All Drake students are encouraged to “pull up” on Cownie Soccer Complex Tuesday night as your Bulldogs face off against Bradley at 7 p.m. Bus transportation is limited to the first 100 students who register at www.DrakeTix.com/soccerbus. The bus will depart from the Olmsted Parking Lot at 6 p.m. and return immediately following the match. Questions? Contact the Drake Athletics Ticket Office at 515-271-3657 or by email tickets@drake.edu.

—Tom Florian, Drake Athletics

Drake wants to continue a strong tradition of excellence in athletic and recreational programming. When it comes to the type of programming offered at Drake, student feedback is critical. All students are encouraged to complete this short survey designed to gauge student interest in athletic and recreational programming, including intramural, club, and intercollegiate athletic programs.

Even if you are not interested in additional programming or are satisfied with current offerings, it is important that we have your responses. This information will be used to help Drake evaluate its current intramural, club, and intercollegiate athletic programs. This information is also helpful in our efforts to comply with the gender equity law known as Title IX.

Thank you for taking a few minutes to provide us your feedback!
For more information about the athletic abilities and interests survey, contact Christine Marchand at christine.marchand@drake.edu or 515-271-1865.

Still need to fulfill the Information Literacy AOI? Want to learn more about archives? Political Papers Archivist Hope Grebner is offering an Information Literacy AOI course this J-Term, and there are still spots available! Secrets of the Vault: An Introduction to Archival Methods and Services (LIB 052), will serve as an experiential introduction to the responsibilities of archivists by providing an overview of the principles upon which archival theory is based. Through practical and hands-on assignments involving the collections in the Drake University Archives and Special Collections, readings, and discussions, the course will establish a basic understanding of the archival profession. For more information email hope.grebner@drake.edu.

—Dan Chibnall, Cowles Library

Controversy with Civility 
Saturday, Oct. 8
10 a.m.–2 p.m.

Register here: http://bit.ly/sussmanfall16 

Keynote by Joshua Fredenburg 
Emotional fitness is absolutely essential for success in the personal, career, and leadership arenas. In this keynote, you’ll learn more about emotions and how to manage them more effectively in stressful, challenging, and pressure-filled moments as a leader. The people who have learned about this concept have watched as conflict turns into something they deal with directly, rather than avoid.

Students from all leadership levels (emerging to lots of experience) are welcome! Breakout topics include:

• Strategic planning
• Stress management
• Managing a dysfunctional team
• Getting your team through transition and change

—Meghan Blancas, Office of Student Involvement & Leadership

Every semester, The Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement offers a small, intimate group of Drake students the opportunity to meet with local, state, and national leaders for food and conversation. This student lunch and reception series provides undergraduate, graduate, pharmacy, and law students with the networking opportunity of meeting informally with a leader in policy, government, business, and nonprofit industries.
For the third event in this series this semester, we will bring Senator Joni Ernst to the institute for lunch on Wednesday, Oct. 19. The event is from 10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. in The Harkin Institute office at 2429 University Ave.

Apply here by 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 12, for the opportunity to have lunch with Senator Ernst.

Senator Joni Ernst has dedicated her life to Iowa and her country, having served in the military for more than 23 years and now in the U.S. Senate. She was elected as the first woman to serve in federal elected office from Iowa and also became the first female combat veteran elected to Senate. Senator Ernst was raised on a farm in Montgomery County and graduated from Iowa State University, where she joined ROTC. After graduating, she joined the U.S. Army Reserves, and in 2003, she served as a company commander in Kuwait and Iraq, leading 150 Iowa Army National Guardsmen during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In November 2015, Senator Ernst retired as Lieutenant Colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard. She served in local and state government positions before running for the U.S. Senate in 2014. Senator Ernst prides herself on bringing her small-town Iowa values of hard work, service, and sacrifice to Washington, D.C.

—Erin Austin, Harkin Institute

Join us on Friday, Oct. 7 in Helmick Commons for the annual Glow Run

• 7–7:30 p.m.—Registration, snacks, swag
• 7:30–8 p.m.—Glow Run/ Walk
• 8–9 p.m.—Glow Frisbee Game

Grab some friends and glow crazy!

For more information, contact Kaitlin at kaitlin.brueggen@drake.edu.

—Kaitlin Brueggen

A number of emails from Blackboard have been accidentally filtered into students’ Clutter folders instead of their inboxes. Clutter is a new Microsoft feature that is intended to help filter junk email. Please be sure to check this folder regularly to see if you’re missing any important classroom communications. For more information on how to use the Clutter feature, please view this Clutter tutorial.

—Carla Herling, Information Technology Services

I hope your fall semester is going well. I’d like to share some news with you about the cost of tuition at Drake. In Drake’s ongoing efforts to control costs and deliver value to our students, the annual tuition increase will be lower than in past years. Returning students will pay $36,112 for tuition next academic year, an increase of 3 percent, compared to a six-year average annual increase of 4.5 percent. Costs for 2017–2018 room (for those living on campus) and board will be released in early 2017.

I am sharing this news with you now because we are changing our approach to tuition pricing with the entering Fall 2017 class, and I want to avoid any confusion for our current students in this transition. Starting with the undergraduate students entering Drake in the Fall of 2017, we will move to fixed tuition pricing—what we’re calling the Drake Tuition Guarantee. That is, the tuition rate those students pay upon entering Drake will remain fixed for the duration of their Drake experience. As a current student, you will not be paying the Tuition Guarantee rate that undergraduate students entering in Fall 2017 will be paying. I encourage you to learn more about the Drake Tuition Guarantee and find answers to questions you might have at www.drake.edu/accounts/tuitionfees/returningstudents/

This lowering of the annual tuition percentage increase reflects our continuing efforts to be good stewards of the resources entrusted to us by you and your families. We have spent the last year finding ways to cut our operating expenses and to move existing resources into more high-impact activities—and we remain committed to doing both going forward. We saved $1.35 million in operating expenses during the just completed fiscal year, and are working on adding another $1.5 million to those savings in the current year. Our goal is to keep your annual tuition increases as low as possible, while continuing to make investments in new programs, needed facilities, and upgrades to technology.

The lower annual increase in tuition strengthens the value of your degree. A few of the many external reviews and assessments that affirm the value of a Drake education include:

• Drake is #1 in Iowa for median annual salary 10 years after entering college, and $20,000 above the national average.
• 98.9 percent of the graduates in our Class of 2015 had a job or graduate school acceptance within six months of graduation.
• The Economistmagazine ranked Drake 17^th out of 1,275 institutions of higher education (98^th percentile) for return on investment.
• The Brookings Institution placed Drake in the 97^th percentile nationwide among four-year colleges and universities regarding the mid-career earnings of graduates.
• Drake University is ranked 36th nationally on Kiplinger’s list of the “Best Values in Private Higher Education.”

I hope this information is helpful in explaining both the annual tuition increase for 2017–2018 and the new Tuition Guarantee. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Have a wonderful fall semester.

—President Marty Martin

Every semester, The Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement offers a small, intimate group of Drake students the opportunity to meet with local, state, and national leaders for food and conversation.

Next month, we will bring Dennis Groenenboom, executive director of Iowa Legal Aid, to the institute for lunch on Wednesday, Oct. 5. The following day, the chairs of the Republican Party of Iowa and the Iowa Democratic Party will come together for a special lunch with a few lucky Drake students.

The Harkin Institute’s student lunch and reception series provides Drake undergraduate, graduate, pharmacy, and law students with networking opportunities by hosting small groups of students to meet informally with leaders in policy, government, business, and nonprofit industries. The first two of our four lunch receptions this semester are:

Dennis Groenenboom, Executive Director, Iowa Legal Aid
Wednesday, Oct. 5
11:30 a.m.–1 p.m.

Iowa Legal Aid provides legal assistance and education to low-income Iowans, envisioning a state where all residents understand their legal rights and are treated fairly in the justice system. Mr. Groenenboom has worked with Iowa Legal Aid his entire legal career and has served as its executive director for more than 20 years. Since 2012, he has served as the chair of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association’s civil policy group.

Apply here by 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 28, for the opportunity to have lunch with Dennis Groenenboom.

Jeff Kaufmann, Chair, Republican Party of Iowa and Andy McGuire, Chair, Iowa Democratic Party
Thursday, Oct. 6
11:30 a.m.–1 p.m.

Jeff Kaufmann is the chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa. He served in the Iowa House of Representatives from 2005 to 2013 and was appointed to various leadership positions in the GOP caucus. Mr. Kaufmann is a seventh-generation livestock farmer, as well as a professor at Muscatine Community College, where he teaches history and government. Mr. Kaufmann is a member of the Cedar County Board of Supervisors.

Dr. Andy McGuire, chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, has worked in politics since 2014, when she helped organize her sister-in-law’s campaign. Dr. McGuire served as the president of Meridian Health and currently serves as the chair of the University of Iowa College of Public Health Board of Advisors. In her spare time, Dr. McGuire serves as a board member of the Des Moines Partnership and was a founding member of the Women’s Leadership Connection for United Way of Central Iowa.

To be considered for this lunch opportunity with Mr. Kaufmann and Dr. McGuire, please apply here by 5 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29.

Preference for the Harkin Institute’s student lunch and reception series is given to students based on strength of application, taking event interest and questions for the guest of honor into particular consideration. Except in rare cases, students will only be selected for one event in this series per semester. Do not let this discourage you from applying to multiple luncheons, but consider noting your event preference.

—Erin Austin, Communications Strategist