Mahmoud Hamad, Associate Professor of Politics
Mahmoud promotes Drake University as a global knowledge hub bringing recognition to the University in numerous settings. For example, the United Nations selected Mahmoud to co-lead a mediation team that solved disputes within the Libyan Constitutional Drafting Assembly, which, in April 2016 approved a draft of Libya’s constitution. Mahmoud’s expertise and bilingual skills offer him opportunities to publish in both English and Arabic journals and to provide news commentary to Al-Jazeera and Al-Hurah.
His dedication to exposing students to other cultures and languages is well-known University-wide. Mahmoud’s travel seminars to Egypt or Turkey challenge students’ knowledge and assumptions and are usually filled to capacity. Model Arab League (MAL) is another way Mahmoud encourages students to learn about policy-making through research, dialogue, and debate. He has led students to Cairo to compete in MAL councils, debating current issues facing the Arab world.
Students and other faculty recognize Mahmoud’s untiring efforts to immerse students in culture and language as an extension of every topic and every course. He takes every opportunity to share his culture and beliefs and to encourage students to do likewise. Students become familiar with his thesis, “no one holds monopoly over truth.”
Jeffrey Kappen, Assistant Professor of International Business, Management and Communications
A living example of globalization, Jeffrey Kappen is multilingual and has countless years of foreign experience and a willingness to lead students, faculty, and staff on any international opportunity that may arise. On campus he serves on the World Languages Steering Committee, the Nelson Institute Advisory Board, the Global Learning Scholarship Committee, and the Fulbright committee.
Jeffrey has directly and profoundly impacted the lives of many students over his four years at Drake University. Since his arrival, Jeffrey’s work within the College of Business and Public Administration and with the study abroad program has resulted in steady increases in International Business majors who study abroad.
Besides his contributions to the development of infrastructure for internationalization on campus, in the community Jeffrey is a valuable resource for the Greater Des Moines Partnership’s regional globalization efforts. He has done consultative work on the implementation of the Greater Des Moines Regional Export Plan resulting in a defined strategy to engage local businesses and support their exporting efforts.
Marc Pinheiro-Cadd, Director of World Languages and Cultures
As one of Drake’s key resources for internationalizing the curriculum, Marc has reinvigorated language study at Drake – Spanish enrollments have grown nearly 200 percent in the last five years, French enrollments remain strong, and Drake continues to offer Arabic and Chinese. He has helped secure and expand institutional relationships with Universities in Japan, Mexico and China for students and faculty who wish to study, teach, or learn foreign languages abroad. Furthermore, Marc helped secure two $50,000 grants to fund programmatic needs.
Marc has worked diligently to make substantive and wide-reaching contributions to global engagement and internationalization of the campus and curriculum. He encourages students to study abroad and works with community and University partners throughout Iowa, the United States, and the world. For instance, he leads Drake’s engagement with partners in Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum (CLAC), a consortium that includes numerous prestigious universities across the U.S.
John P. Rovers, Professor of Pharmacy Practice - 2016 Award Winner
John serves as a passionate and effective champion of internationalization at Drake strengthening partnerships between the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (CPHS) and other units and between Drake and institutions abroad. His contributions span teaching, curriculum development, partnership development, advising students, administration, community involvement, research, co-curricular activities, consulting, fundraising, and service.
All of John's didactic, experiential and co-curricular activities with students intentionally reflect a global view of pharmacy, health care and the world. Such activities include: Creating P4 experiential learning sites in Australia, New Zealand, France, South Africa and assisting with establishing India and Belize sites; Serving as an experiential faculty member leading students on these P4 experiences including Belize (2015 and 2016); Serving as a team pharmacist and faculty preceptor for P2 early experiential students in Honduras (2012, 2013) and Dominican Republic (2015).
He chaired a CPHS committee that oversees the college’s international initiatives, represents CPHS on the Global and International Implementation Team, and has assisted in planning for Drake’s annual Global and Comparative Public Health Week. John was a founding member of the Principal Financial Group Center for Global Citizenship and played a central role in developing and sustaining the Global and Comparative Public Health concentration. He also is a founding member of the Heartland Global Health Consortium of colleges and universities across Iowa with Global Health Interests.
John hosted Fatima Suleman from the University of KwaZulu-Natal as a Global Practitioner at Drake for Fall 2015. He assisted her with teaching a new course on Drug Policy and Medication Availability, a major concern in the developing world.
He has carried out teaching, research and consulting in Vietnam to help modernize their curriculum and study drug distribution logistics in the Vietnamese hospital sector (Hanoi University of Pharmacy); assisted with creating experiential learning curriculum (Monash University, Australia); benchmarked Chinese pharmacy teaching and practice models with American models (Hebei Medical University, China).
Rovers mentors students interested in graduate studies in public/global health, assisting 1-2 students a year who are accepted into highly ranked MPH programs. He has mentored many other students who hope to serve on medical missions or other trips to ensure their service is consistent with best practices in aid and development. He also hass done extensive collaboration with Des Moines University and its students.
Rovers has worked on fundraising for McCord Hospital (Durban, South Africa), a partner for Drake’s South Africa P4 rotation and for Medicine for Mali (Des Moines based non-governmental organization). He also served as team pharmacist for Medicine for Mali medical mission trips in 2011, 2012 and a water program trip in 2014.
His research focuses on Global Health issues and has resulted in many peer-reviewed publications with student researchers as co-investigators on all projects. He serves as a peer reviewer for Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice, Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal (a WHO publication) and National Research Foundation (South Africa). In 2017, he will be on sabbatical leave in Belize creating partnerships in global health that will allow Drake faculty and students to collaborate with Belizeans on identifying, prioritizing and resolving public health problems in Belize.
