Category Archives: News & Achievements Archive

News & Achievements Archive

Drake expands commitment to sustainability

Drake recently became a member of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education to further campus efforts toward building a healthy and sustainable campus. Through membership in AASHE, Drake will receive support in advancing its sustainability initiatives throughout the institution and in the community.

“AASHE counts on the support of progressive institutions like Drake University to fulfill its mission of facilitating leadership to transform our planet,” said AASHE Executive Director Meghan Fay Zahniser. “As the gateways to knowledge, higher education institutions have a unique opportunity to make sustainability part of everyone’s agenda. I welcome Drake University to our family of colleges, universities, associations and businesses driving the transformation to a sustainable world.”

AASHE enables higher education institutions to meet their sustainability goals by providing specialized resources, professional development, and a network of peer support. Membership covers every individual at an institution, so the entire campus community can take advantage of member benefits by using their Drake email to create an account under the membership tab at www.aashe.org.

“We are happy to have Drake University join AASHE and take an active role within this community as we all work to advance sustainability,” shared Meghan Fay Zahniser. “We invite students, faculty and staff at the institution to visit our site and create an AASHE account. This will allow everyone to take advantage of the member only resources, free webinars and discounts to our annual conference. AASHE also offers extensive online resources and discussion forums for professional development and sharing knowledge.”

AASHE hosts the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS), a comprehensive campus sustainability rating system that enables institutions to measure their progress and learn from others, www.aashe.org/stars. With STARS as a roadmap, institutions can select meaningful and appropriate pathways to sustainability while conserving valuable resources, combating global warming, and building healthier communities. Drake will be assessing the campus this fall to determine the STARS rating and sharing that information in a future OnCampus article.

— Kevin Moran, Facilities Planning and Management

News & Achievements Archive

Faculty accomplishments: Aug. 29

Last month, Associate Professor of English Lisa West participated in the weeklong Council of Independent Colleges Seminar on Landscape and Identity at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Conn. The seminar focused on art history and the use of visual culture in teaching, with the thematic focus on British and American landscape art of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Council of Independent Colleges is a group of independent liberal arts colleges and universities that organizes events, seminars, and activities to improve leadership on the university level, institutional visibility within communities, faculty development, and the contributions of higher education to society. West has been teaching at Drake for 15 years. She received her doctorate degree from Stanford in English and American Literature.

— Lisa West, Department of English

News & Achievements Archive

University Communications endows scholarship

The Office of University Communications has endowed a scholarship after reaching its $25,000 threshold in Fiscal Year 17. Funded mostly by personal donations, the Marketing and Communications Endowed Scholarship (which was named before the office changed names to University Communications) will benefit undergraduate students who demonstrate financial need and are studying graphic design, marketing, or communications. Students interested in the scholarship will apply through financial aid directly.

The idea to create the scholarship came from staff member Tim Schmitt, GR ‘08,’10, who has worked in the communications office for 12 years. He got the idea for the scholarship while working on an article about the difficulty some students have affording a college education.

“I decided that rather than just discussing the problem, I should take real action,” Schmitt said. “I realized that the people I work with shared my concerns and I also realized that, collectively, we could do more than just wring our hands over the problem and do something to make a difference.”

Once the idea for a scholarship was brought forward the entire staff responded enthusiastically and committed to making it happen.

The scholarship was funded almost entirely by personal donations from the employees in the office. The office initiated various fundraisers throughout the endowment process, which took approximately five years. They ran some silent auction fundraisers through a Facebook page, organized benefit concerts from bands that consisted of Drake faculty and staff, held food challenges, and ran office garage sales.

— Niki Smith, University Communications

News & Achievements Archive

Des Moines Corporate Games Drake Results

Fifty Drake University faculty and staff competed against 10 other “large division” companies in this year’s Des Moines Corporate Games. It was a great way for faculty and staff to get to know colleagues from around campus and be active.

Drake brought home a number of medals including first place in men’s golf 4-person best shot, second place in sand volleyball, second place in women’s 3-on-3 basketball, and third place in kickball. Drake teams also won medals in a variety of individual events. A big thank you to everyone who participated. Way to show your Drake pride!

—Linda Feiden, Human Resources

News & Achievements Archive

Academic Excellence and Student Success welcomes new team member

Academic Excellence and Student Success is pleased to welcome Josh Wallace as the new academic success and retention specialist. Josh also serves as the staff director of the Crew Scholars Program in partnership with Jennifer Harvey, faculty director. Josh’s office will be located in Medbury Hall, Room 219. Josh is available for individual appointments with students seeking assistance with academic transition issues such as time management, study skills, note-taking, reading strategies, and more. Josh will provide presentations for classes and student organizations on these topics.

— Melissa Sturm-Smith, Academic Excellence and Student Success

News & Achievements Archive

SJMC news: July 25

Drake students won nine awards, including best website and magazine, in this year’s Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication magazine contest. The awards were:

  • Best website: The senior capstone multimedia project, Urban Plains
  • General excellence: Drake Magazine
  • First place for editorial content: Drake Magazine
  • Second place for design: Drake Magazine
  • First and second place for new magazine prototypes
  • Two second-place awards and a third-place honor for writing

The judge of the general excellence category, a Vanity Fair editor, said of Drake Magazine: “This entry is exceptional for many reasons—its design, its photography, its story selection and presentation. It is a well-edited magazine in every sense of the word … Every element feels considered and deliberate … This magazine hits on all cylinders.”

The awards will be presented at the AEJMC conference on Aug. 11

—Kathleen Richardson, Dean, School of Journalism & Mass Communication

News & Achievements Archive

#BringDraketoDrake racks up more awards

The campaign that lured world-famous rapper Drake to campus in the wee hours of the morning won a CASE Circle of Excellence award. The #BringDraketoDrake campaign won a gold distinction for the international honor in category of Best Uses of Social Media, Public Relations. There were 39 entries from around the world in that category.

The judges left the following comments on the award submission:

“Capitalizing on an upcoming Des Moines concert by popular rap artist Drake, communications staffers conducted research and made a calculated bet that a persistent effort to bring the star to campus would result in a reputational boost. The social campaign generated copious media coverage, a late-night campus visit with inclusion on the star’s own Instagram feed, and record-breaking traffic to the University’s website, most notably the undergraduate application and programs pages. Hailed by journalist as ‘Best PR Move of the Week,’ it wouldn’t have been possible without an astute social media strategy.”

A list of award winners from the current year’s competition is available at www.case.org/circle. There were 107 Gold distinctions awarded this year across over 80 categories.

—Niki Smith, University Communications

News & Achievements Archive

Faculty & staff accomplishments: July 11

Karen Wallace, professor of law librarianship, was recently cited by the Iowa Supreme Court. In a June 16 opinion, the court quoted her Drake Law Review article “Does the Past Predict the Future?: An Empirical Analysis of Recent Iowa Supreme Court Use of Legislative History as a Window into Statutory Construction in Iowa,” to support the premise “that members of this court frequently look beyond the text of the statute in the interpretation of statutes.” (p. 26)

Also, Karen was recently elected vice president/president elect of the Mid-America Association of Law Libraries (MAALL). MAALL is a chapter of the American Association of Law Libraries with almost 300 members in thirteen states.

Teri Koch, professor of librarianship and coordinator, serials, acquisitions, and electronic resources, and Andrew Welch, librarian for discovery services and technology, presented “Central Iowa Collaborative Collections Initiative Survey” at the American Library Association Annual meeting in Chicago on June 23 as part of the Print Archive Network Forum.