Drake was announced the winner of the 2020 Healthiest State Large Workplace Award at the Healthiest State Annual Awards banquet Feb. 6. The award, presented by the Healthiest State Initiative, recognizes Drake for its efforts to improve the physical, social, and emotional well-being of its faculty and staff.

“We are proud to recognize Drake University with this award,” said Jami Haberl, executive director of the Healthiest State Initiative. “Drake has taken its commitment to wellness for its staff and expanded its efforts to involve the greater campus community as well as the surrounding neighborhood.”

The award recognized Drake for several noteworthy accomplishments, including:

• Partnering with the Boys and Girls Club of Central Iowa to create Sprout: The Des Moines Urban Youth Learning Garden
• Providing free access to the comprehensive on-campus fitness facilities and discounted memberships for family members
• Implementing the “DU Well Scorecard” program, which breaks down wellness into eight dimensions and incentivizes healthy behaviors for employees

As an award winner, Drake received $1,000 to continue its work focused on improving the health and wellbeing of its students, faculty, and staff. The Healthiest State Annual Awards were sponsored by Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Hy-Vee, Inc., Nemours, and HealthPartners UnityPoint Health. To learn more about the Healthiest State Initiative and its programming and events, visit IowaHealthiestState.com.

—Linda Feiden, Human Resources

Every fall, Facilities Planning and Management participates in the Administrative Services Survey. We use the data we gain from the survey to prioritize areas in which we can improve, as well as celebrate our accomplishments. Out of the ten specific areas in which we were assessed, we are happy to have had all of them rate above a 4 out of 5! To reward, as well as create some spirited competition, we have started a roaming trophy, The Golden Bulldog! This year, the award went to “Grounds Services” with an approval of 4.54/5!

— Mitch Wieczorek, Facilities Planning and Management

This week saw the publication of Initiating the Millennium: The Avignon Society and Illuminism in Europe by Robert Collis and Natalie Bayer of the Department of History. The book is published by Oxford University Press and is the first in-depth, English-language study of the foremost initiatic and millenarian society in Europe in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth century. The publication of the book coincides with the beginning of Dr. Collis’ interdisciplinary history course on Magic and Western Esotericism in Europe from the Renaissance.

— Robert Collis, Visiting Assistant Professor, History

Christopher Karch (P2) received the “Most Outstanding Oral Presentation” award at the Des Moines University Research Symposium on Dec. 5 for his work ‘renoprotective effects of metformin in a mouse model of accelerated diabetic nephropathy.’

Chris was mentored in the work by Dr. Shankar Munusamy, CPHS professor of pharmacology, and Kevin Carnevale, MD, from Des Moines University.

— Kaylyn Maher, College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences

College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Dean Renae Chesnut was voted Chair-elect of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Council of Deans for 2020–2021. Dean Chesnut has been involved with AACP since 1993.

— Kaylyn Maher, College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

Robert Craig, professor of art, installed his sculpture Holdfast at the Blanden Art Museum on Nov. 6.  This project began nearly two years ago when he was commissioned by the Blanden Charitable Foundation to create an outdoor sculpture for the Blanden Art Museum’s grounds in Fort Dodge, Iowa. The Blanden is the oldest art museum in Iowa and it is located in the historic Oak Hill District: a neighborhood founded by the early industrialists of Fort Dodge.

The sculpture is 12’ 6” tall and fabricated out of aluminum with a kinetic top element that turns in the wind.   The abstract form and colors of Holdfast offer a range of associations to known things referring simultaneously to the many ingredients that were part of the formation of Fort Dodge, the current neighborhood culture, and the Blanden Art Museum as a mainstay.  The colors and patterns complement the existing architectural and natural palette and were chosen to be as suggestive as the form itself.

Additionally, the museum acquired the preliminary studies for Holdfast (a scale model, drawing, and a color rendering) that will be used for educational purposes.

Through both municipal sponsorship and private commissions, Robert’s large-scale sculptures have been exhibited in museums, universities, and sculpture parks nationally. Commissions include the City of Cedar Falls and Grinnell College. His work is in public and private collections such as Spring House Farms, Maurertown, VA, HarborArts, Boston, MA, Central Iowa Shelter and Services, Des Moines, IA, the Village of Ponderosa, West Des Moines, the Hearst Center for the Arts, Cedar Falls, IA, Dordt College, and the Sioux City Public Art Collection.  Additional sculptures can be seen at https://robertcraig1.com/home.html.

Kieran Williams, visiting assistant professor of politics, was invited to speak at Harvard on Nov. 18 at a special event to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 1989 revolution in Czechoslovakia. In September, he was a guest on the Cold War Conversations Podcast, as a witness to the August 1991 attempted coup in Moscow that set in motion the end of the Soviet Union. And, in May, he was cited by a regional court as an authority in a case of a disputed election in the Czech Republic.

On Tuesday, Nov. 12, the DELTA Rx Institute hosted the annual Next Top Entrepreneur Competition. We would like to thank all the participants for their pitches and congratulate the finalists:

• First Place: $1200 to Johnny Mills and Andrew Bjorlin (PharmD/MBA Candidates 2021) – RecycleRx
• Second Place: $800 to Breanna Moore (PharmD Candidate 2022) – AutoRx Prescription Pickup
• Third Place: $400 to Sedie Harms, Layne Davis, and Tessa Buehrer (PharmD Candidates 2021) – Pharmers Traveling to the Farm

We would like to thank our judges, Greg Johansen, Dalton Fabian, Sarah Dean, Tom Swegle, Jason Salton, Anthony Pudlo, Robert Loch, Felix Gallagher, and Debra Bishop.

— Kaylyn Maher, CPHS Communications Coordinator