We are proud to share that Drake University will be recognized at The Wellbeing Partner’s¹ Ignite Awards Gala in October.  Drake is receiving the 2021 Light of Wellness Leadership award. This award recognizes business and community leaders for providing encouragement, time, and resources to create a healthy workplace for all employees.

This past year Drake quickly adapted existing wellbeing offerings to fit the virtual environment and used innovative programming to help connect colleagues.

• BUILD classes and wellness challenges were converted to a virtual format
• Human Resources partnered with the All Staff Council on virtual watercooler events and a Smile Slideshow
• A Remote Work Support Group and Wellness Group were created in Microsoft Teams Chat
• Recreational Services offered virtual and on demand fitness classes
• The College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences set-up on campus drive-thru flu shot clinics and on campus COVID-19 vaccine clinics
• The Bulldog Mile was built, giving faculty, staff, and students a way to stay socially distanced, while enjoying a walk or run through Drake’s beautiful campus

Drake Human Resources thanks all wellness partners, champions, and participants across campus for their efforts this past year, and every day to make Drake wellbeing a priority.

¹ The Wellbeing Partners is an organization out of Omaha that supports the worksite wellness initiatives of organizations and communities in Iowa and Nebraska, as they build a culture of wellbeing.

— Linda Feiden, Human Resources

Inside Science, the publication of the American Institute of Physics, and ABC News published an article describing the efforts of a student-led, interdisciplinary collaboration at Drake to design radiation shielding and artificial gravity systems for interplanetary travel.

According to the article, a spaceship bound for Mars carrying passengers would need to provide some kind of radiation shielding in order to protect the people aboard.

That’s where Drake comes in. An undergraduate team of researchers from Drake, with the project name of Magneto-Ionization Spacecraft Shield for Interplanetary Travel, or MISSFIT, is working to calculate the tradeoffs among different engineering solutions for radiation shielding and artificial gravity.

The project team is led by Athanasios Petridis, professor of physics and astronomy. Petridis said the project gives undergraduate physics students valuable experience conducting original research. 

The team of students shared their progress on the project the April 2021 meeting of the American Physical Society.

Read the full article

— Julianna Dubin, College of Arts & Sciences

The Drake School of Journalism and Mass Communication placed seventh in the national Hearst Intercollegiate Writing Competition for 2020-2021.

The competition, often called “the Pulitzers of college journalism,” is a yearlong series of monthly contests in writing, photojournalism, audio, television and multimedia. Student winners earn points for their institutions. Three Drake students won writing awards this year in the categories of explanatory journalism and personality profile.

The competition is held in collaboration with the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, and currently 104 programs are eligible to participate. Drake was one of the few private institutions to place in the contest and by far the smallest university. Other institutions that placed in the top 10 in the writing competition were Syracuse University, Indiana University, Arizona State University, University of Florida, University of Oklahoma, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Brigham Young University and Pennsylvania State University.

— Kathleen Richardson, School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Drake University is pleased to announce that its Master of Athletic Training (MAT) program has earned accreditation from the Commission on the Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE).

The council accredited the program for five years, the maximum amount allowed for initial accreditation. The program demonstrated compliance with all accreditation standards and was recognized in the areas of experiential learning, faculty, medical directors, unique interprofessional learning opportunities, and support from being a part of a health professions college.

Drake University’s athletic training program, offered through the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, is the only accredited program in Iowa that has met the new CAATE 2020 Standards, exists within a health professions college, and has three tenure-track faculty members.

Learn more about the program and its accreditation.

— Kaylyn Maher, College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

John Edwards is one of three recipients of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) 2021 Hall of Fame Award. Edwards is associate dean for information resources and technology, director of the law library, professor of law and director of legal research at Drake Law School.

The Hall of Fame Award was established in 2009 to recognize AALL members who have made significant, substantial, and long-standing contributions to the profession of legal information management. Inductees have been AALL members for a minimum of 25 years and have contributed significant service to the legal information profession in association leadership positions.

Edwards has been a fixture in the Midwest law library community for over four decades, and was recognized for his long-time mentoring activities and contributions to AALL.

He has been a member of 12 AALL committees, serving as chair of four of them. He has also been active at the chapter level, serving as president of the Mid-America Association of Law Libraries (MAALL) (1995-1996), and has twice been president of the Mid-America Law Library Consortium, where he currently serves as parliamentarian.

Edwards is the co-author of two books on legal research, as well as dozens of articles and book reviews. He has presented at a number of meetings, including MAALL, AALL, the Iowa Judicial Institute, and the Iowa State Bar Association. He has also served on the Legal Reference Services Quarterly Board of Advisors since 2002.

“Being selected for the AALL Hall of Fame is truly an honor, especially in light of the amazing colleagues in this class of inductees and those previously selected,” said Edwards. “For more than four decades I have been blessed to work with mentors and colleagues who have unselfishly shared their wisdom and insights. AALL played an invaluable role in connecting me with members who have become life-long friends and supporters. This award would not have been possible without the exceptional support from the library and law school staffs with whom I work. I am surrounded by talented personnel who make it a pleasure to come to work every day.”

“Everyone in the Drake Law community knows that Dean Edwards goes far beyond his job description, every day, to ensure that students, faculty, and staff have what they need for a successful learning environment,” said Drake Law Dean Jerry Anderson.  “‘Dedication’ does not even begin to describe his approach to his work, and ‘essential’ does not even begin to describe his value to Drake. The Hall of Fame has made an excellent selection!”

Hope Bibens, associate professor of librarianship and political papers archivist, has been re-elected president of the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress (ACSC).

ACSC is a national alliance of organizations and institutes that supports a wide range of programs to inform and educate students, scholars, policymakers, and the general public on Congress. It encourages the preservation of materials that document the work of Congress and support programs that make those materials available for education and research.

— Emily Schettler, Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement

In 2009, the Drake University Board of Trustees voted to create the Ronald Troyer Research Fellowship Endowment for full-time faculty members in recognition of Dr. Troyer’s many contributions to Drake University during his tenure as Provost, 2000–2009. The Fellowship is awarded annually on the basis of a competitive application process conducted by the Office of the Provost. Selection of the Troyer Research Fellow from among the applicants is based on the applicant’s record of scholarly accomplishment and future promise as a scholar. The selection committee is made up of five former Troyer fellows and/or distinguished professors.

The Office of the Provost is pleased to announce that the 2021–2022 Troyer Research Fellow is Lynn Kassel, associate professor of pharmacy practice, clinical sciences.

In her application for the fellowship, Professor Kassel described the on-going research that the fellowship would help fund. The project is focused on answering the question of when epinephrine auto-injectors actually expire. To answer the question, Professor Kassel began working with a colleague within the College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences (CPHS), Abebe Mengesha. Together, they formed a research team, including a student pharmacist, and studied multiple devices.

Through this project, the research team has submitted multiple grants (both internal and external) as well as presented the results at local, regional, national, and international conferences. They have had numerous scholarly outputs from the project. The Troyer Fellowship will allow the continuation of this project, furthering the validity of the data, fostering the development of a Drake pharmacy student, as well as allowing prescribers and patients to make informed decisions about their uses of auto-injectors.

Continuing to expand the project will put Drake in focus again, as the research team was able to do with articles in May and June 2019 in Reuters/Medscape and USA Today.

— Arthur Sanders, Associate Provost