Students from Drake’s chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) were invited to present at the international PRSSA conference in Austin, Texas, Oct. 7–9. The student conference is held in conjunction with the annual professional public relations conference.

Seniors Karoline Sandusky, Emma Haselhuhn, Meghan Kearney and Ellen Converse, and junior Ben Heinze presented on “Fundraising and Financial Education.” Only a handful of PRSSA chapters among the 300 international chapters are invited to present at the conference every year, and Drake students have been invited in four of the past five years.

Kathleen Richardson, SJMC

Experienced fundraiser Matt Lyons has joined the Drake University athletics staff and will serve as senior associate athletics director for external affairs, Drake director of athletics Brian Hardin announced Thursday.

Lyons will serve as the primary fundraiser for the athletics department and will oversee the efforts of Drake’s advancement, communications, marketing, and ticket sales departments.

“We are quite fortunate to have someone with Matt’s experience and background join our team at Drake,” athletics director Brian Hardin said.  “Matt’s history of successful revenue generation and familiarity with the Missouri Valley Conference will have a tremendous impact on our student-athletes, coaches and staff.  We are thrilled to welcome Matt and his wife LB to the Drake family.”

Prior to moving to Des Moines, Lyons worked at Illinois State since 2011, initially as the assistant athletics director for development, and since 2016 as the associate athletics director for development.  While with the Redbirds, Lyons served as the lead fundraiser and revenue generator for Illinois State athletics.

Lyons directed efforts for all aspects of Illinois State’s revenue generation unit, including major gifts, annual giving, endowments, outbound ticket sales, hospitality sales, letterwinners association, and special events.  He also served as the liaison with Redbird Sports Properties, the multi-media rights holder for Illinois State athletics.

Under the leadership of Lyons, Illinois State athletics exceeded a $25,000,000 fundraising goal during a campus-wide campaign and Lyons was personally responsible for more than $19,000,000 in gift commitments.

Prior to Illinois State, Lyons was the director of the Panther Scholarship Club at the University of Northern Iowa from 2010-11.  Lyons was a member of the athletics director leadership team and was the lead fundraiser for UNI’s annual giving program to athletics.

Lyons began his career as the assistant director of development at the University of Missouri from 2007-08 before moving to Illinois State from 2008-2010 where he earned his Master’s degree as a graduate assistant in the athletics development department.

Lyons earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois.

Also on Thursday, Hardin announced title promotions for four members of the athletics department senior staff.  Blake Boldon, Megan Franklin and Patrick Tomka were all promoted from associate athletics directors to senior associate athletics directors.  Boldon will continue to direct the Drake Relays and Franklin will continue serving as the senior woman administrator.  Tomka assumes the role of senior associate athletics director for finance and operations.  He will have direct oversight of the athletics department’s business office, as well as the facilities, operations, and equipment units.  Stephanie Sledge was promoted to associate athletics director for student-athlete academic success services.

Megan Franklin, Athletics

Drake students were honored recently for their achievements in public relations, writing and publication.

Work created by public relations seniors won three PRIME awards from the Public Relations Society of America Central Iowa Chapter. The 2018 senior capstone class created campaigns for Creative Visions, a Des Moines nonprofit organization that supports vulnerable communities through education and economic empowerment. The student teams won two PRIME awards in the Student Campaign category and a Community Champion award in the professional contest. The awards will be presented at central Iowa PRSA’s annual conference on Thursday, Oct. 18.

SJMC students won seven magazine and writing awards at the recent Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication contest.

Urban Plains, the website produced by the Magazine Media, News and Digital Media Production seniors, placed second in the Online Magazine category. The judge said of Urban Plains, “More than ever before, we need national stories with a Midwestern prism — stories that forever alter the perception of this part of the country and the people who live here.”

Multimedia stories produced for Urban Plains won first-place awards in the Investigation and Analysis and First Person categories; second place and honorable mention in the Places category, and honorable mention in the Features category. The judges in the Investigation and Analysis category said of the Drake student work, “Attempting to incorporate audio, video, maps, and other multimedia elements can often make a piece feel cumbersome and gimmicky. But the journalists were able to use all these tools to tell a more immersive and fleshed-out story. . . . I’d love to see what the reporters could pull off if they had even more resources.”

The SJMC winners were:

Online Magazine: Second place, Urban Plains
Articles — First Person: First place, “New Kid in the Ring,” Adam Rogan
Articles — Investigation and Analysis: First place, “From a Drop of Hate to a Ripple of Healing,” Jess Lynk, Katherine Bauer
Articles — Places: Second place, “Zombie Balls,” Matthew Gogerty; honorable mention, “Exploring the Abandoned Midwest,” Anne Matte
Articles — Features: Honorable mention, “500 Miles on 500 Dollars,” Adam Rogan
New Magazine Ideas: Second place, “Breakthrough,” Kayla Parker

Kathleen Richardson, School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Mary McCarthy, associate professor of politics and international relations, wrote the article, “Coalition building and mobilization: Case studies of the comfort women memorials in the United States,” which was recently published in the academic journal Politics, Groups, and Identities.

The article explores how diaspora politics, coalition building, and the gender rights movement have come together to bring about the unexpected: the public memorialization in the United States of “comfort women,” young women from across Asia forced to provide sexual services to the Japanese Imperial Army during the 1930s and 1940s. The analysis builds on the existing literature on the role of diaspora in international and local politics but also adds the important dimension of changing gender norms.

View abstract and full article.

Renae Chesnut, dean of Drake’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, was the recipient of two prestigious awards at the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy’s (AACP) annual meeting July 21—25 in Boston.

Chesnut received the James Robertson, Jr. Leadership Excellence in Student Services Award, and the inaugural Sustained Contribution to Administrative Practice in Pharmacy Education Award.

Both awards recognize Chesnut’s outstanding commitment to pharmacy education. The James Robertson, Jr. Award recognizes an outstanding individual who has demonstrated leadership excellence in student services throughout his or her career. The award honors Chesnut’s commitment and leadership to the development of student services and programming at Drake as well as nationally through efforts that enhances students’ success, professional development, and increases diversity and interest in the pharmacy profession.

The award for sustained contribution to administrative practice in pharmacy education recognizes Chesnut’s work over the past several years in the creation of the Association’s Administrative Services Section, an interdisciplinary forum for pharmacy education faculty and staff in administrative positions.

In a supporting nomination letter, Drake University Provost Sue Mattison praised Chesnut noting that she is “an extraordinary leader of the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Dr. Chesnut’s long and dedicated service to students in the College is testament of her commitment to facilitating students’ achievement, and is key to the outstanding success and reputation of the program. She is most worthy of these award recognitions.”

“I am humbled to have received these awards,” shared Chesnut. “I had the opportunity to know and work with James Robertson, Jr., which makes it a great honor to have received the award that continues his legacy of championing student success.”

Chesnut began her academic career at Drake 25 years ago, serving as director of student services, assistant dean, associate dean, and now dean of CPHS. She has been instrumental in the development and implementation of several initiatives that have enhanced the College’s reputation. These initiatives include implementing the Health Sciences, Occupational Therapy Doctorate (OTD) and Master’s in Athletic Training (AT) programs, as well as the pre-professional OTD and AT programs; supporting the creation of joint degree programs, including the PharmD/MPA, PharmD/MBA, and PharmD/JD; and facilitating the work of the DELTA Rx Institute, which promotes entrepreneurial leadership in pharmacy. Chesnut’s service to AACP has included chairing the AACP Student Services Special Interest Group, and the Pharmacy College Admissions Test (PCAT) Advisory Council.  She has also served as the inaugural chair of both the Association’s Student Affairs Committee, and the Administrative Services Section.

Building on her scholarship on artwork about the American Civil War, Maura Lyons, professor of art and design at Drake, is spending her summer at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) at Newfields, researching a painting in the collection called Our Flag. Her plan is to combine an art historical analysis of the painting with a scientific analysis to be conducted by the conservation lab at the IMA.

Lyons is at the museum—along with her husband, Windsor Professor of Chemistry Mark Vitha, who is working in the conservation lab on a number of projects—at the invitation of Greg Smith, the senior conservation scientist at the IMA.

“When the opportunity arose to conduct research this summer connected to the collections of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, I took a look at their holdings online,” Lyons said. “I noticed that they owned a painting by Frederic Church that I was not aware of.”

According to the IMA, Our Flag is a symbolic image of America during the Civil War. It was completed in 1864 and, according to Lyons’ research, is not based on a single landscape. Rather, it seems to be a combination of features of several different landscapes, including the rocky coast of Maine and tropical landscapes in South America.

Lyons has published several articles about the role of landscape symbolism in artworks from the Civil War era, which have appeared in American Art, a journal of the Smithsonian Institution; Public Art Dialogue; Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art; and most recently, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide.

“An analysis of Our Flag seemed a way to extend that research,” she said. “I am intrigued by the way that this painting is one of the few explicit statements that Church made about the war in his art, and he did so by placing a flag flying from a flagpole at the top of a mountain.”

Lyons said working with Smith will provide an opportunity to learn about the technical aspects of the painting, such as specific pigments used by the artist, changes in the paint layer, and detecting any underdrawings by the artist. Equally as important, it has allowed her to understand more about the actual painting materials through the in-house scientific lab.

The conservation lab at the IMA has allowed Lyons to interact with conservators and conservation scientists. She said these professionals have spent their careers dedicated to visual art, although they come from a different perspective compared to hers as an art historian.

“I find it exciting to be challenged to consider artworks in new ways,” she said.

Lyons shared that one of the most interesting experiences so far this summer has been a discussion she had with Our Flag’s conservator, David Miller, who restored the painting in the early 1990s. Their discussion included how the painting had a lot of damage, as well as some clumsy past restorations and she lauded how he helped return it to its former glory.

“I loved the chance to hear what that process was like, and what he saw in the painting. This has been a good reminder to me not to forget that artworks are material objects, composed of specific materials, with their own physical history,” said Lyons. “It’s always rewarding to see works of art in person rather than in reproduction.”

Lyons also shared that working as a research scholar this summer has already provided many learning opportunities.

“We talk at Drake about fostering life-long learning, and I have seen the benefits this summer of stepping out of my comfort zone and learning from others’ expertise,” said Lyons.

Drake SJMC is currently hosting almost 80 high school students and their advisers from around the country for Media Now Drake, a three-day intensive journalism boot camp July 8-11. Students choose from tracks focused on design, yearbook, writing, video, web, sports reporting, photography, and editorial leadership, taught by professionals and the nation’s best high school teachers. Their advisers network and receive teaching advice. Participants receive the full Drake student experience: staying in Jewett Residence Hall, eating in Hubbell Dining Hall, and taking field trips around the Des Moines metro area. This is the third year of Media Now Drake, and many of the campers eventually join us as SJMC first-years.

— Kathleen Richardson, School of Journalism and Mass Communication