Year: 2007

Longtime Drake trustee and benefactor Madelyn M. Levitt will receive the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service from The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution at a dinner on Wednesday, Sept. 19, at the Downtown Marriott.

Nicholas D. Kristof, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, will deliver this fall's Martin Bucksbaum Distinguished Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25, at Drake University. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is titled "Why Troubles in Darfur and Other Parts of the World Matter to Us."

Drake University's Center for Global Citizenship is launching a public lecture series titled "Debating America's Role in the World" in which experts on foreign affairs will discuss a variety of topics including terrorism, the Iraq war and the Middle East, hunger, pandemics, energy and climate change.

Although the research sites are located south of Indianapolis, Ind., Drake students are participating in a 10 year study of sustainable forestry in Indiana hardwood ecosystems right here on campus, to help improve the way lumber is harvested.

Drake University alumnus Larry Fish, chairman of the America unit of the Royal Bank of Scotland, will lead off this fall's Executive in Residence series in Drake's School of Management and Communication. He will give a public lecture titled "The Service Economy – Does Anyone Remember How to Deliver Service?" at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 11, in Sheslow Auditorium.

Drake University Adult Literacy Center helped improve the lives of 100 Des Moines-area residents during the last year. Despite this success, these adults account for less than 0.1 percent of the estimated 90,000 Polk County residents who struggle daily to read signs, job applications, medicine labels and even the screens of ATMs.

Drake University's School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) offers more than just the journalism basics -- writing, editing and reporting. With a gift of $150,000 from Liz Newell, JO'69, and Jack Kragie, AS'65, former owners of Integer Group in Des Moines, and an initial $10,000 gift from Meredith Corp., the SJMC has built a state-of-the-art media lab that will rocket Drake students right into the new multimedia world.

The Drake University Law School will kick off the 25th anniversary celebration of its Agricultural Law Center with "Rural Lands Rural Livelihoods: Using Land and Natural Resources to Revitalize Rural Iowa," a conference and art show beginning Thursday, Sept. 20.

For fairgoers whose food choices were sticking it to them at the Iowa State Fair, Drake pharmacy students offered an appropriate remedy: a free heartburn screening -- and a free sample of Prilosec on a stick. During five days of the fair, pharmacy students conducted approximately 90 screenings, handed out hundreds of brochures and talked to a diverse group of both heartburn sufferers and non-sufferers.

Drake senior Sarah Foote, who was named the most valuable women's soccer player in the Missouri Valley Conference, and senior Maor Zirkin, who was named the 2007 MVC Tennis Player of the Year, were named co-recipients of the Tim and Jerry Howlett Memorial Award as the school's top athletes for 2006-07 during the annual Drake Corn Feed and Auction Aug. 27.