Category Archives: Strategic Updates Archive

Strategic Updates Archive, Uncategorized

Great Colleges to Work For survey

All full-time faculty, active adjunct faculty and full-time staff will receive an email today from Modern Think LLC, and The Chronicle of Higher Education inviting you to participate in this year’s Great Colleges To Work For Survey. Instructions on how to access this online survey will be included in the email.

Although Information Technology Services has done testing and precautions have been taken so that this email should not be identified as SPAM, if you do not see this email in your inbox, please check both your junk email and clutter folders.

As President Martin expressed in last week’s OnCampus announcement of this survey:

“The data and benchmark information we receive from this survey will be essential to improve our workplace and our culture. As you may have noted, several of the targets on Drake’s Continuous Improvement Plan are directly related to the Great Colleges to Work For survey—for example, Drake earning a place on the survey’s Honor Roll by 2020.”

“The success of the survey depends on your participation. I encourage you to be honest and forthright in your answers. To ensure the confidentiality of your responses, your survey will be processed entirely by ModernThink. We will not receive any information that would enable us to identify the survey response of any one individual.”

If you have not received your email invitation  by noon today or if you have any questions, please feel free to contact Gary Johnson, director, human resources (gary.johnson@drake.edu; 271-4804), or visit www.ChronicleGreatColleges.com.

—Gary Johnson

Strategic Updates Archive

Accomplishment rates for 2015 graduates released

Drake recently released its accomplishment rates for the Class of 2015. The responses prove (once again) that Drake is preparing students for professional accomplishments. The following results indicate the percentage of graduates employed or pursuing graduate school within six months of graduation:

  • 98.9% of bachelor’s degree recipients
  • 99.1% of graduate degree recipients

To dig into the data further, check out the Accomplishment Rate Breakdown.

 

Strategic Updates Archive

Climate Assessment next steps

Thirteen months ago we committed to taking a hard look at ourselves, at our attitudes, assumptions, experiences, and behaviors, testing our claims about being an open and welcoming community against our lived reality and aiming to become a more diverse and inclusive campus. Our responses to the Climate Survey conducted in February 2015 were analyzed and assessed by Dr. Sue Rankin, who presented the results to campus in September and challenged us to select three action steps that were meaningful, measurable, and manageable within 12 months of their announcement. During the fall semester the Strategic Diversity Action Team (SDAT) facilitated 22 Next Steps forums, collecting the ideas and suggestions of more than 300 faculty, staff, and students. In January Jackie Heymann, a junior politics and sociology double-major, together with Associate Professor Renee Cramer (LPS), Associate Professor Michael Couvillon (Education), and Associate Provost Melissa Sturm-Smith, conducted a detailed analysis of the forum responses and survey results, identifying a number of possible next steps. (You can read the full report here: www.drake.edu/secured/climate-survey/ .) These in turn were discussed and prioritized by the entire Strategic Diversity Action Team and presented to President Martin, Provost-elect Sue Mattison, and myself.

Thus, it is both with pride and excitement that I present to campus SDAT’s recommended next steps, attached to this email, and posted on the climate assessment website, www.drake.edu/climate-assessment.

These recommendations will be the object of our attention in the coming weeks and months, but I want to emphasize that we do not have to wait for change to happen. Several of the priorities identified by SDAT are already underway. For instance:

  • Last August President Martin mandated that all senior level administrative positions have responsibility related to inclusion and diversity as part of their essential job functions.
  • Increasing the percentage of students, faculty and staff of color has been set as a target in our Continuous Improvement Plan.
  • A new pre-welcome weekend workshop on racial identity will be offered to entering first-year students in August.
  • This summer’s Learning Symposium for faculty and staff will be devoted to the topic of inclusive excellence.
  • A gender-neutral restroom has been created in Olmsted Center and gender-neutral restrooms and lactation rooms have been designed into the two new buildings currently under construction, Collier-Scripps Hall and the new science building.

Most immediately, when you return from spring break you will be invited to participate in conversations to adapt and adopt a Drake statement on diversity and inclusion. This is essential to our progress. Our next steps can’t be taken, our ambition to become a welcoming and inclusive campus cannot be realized, unless and until we have a common understanding of what we mean by diversity and inclusion. So please, help us come to terms.

Finally, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the Strategic Diversity Action Team, and to Melissa Sturm-Smith, Renee Cramer, and Michael Couvillon in particular, for their devotion, persistence, vigilance, and passion in bringing this project to this point.

But now the real work for the rest of us begins.

—Joe Lenz, Interim Provost

Strategic Updates Archive

Great Colleges to Work For survey

I am pleased to announce that Drake University will once again participate in the Great Colleges to Work For survey for 2016. The Great Colleges program is sponsored by The Chronicle of Higher Education and ModernThink LLC, a research and consulting firm focusing on workplace excellence.

The data and benchmark information we receive from this survey will be essential to improve our workplace and our culture. As you may have noted, several of the targets on Drake’s Continuous Improvement Plan are directly related to the Great Colleges to Work For survey—for example, Drake earning a place on the survey’s Honor Roll by 2020.

The central feature of the assessment process is a faculty/staff survey distributed to all of our full-time faculty, active adjunct faculty, and full-time staff. Designed specifically for colleges and universities, this confidential and anonymous survey allows us to gather important information from our faculty and staff about what is working well and to learn about areas that need attention.

On March 21, ModernThink will send the survey to all of our full-time faculty, active adjunct faculty, and full-time staff. You will receive an email invitation encouraging you to participate, along with instructions for completing the survey. The survey should take about 20 minutes to finish.

The success of the survey depends on your participation. I encourage you to be honest and forthright in your answers. To ensure the confidentiality of your responses, your survey will be processed entirely by ModernThink. We will not receive any information that would enable us to identify the survey response of any one individual.

Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact Gary Johnson, director, human resources (gary.johnson@drake.edu; 271-4804), or visit www.ChronicleGreatColleges.com.

Thank you for your participation in this survey.

Sincerely,

Marty

Strategic Updates Archive

From President Martin: STEM@DRAKE progress

This past Saturday, Drake officially broke ground on Collier-Scripps Hall, the new building that will be home to the School of Education, the department of mathematics and computer science, and The Robert D. and Billie Ray Center. The building derives its name from lead donors Jim Collier, who received his Master of Arts in Education from Drake, and Ric Scripps and Debbie Engstrom Scripps, who received their Bachelor of Arts in Teaching degrees from Drake; Debbie is also a former member of the Drake Board of Trustees.

As the first free-standing academic building construction in 20 years, this is certainly a monumental and exciting project. The STEM@DRAKE complex will enable us to offer new academic programs in the sciences, including kinesiology, occupational therapy, and athletic training, bringing in new students and bolstering our efforts to meet the community’s needs in the fields of science, education, technology, and math. It also brings the School of Education on to campus, a move that has long been anticipated and will ensure that our mission of providing an exceptional learning environment for all of our students is being met.

This new complex and the renovations to existing buildings that comprise the STEM@DRAKE project will not just benefit those students, faculty, and staff engaged in the specific departments or programs that will be housed there. This initiative will provide new study and collaboration spaces for students and faculty alike. The Collier-Scripps building will be home to The Robert D. and Billie Ray Center, an important part of our continuing commitment to engage in our surrounding community and to advance our values of civility and leadership. The gender neutral bathrooms and nursing and lactation rooms that will be included in both Collier-Scripps and the science connector building represent our priority to provide an inclusive learning and living environment for faculty, staff, and students.

Many members of our campus are hard at work to ensure the STEM@DRAKE project is completed on time and on budget, and I extend my thanks to them. Throughout the process we will have some growing pains, and I appreciate the community’s understanding that some temporary disturbances due to construction are a necessary function of progress. I encourage you to visit www.drake.edu/buildingstem for more details about STEM@DRAKE and for updates on progress. This investment in Drake’s future is one that will benefit the University for years to come, and your support is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Marty

Strategic Updates Archive

Drake breaks ground on Collier-Scripps Hall

Drake University held a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday, Feb. 27, for the University’s first new academic building in 20 years. Collier-Scripps Hall is a $15 million, 50,000 square-foot facility that will house the University’s School of Education, the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, and The Robert D. and Billie Ray Center. For more information, visit the Drake Newsroom.

Strategic Updates Archive

Attention first-year students & seniors!

Drake University wants to improve students’ educational experiences and first-year students and seniors can help by completing the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). NSSE helps guide decisions that will benefit Drake students. For example, Drake used NSSE data to:

  • Expand opportunities (e.g., study abroad, service-learning)
  • Evaluate the impact of the Drake Curriculum
  • Highlight for each college and school the top five areas of excellence/challenge
  • Assist efforts to create a more welcoming environment for diverse students

Drake first-year and senior students will receive invitations to participate in this important survey beginning tomorrow, Feb. 23. Please share your feedback to help us make improvements. Your voice matters.

—Kevin Saunders, Director of Institutional Research and Academic Assessment

Strategic Updates Archive

Painting the town blue

During the next five weeks, Drake will be on display with several billboard advertisements in the downtown area. This is part of the University’s admission efforts and the ads will be prominently displayed during the many high school athletic tournaments taking place in the metro, including state wrestling and girls’ and boys’ basketball state tournaments. These new advertisements declare our Bulldog pride and share with prospective students the outcomes they can expect by attending Drake. See example below:

15-16.7724 Undergrad Billboard Advertising_1400400

Strategic Updates Archive

From the Provost: Week of Feb. 15

Beginning to Build the Professoriate for the Future
Two years ago Drake University proposed our Quality Initiative, a project undertaken “to alter the University culture to ensure that people of all races and ethnicities find a welcoming and supportive environment at Drake University, and concomitantly to increase racial and ethnic diversity among Drake students, faculty and staff.” The climate survey conducted last spring, the report on that survey delivered in September, and the forums that followed to discuss and identify immediate action steps we can take (soon to be announced) are, of course, part of that initiative, as was the creation of the Crew Scholars program, now in its third successful year.

Another piece of the QI, one on which there has been less apparent movement, is the “professoriate of the future,” a commitment to “recruit, hire, mentor, and retain faculty of color, across the disciplines represented in the University.” I want to take a moment to make our efforts in this area more visible.

This year we are conducting 22 searches to recruit faculty to Drake University, most to fill positions opened by retirement or resignation, some for the new programs. Along with the deans and Catalyst—a group of faculty devoted to improving diversity recruitment—I wanted to make a more deliberate and concerted effort to attract and hire diverse applicants and thus increase racial and ethnic diversity on campus. Toward that end we have taken several small, but needed steps:

  • In cooperation with Human Resources, we revised the Faculty Search Manual in two important ways. First, we updated the language in the EEO statements to ensure that advertisements are more welcoming and present Drake in a manner that will be attractive to diverse candidates. Second, we allowed the addition of a third finalist for campus visits (searches are currently restricted to two) if a compelling case can be made that an additional candidate will forward our goal of Drake becoming a more inclusive community. (In the 15 visits we have had so far, 5 were permitted to include a third candidate.)
  •  I purchased a three-part self-paced training webinar on recruiting, hiring, and retaining diverse faculty and mandated that at least one member of each search committee complete the webinar.
  • Representatives from Catalyst have met with the deans and with search committees prior to campus visits to discuss best practices.

These may seem small things, but they appear to be having an impact. Of the nine completed searches, three have resulted in diversity hires. In addition, since June I have approved converting two faculty of color in contingent positions to tenure-track lines. Of course, we have much more and serious work to do: improving our website to feature a page focused on the needs of a diverse prospective employee; develop a University-wide mentoring program for faculty; build better connections between the University and the community to provide a more welcoming and supportive environment; update and revise promotion and tenure policies; and, as the climate survey told us loud and clear, provide better training to all Drake students, faculty, and staff. For this very reason, the 2016 Learning Symposium will be devoted to the theme of “Inclusive Excellence” and will include an afternoon workshop on inclusivity training. An invitation to submit session proposals will be sent soon. This is an opportunity to join with others and make a real contribution to improving our working and learning environment.

Provost Mobile Office Hour
You can find me this week on Thursday, Feb. 18, 10–11:30 a.m., in the Cowles Library coffee shop. No appointments needed.

—Joe Lenz, Interim Provost