phone handsets are no longer needed for individual extensions. Boxes are being placed in all campus buildings to collect these phones and recycle them.

Look for a cardboard box near your building’s mailboxes marked PHONE E-WASTE and recycle your phone handset before March 12.

If you’re not going to be on campus before then, please work with your building manager or a colleague to ensure your phone handset is recycled properly.

—Chris Mielke, ITS