The Drake men’s intramural basketball team traveled to the NIRSA Region V basketball tournament in Lincoln, Neb. The team won the tournament with a record of 4-2. Will Warner was voted to the All-Tourney team and Ryan Van Wyk was named the tournament MVP. The team will have the opportunity to represent Drake at the national tournament April 20–22.
— Ryan Parriott, Athletics
Law Professor Miguel Schor published “Comparative Constitutional Theory” (Elgar Publishing, 2018). Schor co-edited the book with Gary Jacobsohn, University of Texas at Austin. The book is comprised of original essays written by experts around the world who use a variety of theoretical perspectives to explore the diversity of global constitutional experiences. Schor also authored one of the book’s chapters, titled “Constitutional Dialogue and Judicial Supremacy.”
— Kayla Choate, Law School
The work of several School of Journalism and Mass Communication students is among the finalists in the Society of Professional Journalists Region 7 contest. The finalists are in 10 categories ranging from news reporting to multimedia:
Winners will be announced at the SPJ regional conference in Ames on April 13 and 14.
— Kathleen Richardson, School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Kelli Welter, second year pharmacy student at Drake University, was recently elected National President-elect of the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP), a position that involves service and leadership for approximately 34,000 student pharmacist members across the United States. The one-year term will prepare Welter for her role as president of the association for the 2019-2020 academic year.
“I am excited to represent Drake University at the national level,” said Welter. “As a leader within the association, I hope to do my part to advance the future of pharmacy and create opportunities for professional growth for my fellow peers.”
Specifically, Welter said she is interested in strengthening collaboration and networking between APhA-ASP chapters, implementing more health and wellness initiatives at regional and national meetings, and easing the chapter reporting process so chapters can efficiently track the number of patients they are reaching at events.
Prior to her new role, Welter served as the APhA-ASP Generation Rx Chair and President-elect of the Drake University APhA-ASP Chapter. Additionally, she has spent the past four months as the Region 5 Regional Member-at-large.
The APhA-ASP is a subset of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), the largest association of pharmacists in the United States. The Drake University chapter of APhA-ASP has close to 200 members. Its mission is to be the collective voice of student pharmacists, provide opportunities for professional growth, improve patient care, and envision and advance the future of pharmacy.
In addition to Welter’s election, Karli Brocherding, third year doctor of pharmacy student, earned a top-10 finish In the APhA-ASP Patient Counseling Competition. The 2018 competition, comprised of one student competitor from each student chapter, had 130 entries. Karli’s finish marks the third time in the last four years that a Drake student has achieved a top 10 finish.
Drake University’s pharmacy program, part of the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, is highly regarded among peer institutions nationwide as affirmed by U.S. News & World Report, which named the program fifth among private institutions and included it on its 2017 “America’s Best Graduate Schools” list.
The College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences provides an intellectually stimulating learning environment with collaborative learning among students, faculty, and staff. Graduates are liberally educated professionals who are dedicated to serving their clients, patients, profession, and community. The college emphasizes excellence and leadership in professional education, service, and scholarship. For more information about the college, visit its website.
Two SJMC seniors have been nominated for Emmy awards in the Upper Midwest Regional Student Television Awards of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Sam Fathallah was nominated in the commercial category, and Anna Steenson was nominated in the animation and director categories. The winners will be announced at the annual awards ceremony on April 13 in Minneapolis.
— Kathleen Richardson, School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Renae Chesnut, dean of the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, served as a panelist at the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Women’s 25th Celebration Brunch on Friday, March 9, at the TaxSlayer Center in Moline, Ill. Chesnut was Drake’s long-time faculty athletics representative.
The brunch featured panels with MVC pioneers and leaders as the league recognized and honored members of the 25th Anniversary Women’s Basketball Team.
The event was part of the MVC Women’s Basketball Tournament that was held March 8-11 at TaxSlayer Center.
Women’s sports were incorporated into the MVC in 1992, having previously competed under the Gateway Collegiate Athletic Conference banner from 1982-1992. The 2017-2018 season is a landmark one for the conference and women’s sports, celebrating the 45th anniversary of Title IX and the 25th anniversary of women’s sports in the MVC.
Chesnut was one of 12 members of the Leaders and Pioneers Panel moderated by MVC Hall of Famer and former Illinois State women’s basketball head coach Jill Hutchinson. Chesnut was the lone faculty athletics representative on the panel and served in that capacity for 16 years from 2000-2016. In that role, she represented Drake student-athletes, coaches and faculty in MVC and NCAA affairs and chaired numerous committees during her tenure. That leadership included serving as the president of the MVC Presidents’ Council in 2004-2005 and 2013-2014.
Dr. Chesnut was one of a slew of Drake representatives honored at the brunch as three Bulldogs were named earlier to the MVC Women’s Basketball 25-Year Team. Drake earned three honorees on the 10-woman roster with Carla Bennett (1999-03), Tricia Wakely (1992-96) and Lizzy Wendell (2013-17) being named members of the illustrious squad.
— Mikayla Olson, College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences
Drake SJMC alumni and students were honored last month at the annual American Advertising Federation of Des Moines contest. Award winners are:
—Kathleen Richardson, School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Sally Beisser and Chuck Sengstock published a chapter, Investigating Online Instructor’s Experiences with Constructivist Pedagogy in a Private University in The Handbook of Research on Virtual Training and Mentoring of Online Instructors. Their research focuses on the significance of professional development for instructors to design and develop online courses. Findings support the need for online constructivist pedagogies, peer mentoring for instructors, formal and informal sharing opportunities, and support for the online students themselves.
Beisser, Levitt Distinguished Professor of Education, has been the director of the Drake Online Talented and Gifted Endorsement for 12 years, serving students in 28 states and 8 countries. She teaches courses in teacher education, qualitative research methods, and service-learning in the School of Education.
Sengstock, the director of continuing education and professional development in the School of Education, oversees the development and marketing of all online and video correspondence graduate courses providing training and support initiatives for both online and video conferencing instructors. In addition, he manages a multimedia production facility to create digital objects for their online, blended, and face-to-face courses.
Human Resources is proud to announce that Drake has been designated a Health Champion by the American Diabetes Association.
Through its Wellness Lives HereTM initiative, the American Diabetes Association recognizes organizations that make health and wellness a priority for their employees.
To become a Health Champion, organizations must meet healthy living criteria in three different areas: Nutrition and Weight Management, Physical Activity and Organizational Well-Being. The health and wellness initiatives of Drake have met the criteria and the American Diabetes Association has selected us for this prestigious recognition.
Faculty and staff should take pride in this recognition and the reassurance that Drake is committed to making health and wellness a priority among our campus community.
Linda Feiden, Human Resources
Elizabeth Robertson, associate professor of English, has been selected as a participant in the Council of Independent College’s (CIC) summer seminar on Pausanias and travel writing in Ancient Greece, to be held in Greece in July 2018. Professor Robertson teaches writing studies, early English texts, postcolonial literature and theory, and travel writing in the Drake English department. She recently returned from a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina-Faso—her second career Fulbright. CIC summer seminars are selective, rigorous opportunities for faculty at independent colleges to develop valuable ongoing expertise in a focused area of study or practice. Professor Robertson is the second Drake English faculty member in two years to have been invited to participate in a CIC summer seminar, following Lisa West’s selection for the Transatlantic Landscape seminar in New Haven, Conn. in 2017.
