Category Archives: News & Achievements Archive

News & Achievements Archive

Office of Community Engagement and Service-Learning welcomes Amanda Martin

The Office of Community Engagement and Service-Learning is excited to welcome Amanda Martin to campus. She will serve as the new AmeriCorps and service-learning programs coordinator. In her role, Amanda will be responsible for the day-to-day management of the Iowa Community Health AmeriCorps Program and student-led service-learning programming.

Amanda is a graduate of Iowa State University with a master’s degree in education, student affairs and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Clarke University. Over the past three years Amanda has worked for the Corporation for National & Community Service NCCC Vinton Campus as the member development associate. In her role with NCCC, Amanda trained and advised 25 Service Learning Initiators and supported approximately 400 AmeriCorps NCCC members in preparing for their life after the AmeriCorps experience. Previous to NCCC Amanda served as the associate director of the Volunteer Center of Story County. She has worked with young adults in a number of service and leadership settings, and we are excited to welcome her to the Bulldog family! Amanda’s office will be in Old Main 319—please feel free to stop by to say hello!

—Submitted by Renee Sedlacek, Interim Director of Community Engagement & Service-Learning

News & Achievements Archive

Get your discounted season tickets to men’s and women’s basketball!

Faculty and staff can take advantage of discounted season tickets for men’s and women’s basketball. Get them before they’re gone!

Men’s Basketball
Premium Center (C,D,E,N,O,P)—$124 per seat + $250 Bulldog Club Donation
Premium Outer (A,B,F,G,M,Q,R)—$124 per seat + $150 Bulldog Club Donation
Reserved Center (3,4,5)—$124 per seat + $250 Bulldog Club Donation
Reserved Outer (1,2,6,7)—$124 per seat + $150 Bulldog Club Donation
General Admission (8-25)—$75 per seat + No Bulldog Club Donation

Women’s Basketball
Reserved Sideline (A-G, M-R)—$50 per seat
Reserved Baseline (S-T)—$40 per seat

All Drake University faculty and staff can take advantage of discounted pricing with a valid Drake Card (ID). To purchase your season tickets, contact the Drake Athletics Ticket Office at 515-271-3647 or email tickets@drake.edu.

—Submitted by Tom Florian, Assistant Director, Ticket Operations and Donor Management

News & Achievements Archive

Jen Hogan receives honor

Jen Hogan, associate director, international programs and services, has been named a Mentor for the Institute of International Education’s program, “Connecting with the World: International Relations for Higher Education Institutions.” Working virtually with professionals from around the globe, Jen will provide mentorship to participants from Myanmar. Included in the topics Jen will cover are:

  • International office roles, responsibilities, and tasks
  • Academic partnerships
  • Developing a university mission statement
  • University marketing/branding and social media

—Submitted by Drake International

News & Achievements Archive

Drake news: Week of Sept. 7

The most recent edition of eBlue, Drake’s alumni newsletter, highlights three recent pharmacy alumni’s research on the effects of medical marijuana on post traumatic stress disorder, as well as the unique stories behind memorabilia in the Alumni House.

The Des Moines Register recently featured Drake student Roy Ju, who earned the designation as a Fellow of Society of Actuaries; he is the youngest person ever to receive this credential, the top awarded by the Society of Actuaries.

News & Achievements Archive

Drake welcomes 53 new employees

Welcome the following new employees at Drake!

Beth Diehl, College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (started in July)
Valerie Thacker, School of Education (SOE)
Lindsay Woodward, SOE
Douglas Stilwell, SOE
Shannon Saunders, Athletics
Christopher McMahon, Athletics
Dalton Moberly, Athletics
Nathan Bollhorst, Athletics
Katelyn Sobotka, Athletics
Markisha Wright, Athletics
Zachary Elsbecker, Athletics
Sean Giza, Arts & Sciences
Carter Roberts, Arts & Sciences
Lauren Beal, Arts & Sciences
Tiffany Roby, Arts & Sciences
Lauren Breman, Arts & Sciences
Emily Kruse, Arts & Sciences
Kayla Jenkins, Arts & Sciences
Inbal Mazar, Arts & Sciences
Patricia Storlie, Arts & Sciences
Jill Allen, Arts & Sciences
Nate Holdren, Arts & Sciences
Paul Brizzi, Arts & Sciences
Bryan Hall, Arts & Sciences
Emily Newman, Arts & Sciences
Anne Peterson, Arts & Sciences
Deirdre Caputo-Levine, Arts & Sciences
Ann Skallerup, Public Safety
Matthew Main, Public Safety
Rick Welch, Public Safety
Kayla Choate, Law School
Christopher Gill, DTS
Cassie Paterson, College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences (CPHS)
Katie Shields, CPHS
James Kolnik, Residence Life
Luis Cordoba, Residence Life
Victoria Smith, Head Start
Lori Archer, Head Start
Stephanie Charron, Head Start
Stephanie Young, Head Start
Brenna DeGan, Alumni & Development
Grace Provenzano, School of Journalism & Mass Communication (SJMC)
Catherine Staub, SJMC
Matthew Thornton, SJMC
Petros Tesfazion, College of Business and Public Administration (CBPA)
Carl Vieregger, CBPA
Alanah Mitchell, CBPA
Heath Henderson, CBPA
Jamie Grandstaff, CBPA
Cameron Tuai, Cowles Library
Christopher Nickell, Environmental and Health Safety
William Kirby, I Have a Dream Foundation
Roberto Macedo-Davila, Facility Services
Saul Leon-Ortiz, Facility Services

—Submitted by Human Resources

News & Achievements Archive

Arts & Sciences news

Theatre for social change
Last spring, students from Art of the Interview together with Law, Politics, and Society major Clare VanEchaute interviewed Drake women on campus about their experiences with gender violence. The interviews turned into a series of theatre scenes entitled “How It Goes.” Last spring, the students performed the piece to Roosevelt High School students in Petra Lange’s Women in Literature course, sponsored by the Slay Fund for Social Justice and the Drake Sociology program. We hosted the high school students for breakfast and had a discussion afterwards. We also listened to their poetry readings as part of an exchange.

At Drake’s Welcome Week, “Sex, Drugs, & Drake” included two of the scenes from “How It Goes” into the performance. Alysa Mozak was an advocate for the scenes’ inclusion because they captured the experiences with gender violence on campuses.

The process and theatre piece generated rich learning for students and an opportunity to learn about interviewing, sociological research, an important social issue, and how to use theatre for social change.

—Submitted by Darcie Vandegrift, Associate Professor of Sociology, Department Chair

 

John Graham elected to VASTA board of directors
John Graham, associate professor of theatre, has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA), an international organization dedicated to advancing “the art, research, and visibility of the voice and speech profession.”

—Submitted by John Graham

 

Drake granted neuroscience honor society charter
Over the summer, Drake was approved to shelter a chapter of Nu Rho Psi, the National Honor Society in Neuroscience. Drake’s is the 53rd charter issued since the society was established in 2006 and the first in Iowa. Brian Sanders, professor of psychology and neuroscience, will be the faculty adviser for the chapter.

Drake has approximately 60 neuroscience students who are active in summer research opportunities at major research institutions and the Drake University Conference on Undergraduate Research in the Sciences (DUCURS).

The decision to issue a charter for Drake was unanimous. Comments from the reviewers included:

  • “Clearly, Drake University is a very special place and I’m excited to have one of our national chapters there.”
  • “Drake University offers a well-established neuroscience major with strong, interdisciplinary course offerings.”
  • “The neuroscience faculty are relatively sizeable, include a diverse range of research interests, are productive in scholarship, and engaged with students in the classroom and in the laboratory.”
News & Achievements Archive

Drake faculty receive more than $83,000 in external funding

Principal Investigator: Matthew Zwier
Project Title: High-Performance Weighted Ensemble Software for Simulation of Complex Bio-Events
Project Summary: Matthew Zwier is a primary developer of the WESTPA software package, whose continued development this grant is intended to support. WESTPA is a tool for controlling other software tools: It orchestrates up to thousands of trajectories run natively by other software at any scale (e.g., Gromacs, Amber, BioNetGen, MCell) using a “weighted ensemble” strategy. He will be doing computer programming related to WESTPA. This programming will include implementing new features for the software, improving the performance (e.g. speed) of the software, and validating the software (ensuring that it produces the correct results). His particular focus will be ensuring that the WESTPA software package can run effectively on large supercomputers and interface smoothly with a number of chemical and biological simulation software packages.
Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health thru University of Pittsburgh
Award Amount: $28,000

 

Principal Investigator: Tom Rosburg
Project Title: Remnant Prairie Inventory in the Grand River Grassland CCS Landscape in Northwestern Harrison County, Missouri
Project Summary: The objective of this project is to intensively survey the recently expanded southern portion of The Grand River Grasslands Conservation Landscape in northwestern Harrison County for native prairie remnants. When complete, such an inventory will enable partner agencies working in this Conservation Landscape to better target grassland conservation efforts on both public and private lands.
Funding Agency: Missouri Department of Conservation
Award Amount: $20,000

 

Principal Investigator: Neil Hamilton
Project Title: Iowa Landowner’s Legal Guide
Project Summary: Drake staff will utilize project infrastructure funding to research and write educational materials relating to the Iowa Landowner’s Legal Guide, to be used to help educate Iowa land owners and their advisors and to enhance partnerships with other organizations using Sustainable Agricultural Land Tenure (SALT) resources.
Funding Agency: Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture
Award Amount: $9,736

 

Principal Investigator: Keith Summerville
Project Title: Targeted Reptile Assessment at Chichaqua Bottoms Greenbelt
Project Summary: This project will conduct an assessment of reptiles of Chichaqua Bottoms Greenbelt with an emphasis on poorly documented species such as smooth green snakes, Graham’s crayfish snake, and six-lined racerunner. The project will also assess whether hay management increases mortality in snakes that are considered declining in the state.
Funding Agency: Polk County Conservation Board
Award Amount: $1,500 (total funding for this project is $6,250)

 

Principal Investigator: Jerrid Kruse
Project Title: K-12 Energy Education Pilot Project
Project Summary: The Drake School of Education will work with AEA PD Online to develop effective e-curriculum that is uniquely tied to Iowa schools including those schools in rural locations. All students in our state will be provided access to STEM curricular materials through the development of a modular e-curriculum. This curriculum will be delivered online via a learning and management system geared specifically for personalized learning. Teachers will have the ability to create individualized units, mini-courses, or full courses for student use during or outside the normal school day.
Funding Agency: Iowa Energy Center
Award Amount: $24,000

News & Achievements Archive

Shelley Fairbairn publishes new book

Shelley Fairbairn, associate professor of education, recently co-authored Engaging English Learners Through Access to Standards: A Team-Based Approach to Schoolwide Student Achievement. She wrote the book with alumna Stephaney Jones-Vo, LA’73, who is also an adjunct professor in the School of Education.

Fairbairn’s teaching foci include preparing pre-service teachers to design effective lesson plans and assessments for K-12 students and empowering both pre- and in-service teachers to meet the needs of English language learners through linguistically and culturally responsive practice. She also directs on- and off-campus English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching endorsement programs. Prior to joining the Drake University School of Education faculty, Shelley concurrently taught ESL courses for the Drake University International Center and served as a K-12 ESL teacher in two Des Moines area school districts. She has recently conducted teacher professional development sessions and workshops in China, Canada, and across the U.S.

—Submitted by Shelley Fairbairn

News & Achievements Archive

Discounted faculty/staff football season tickets

Football season tickets are still available! All Drake University faculty and staff can take advantage of discounted pricing—$35 (regular $50)—with a valid Drake Card (ID). To purchase your season tickets, contact the Drake Athletics Ticket Office at 515-271-3647 or tickets@drake.edu.

—Submitted by Thomas Florian, Assistant Director, Ticket Operations and Donor Management