Author: Ashton Hockman (Ashton Hockman)

The Harmon Fine Arts Center—FAC to those who know and love it—turns 40 in 2012, and in 1972 Drake University kicked off a yearlong “Festival of the Arts.” Throughout the year, people filled the $6.1 million building, featuring the 593-seat Hall of the Performing Arts, rehearsal space and a $113,000 pipe organ. Productions included “The...

On Feb. 13, two delegations from opposite sides of the world met in Old Main’s Levitt Hall. Drake University administrators welcomed a delegation of officials from Hebei Province in China, led by Gov. Zhang Qingwei. Drake first welcomed a delegation from Hebei Province — Iowa’s Sister State — in 1987. The relationship between Drake University...

Anyone associated with Drake University knows Paul Morrison — Mr. Drake, as he is also known — is an institution at the school. And now, his dedication and decades of service to Drake are physically immortalized: Forest Avenue between 31st and 25th Streets was named Paul F. Morrison Way on Feb. 22 Several city and...

From South Africa to Peru, Cammeo Medici, AS’08, has traveled the globe thanks to her education at Drake University. Her next adventure will take her to Colombia, where she will finish her master’s in public health (MPH) through a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, sponsored by the Waukee Rotary Club. Medici says her connections and learning experiences...

Through a grassroots effort, students from Drake’s Social Media Strategies class earned Des Moines its own badge on Foursquare, a popular location-based social media app — and it all started with a tweet. The project began when senior Hilary Henak discovered Foursquare’s challenge for users to create the best list of “gotta-see” sites in their...

Cuba — a nation few Americans have set foot in since 1960 — played host to a group of 18 students from the Drake University Law School last month. The group, accompanied by Professor Neil Hamilton, director of Drake’s Agricultural Law Center, was the first U.S. legal group to visit Cuba to study agricultural law....

When 20 Drake sophomores first met their Nationwide Insurance professional mentors on Jan. 20, it was as much a reunion as it was a meet-and-greet. Now in its fifth year, the mentor/mentee program between the College of Business and Public Administration and Nationwide Insurance employees has allowed Drake business students to make lasting relationships with...

Mary Walbridge, PH’74, has made a career of serving needy communities in the United States. From impoverished rural areas to inner cities, she’s sought areas where her work as a pharmacist can have a profound impact. Walbridge’s passion for health care and community service was cultivated at a young age: Her mother, a nurse, worked...

The list of the 22 projects funded by College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Development Grants this spring reads like a library shelf out of order. Application of Data Visualization Techniques for Studying Seyfert Galaxies. An Iconic Taxonomy of Vegetables and Fruits. Early Life Experience and the Adult Response to Traumatic Stress. It’s quite the...

Drake was well represented at the Iowa Newspaper Association Awards and Iowa College Media Association Contest this month, an event honoring the best of journalism in Iowa. The annual meeting was held Feb. 2–3 at the Marriott in downtown Des Moines. The two organizations partner to allow student journalists the chance to network with and...