A useful tool to use for individual travel is the Find It Tool.  It works best for flights within the United States. The reason for this tool is that airlines do not provide agencies such as Short’s with their full inventory of flights possible for travelers. You may use Find It to look at flights that are not in the Short’s inventory that can still be booked through Short’s. You may find that you save money by using this tool.

To use the Find It Tool, please go to My Drake, Administrative Tools, and find Short’s Travel Management. Click on the one that pertains to you, Academic or Athletic. On the right side, you will see the Find It App to download to your browser. I recommend that you watch the video demonstration. From there, you can choose flights on many different airline websites and you can forward your chosen flight to Short’s to book for you.

If you have questions, please contact onlinesupport@shortstravel.com or if you’d like, please contact me directly and I will send you a guide on how to use this tool.

— Caron Findlay, Finance & Administration

The Undergraduate Assistantship Program involves students in project‐based collaboration with faculty and/or administrative staff in order to create significant experiential learning opportunities. These opportunities offer student collaborators skills and experiences that will prepare them to advance in their education or chosen professions, while also offering administrative staff and faculty the chance to work closely with student assistants.

Student Financial Planning provides a 2‐to‐1 match with department, program, or unit funds. A maximum of $1,100 is awarded per project (for proposals whose total assistantship budget is $1,650 or more).

Deadline: Feb. 7 (Submission to the Dean of Schools or Colleges, or to the Director of the Administrative Program)

February 17 (Proposals forwarded from Deans and Directors to the Office of the Associate Provost)

All Staff Council and Human Resources invite faculty and staff to attend this year’s Holiday Cheer gathering on Wednesday, Dec. 11, near the Pomerantz stage in the Olmsted Center. Faculty and staff are welcome to come and go as they please from 9 to 11 a.m.

Guests can enjoy a hot chocolate bar and cookie decorating station. Griff will also be in attendance and ready for holiday photos.

If you bring at least one non-perishable food or other goods for Drake’s Free Little Food Pantries you will be entered into a drawing for prizes, including a Drake Parking Pass. Drawing for the parking pass takes place at the end of the school year but the drawing for other prizes will take place immediately following Holiday Cheer.  

This event is a chance to give back to others in the Drake community, while mingling with coworkers.  Please take a moment to stop by, grab some cheer, and drop off a donation. 

— Linda Feiden, Human Resources

Please note the following schedule for check processing to accommodate the upcoming winter break:

• Friday, Dec. 13 – All check requests are due in Accounts Payable by the end of the business day
• Wednesday, Dec. 18 – For requests received by the above deadline, checks will be processed on a final check run of the year.
• Paymerang will be processed on Thursday, Dec. 19, 2019.

The accounting office will be closed during the holiday break.

Friday, Jan. 3 – We will process both a check run and a Paymerang run with normal check processing to resume the following week on Jan. 8, 2020.

Thank you for your help in coordinating to ensure we meet all needs during the upcoming season.

Please contact Jeni Baugher at ext. 4509 with any questions you may have.

— Jeni Baugher, Accounting Supervisor

WHAT A CROCK—All Staff Council hosted a Crock Pot Cook Off. Over 90 campus members sampled eight delicious crock-pot dishes and votes were tallied. The dishes included: Carmel Apple Dump Cake; Sausage Dip; Moroccan Chicken; Grandpa Frankie’s Chicken & Noodles; Tex-Mex Chili; Randi’s Sweet & Spicy Chili; Pork and Tamale Soup; Chicken Jalapeno Corn Dip.

Each dish received votes with three top finishers:
3^rd Place—Kodee Wood’s Sausage Dip
2^nd Place —Sara Heijerman—Randi’s Sweet & Spicy Chili
1^st Place —Tammy Eltayb—Tex-Mex Chili

Congratulations to all who participated and attended!

The next Book Club book “Resistance Women” is available at the front desk of Cowles Library. Plan to join for a casual book discussion on Jan. 15 at 4:45 p.m. at the Ingersoll Cheese Shop. Reach out to sara.heijerman@drake.edu for more information.

— Amelia Klatt, On behalf of All Staff Council

The Office of Community Engaged Learning is now accepting nominations for the Newman Civic Fellowship.

 The Newman Civic Fellowship is a national award that recognizes and supports community-committed students who are changemakers and public problem-solvers. Students should engage in collaborative action with others from campus or from surrounding communities in order to create long-term social change, take action in addressing issues of inequality and political polarization, and demonstrate the motivation and potential for effective long-term civic engagement.  Through the fellowship, Campus Compact provides students with training and resources that nurture their assets and passions and help them develop strategies for social change.

Nominees must be enrolled at Drake University for the spring semester 2020, and the 2020–2021 academic year.

 To nominate a student, please submit 1–3 paragraphs including information about the nominee’s approaches to addressing the root causes of social issues. This may include involvement in public policy reform, community organizing, community-based research, social entrepreneurism, or other efforts to build the capacity of community-based organizations. Additionally, please include why you believe this person has the motivation and potential to develop innovative and collaborative approaches to addressing public problems and to contribute to a network of similarly committed students.

 A committee will review nominations to select one student from Drake University to be nominated for the Fellowship. That student will need to complete additional paperwork. 

 Please submit nominations to Amanda Martin, Assistant Director of Community Engaged Learning, at amanda.martin@drake.edu, no later than Jan. 10.  More information about the Fellowship can be found at https://compact.org/newman-civic-fellowship/.

— Amanda Martin, Community Engaged Learning

All Staff Council and Human Resources invite faculty and staff to attend this year’s Holiday Cheer gathering on Wednesday, Dec. 11, near the Pomerantz stage in the Olmsted Center. Faculty and staff are welcome to come and go as they please from 9 to 11 a.m.

Guests can enjoy a hot chocolate bar and cookie decorating station. Griff will also be in attendance and ready for holiday photos.

This event is a chance to give back to others in the Drake community, while mingling with coworkers.  Please take a moment to stop by, grab some cheer, and drop off a donation.

If you bring at least one non-perishable food or other goods for Drake’s Free Little Food Pantries you will be entered into a drawing for prizes, including a Drake Parking Pass. Drawing for the parking pass takes place at the end of the school year but the drawing for other prizes will take place immediately following Holiday Cheer.

— Linda Feiden, Human Resources