Tag Archives: student accomplishments

News & Achievements Archive

CBPA news: Week of Feb. 22

Junior marketing and accounting double major receives AMA Scholarship
Eunice Chang, a junior marketing and accounting major, has been awarded the 2015 Iowa American Marketing Association Scholarship. The $1,500 scholarship is awarded annually in partnership with Casey’s General Store to an undergraduate member of AMA Iowa in recognition of outstanding leadership, high academic achievement, and active participation in the marketing profession. Learn more about Eunice in the Drake Newsroom.

M.P.A. cohort to be offered in Ames
Drake will hold information sessions this summer for students who are interested in taking courses in Ames toward a Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.) degree. Classes for the two-year Ames M.P.A. cohort program are held on weekends, and courses are taken one at a time to allow in-depth exploration of each topic.
Applications for the Fall 2016 cohort, which has an emphasis in executive leadership development, will be accepted through Aug. 1. Information sessions will take place at the Ames Chamber of Commerce and Mary Greeley Medical Center. Classes are held in Mary Greeley Medical Center. Click here for more information.

News & Achievements Archive

SJMC students win college media awards

School of Journalism and Mass Communication students won 25 awards Feb. 4 from the Iowa College Media Association. Highlights included first and second place in online edition for Urban Plains and Drake Magazine, respectively; a sweep in interactive design; a first place in investigative reporting; and awards representing photography, writing, design, social, and multimedia. The awards represented material published in The Times-Delphic; the senior capstone website Urban Plains, and Drake Magazine. Details are on the SJMC website.

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

News & Achievements Archive

SJMC news: Week of Feb. 1

SJMC students awarded Dow Jones News Fund internships
Two news-Internet juniors have landed highly competitive Dow Jones News Fund internships for summer 2016. Tim Webber will intern at the Kansas City Star, and Sarah LeBlanc at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Both will work on the copy desks.

About 85 students were selected from more than 700 applicants, including graduate students, nationwide. In addition to the paid internship, interns receive a $1,000 scholarship. Senior Austin Cannon, also a news-Internet major, was a Dow Jones intern last summer for the Hartford Courant.

Ad majors win American Advertising Awards
Three SJMC students have won American Advertising Awards in the American Advertising Federation of Des Moines Annual Award Competition. Vickie Chai, Paityn Langley, and Kelsey Rooney will find out if they have won silver or gold awards at the AAF awards ceremony on Feb. 20.

Multimedia professor offering spring workshops
Professor Chris Snider will offer three workshops this spring on social media strategies, new digital tools, and shooting better smartphone video. The workshops are free for Drake students, faculty, and staff who sign up in advance.

For details, see the SJMC website. The workshops are sponsored by the E.T. Meredith Center for Magazine Studies.

—Submitted by Kathleen Richardson, Dean, School of Journalism and Mass Communication

News & Achievements Archive

Nelson Institute Global Pressing Issues Grants awarded

The Nelson Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs at Drake announces its financial support for two interdisciplinary faculty-student research projects to enhance Drake’s involvement in addressing pressing global issues.

  • “Assessing, Collaborating, and Empowering to Improve Water Quality in Rural Uganda,” seeks to address water quality, as well as education and behavior impacting water quality.
  • “Transnational Des Moines: Reframing Des Moines Immigrant and Refugee Narratives through Collaborative Research with Youth,” seeks to better understand the transnational immigrant and refugee experience in Des Moines. Both projects will be funded over a two-year period (2016–2018).

Assessing, Collaborating, and Empowering to Improve Water Quality in Rural Uganda
Water quality is a pressing global issue that affects many aspects of daily life including health, education, and finances. The purpose of this project is to conduct a needs assessment and implement appropriate interventions to improve the utilization of clean water in rural Uganda. The project focuses on Kikandwa, a rural community of approximately 100,000 people located in central Uganda. Its primary water source is a borehole, with local springs and catchment tanks to collect rainwater as secondary sources. The project also will educate and engage the Drake community in addressing water quality issues and will serve as a template for research projects outside of Uganda.

The interdisciplinary research team is comprised of the following faculty and students in Health Sciences, Environmental Science, Finance, and History:

  • Cassity Gutierrez, Associate Professor of Health Sciences and Director of Pre-Professional Programs
  • Jimmy Senteza, Associate Professor of Finance and Chair of the Department of Economics and Finance
  • David Courard-Hauri, Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Policy (ENSP) and Chair of ENSP
  • Amahia Mallea, environmental historian and Associate Professor of History
  • Peter Levi, fresh water ecologist and Assistant Professor in Environmental Science and Policy
  • Karli Kisch, Psychology major and Biology minor with a concentration in Global and Comparative Public Health
  • Hayley LeBlanc, Neuroscience and Psychology double major
  • Megan Lindmark, Environmental Science major with a concentration in Global and Comparative Public Health
  • Augusta Weide, International Business and Finance joint major with a concentration in Management.


Transnational Des Moines: Reframing Des Moines Immigrant and Refugee Narratives through Collaborative Research with Youth
This qualitative research project will offer knowledge-production, collaboration, and change pertaining to the transnational immigrant and refugee experience in Des Moines. This project will seek to document and theorize knowledge from the perspective of immigrant and refugee actors themselves. It will use an asset-based community development approach that recognizes the capacity of transnational peoples and their associations to contribute to the city’s wellbeing. It will assert a new discourse that creates alternatives to age-hierarchical ways of understanding migrant and refugee communities (and indeed, most collectives) through centering youth and elders as key stakeholders, knowledge holders, and social change agents in building the future of Des Moines.

In addition to students who will be invited to join the project, the interdisciplinary research team includes the following professors:

  • Lourdes Guitérrez Nájera, Assistant Professor of Anthropology
  • Kevin Lam, Assistant Professor of Urban and Diversity Education
  • Darcie Vandegrift, Associate Professor of Sociology and Chair in the Department for the Study of Culture and Society

The Rolland and Mary Nelson Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs at Drake provides in-depth international knowledge and experiences for select students who wish to pursue careers in international public affairs. The Nelson Institute was established in 2012 with a gift from Rolland and Mary Nelson, founders of Kemin Industries.

—Submitted by Denise Ganpat, Administrative Assistant 2

News & Achievements Archive

SJMC news: Week of Dec. 21

Times-Delphic Editor-In-Chief Tim Webber and Rachel Paine Caufield, associate professor of politics and associate director of citizen engagement at The Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement, were featured on a recent edition of the Iowa Public Radio talk show River to River. Webber and Caufield discussed the issues important to millennial voters and how they might shape U.S. politics. Also featured were interviews of Drake students conducted by SJMC Associate Professor Jill Van Wyke’s audio and public affairs reporting class.

Students in the reporting class also produced their first podcast, “Des Moines: A Day in the Life,” with profiles of some of the people in the Drake neighborhood that students run into every day.

Master of Communication Leadership students presented research they conducted this semester for the city of Perry; public relations seniors presented research they conducted for their spring capstone client, the Iowa Economic Development Authority and the communities of Perry and Manning. PR writing students presented work they had done for the Spina Bifida Association of Iowa, and advertising students presented qualitative research they conducted related to the spring advertising capstone client, DuPont Pioneer.

—Submitted by Kathleen Richardson, Dean, SJMC

News & Achievements Archive

A&S news: Week of Dec. 14

Joan McAlister, associate professor of rhetoric, with editorial assistance from Drake students Ana Salgado and Hanna Howard, produced the most recent edition of Women’s Studies in Communication, the premier journal addressing the relationships between communication and gender. You can peruse the journal here.

—Submitted by Emily Kruse, Assistant to the Dean, Arts & Sciences

News & Achievements Archive

Drake news: Week of Dec. 7

Wells Fargo makes $200,000 commitment to Drake
Wells Fargo recently renewed its longstanding commitment to Drake University’s College of Business and Public Administration with a five-year, $175,000 grant to the Professional and Career Development Center. The grant enhances Drake’s efforts to prepare students to be remarkable leaders and team members in the professional world.

An additional $25,000 grant by Wells Fargo to the University’s new Data Analytics program honors the career contributions of former Drake President David Maxwell and his wife, Madeleine Maxwell. Read more in Drake’s Newsroom.

Junior Dylan DeClerk honored for philanthropic contributions
The Central Iowa Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals honored Dylan DeClerk, a junior marketing and finance major, with its Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy award during a Philanthropy Day Awards program on Friday, Nov. 13. Dylan is executive director of Opportunity on Deck, which has benefited hundreds of students. Learn more about Dylan’s work.

News & Achievements Archive

SJMC news: Week of Dec. 7

Drake grad places third in national writing contest
Kayli Kunkel, JO’15, received third place in the 56th annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program. A record 159 feature writing entries were received in the competition from 83 schools across the nation. Kayli’s competition in the contest included entries from Penn State, University of Missouri, and Arizona State University. Drake was the only private school among the top 20 finishers.

Kayli’s article was an essay about her father’s death and handling grief in college that was published in Paste Magazine. The article previously won a first-place award at the AEJMC national contest this summer. She is currently a graphic designer at Lexicon Content Marketing in Des Moines.


Advertising senior advances in national media fellowship contest
Advertising senior Megan Leverenz has advanced to the semi-final round of the competitive IRTS Summer Media Fellowship program.

Thirty students will eventually be selected from the national applicant pool to intern in New York City for nine weeks this summer. Winners receive a salary, round-trip airfare, free housing, and a living stipend. The original application included seven pages of essay questions and challenges.

—Submitted by Kathleen Richardson, Dean, SJMC

News & Achievements Archive

College of Arts & Sciences news: Week of Nov. 23

On Nov. 13, Drake students raised $5,000 in support of Drake’s Adult Literacy Center by organizing the Adult Spelling Bee at Olmsted Center. The event, sponsored by Bankers Trust, attracted nine corporate and Drake teams.

The students who organized the event were part of the course LEAD 100, Leadership: Influence and Change, led by Meghan Blancas and Jerry Parker; the course includes a service-learning project designed to promote positive social change at Drake and in our community. This is the second year in a row LEAD 100 has sponsored this event with assistance from the Office of Community Engagement and Service-Learning.

—Submitted by Tom Westbrook, Professor of Leadership Studies and Director of Leadership Concentration