Heard Around Campus — December 2025

Get ready to close out 2025 at Drexel by brushing up on important year-end reminders and deadlines, and resolving to strengthen your team in the new year with professional development and team-building opportunities. If you’ve got a colleague in mind who would be a great fit for the Drexel Leaders: Advancing Dragon Leadership program, you’re interested in Public Safety’s SAFE class, or you’re curious why Drexel recommends Adobe Express (free for all employees) over Canva, be sure to read on. Wishing you all a happy holiday season and a restful winter break!

Exclusive Rally House Shopping Event Dec. 17: 20% Off Storewide

Drexel employees are invited to a special in-store shopping event at Rally House, located at 33rd and Chestnut streets. Stop by the store on Dec. 17 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and show your DragonCard to enjoy an exclusive 20% discount on your entire purchase — including licensed professional sport team gear! Don’t miss this opportunity to show your school spirit and stock up on your favorite team apparel.

Effort Report Certification Deadline Is Dec. 19

Please ensure all effort reports for reporting period FY26Q1 (July 1 through Sept. 30, 2025) are completed and certified by Dec. 19. Contact ras@drexel.edu if you have any questions.

Benefits Tasks Due Dec. 31: FSA Funds, Evidence of Insurability

Funds in your 2025 Flexible Spending Account(s) (FSAs) must be used by Dec. 31, 2025, since these accounts are “use it or lose it.” You have until March 31, 2026, to submit manual reimbursement requests to WEX for both your Health Care and Dependent Care FSA accounts for any eligible expenses incurred between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2025, that were not paid using your WEX card. 

If you elected additional voluntary life insurance during the 2026 open enrollment that requires Evidence of Insurability (EOI), you must submit your EOI no later than Dec. 31, 2025. If your EOI is not completed by this deadline, your requested life insurance increase will not take effect for the 2026 plan year.

For additional details about these tasks, please review the first item in this month’s HR @ Your Service newsletter.

Reminder to Sponsoring Units: Complete Your Policy Reviews by Dec. 22

Annual policy reviews foster a strong, transparent and compliant University environment and ensure that all Drexel policies remain accurate and up to standards. As a reminder, Policy Compliance Services requests that sponsoring units for Official University Policies complete their annual policy reviews by Dec. 22. (Sponsoring units that need more time to conduct their review should contact policy@drexel.edu to confirm.) For this review, you should:

• Review your approved Official University Policies and identify whether any material or non-material updates are needed. If you find material changes are necessary, visit the Policy Compliance Process webpage to initiate a formal review.
• Review your internal departmental policies (those not published in the Policy Directory) and complete updates through your typical departmental process.

For a full list of Official University Policies and status information, please visit the University Policy Directory. If you need support, Policy Compliance Services is always happy to help — just reach out to policy@drexel.edu.

Call for Nominations — Drexel Leaders: Advancing Dragon Leadership

The Drexel Leaders: Advancing Dragon Leadership program helps experienced faculty and professional staff leaders at Drexel University expand their leadership capabilities. Program participants attend workshops where they learn from their own experiences, their colleagues' experiences, and experts in the field. Drexel Leaders: Advancing Dragon Leadership consists of eight workshops — seven half-day and one full-day — held in-person in 2026, as well as pre- and post-work assignments and online and virtual experience-sharing between participants. The dates for the workshops will be included in candidates’ application packets, and participants will need to attend all eight workshops to complete the program.

The nomination timeline is January 6–23, 2026. To nominate an individual from your division, school or college — or to self-nominate — fill out the Qualtrics survey. The application process for the program is competitive; only 20 participants will be accepted into the 2026 cohort.

To learn more about Drexel Leaders: Advancing Dragon Leadership and the application process, visit the Drexel Leaders: Advancing Dragon Leadership webpage.

Start the New Year SAFE-ly With a Self-protection Course

Public Safety’s self-protection program, SAFE, aims to give Drexel students, faculty and staff the practical skills, resources and knowledge to increase their personal safety and protect themselves in an unsafe situation. These three-hour classes are offered on specific Tuesdays and Saturdays each month. Due to the hands-on nature of the class, Public Safety strongly recommends that you register with a fellow Dragon, perhaps even your whole team! Participation in the techniques is recommended but not required. Sign up for one of the scheduled classes below by emailing dpssafe@drexel.edu. You can also request a class if you have a larger group that you would like to schedule outside of the scheduled class dates.

• Jan. 6, 5–8 p.m.
• Jan. 10, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
• Feb. 3, 5–8 p.m.
• Feb. 7, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Review Your Retirement Plan Contributions for 2026

If you are currently participating in a retirement plan with Drexel, your existing election will automatically continue into 2026 until you make a change. You can access your TIAA account directly through DrexelOne: log in, locate the Employee tab, scroll down to the My Benefits section on the left side of the screen, and select the link for Retirement Plan Management to connect to tiaa.org. Once you have logged into TIAA, you must select Manage Contributions under the Accounts menu. Be sure that your changes have saved and review your confirmation statement to ensure accuracy.

Create Professional Designs at No Cost with Adobe Express Premium

Did you know that Drexel provides free access to a powerful design tool that helps you create polished, professional content quickly and easily? Adobe Express Premium offers a robust suite of features, including a library of premium templates and design assets, generative AI capabilities, branding and social tools, real-time collaboration features and seamless integration with other Adobe applications. These features not only match, but in many cases exceed, what Canva and other popular design platforms provide, at no cost to your department.

Explore Adobe Express Premium and consider making it your primary design solution. You can compare Adobe Express Premium and Canva features and/or learn the basics of Adobe Express on Adobe’s website. 

To sign in to Adobe Express:

1. Visit express.adobe.com. 
2. Enter your Drexel email address, and then select Continue. 
3. If prompted, select Company or School account. 
4. You'll be redirected to Drexel Connect. Sign in with your Drexel account and verify your sign-in with multifactor authentication. 
5. If prompted with the Kivuto OnTheHub Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, review the agreements; select the check boxes to agree with the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, and then select Continue. 

If you have questions about Adobe Express, contact the Drexel IT Help Desk. 

Catch-up Contributions for High Earners Moving to Roth in 2026

Under Secure Act 2.0 Section 603, employees who are aged 50+ and who earned more than $145,000 in 2025 must make their 401(k) and 403(b) catch-up contributions as Roth (after-tax) starting in 2026. Drexel’s 403(b) plan must comply with this new law. This change affects how these contributions are taxed, moving employees from a pre-tax to an after-tax basis, which may impact take-home pay and retirement tax strategies. For more information, review the related announcement on the HR website.

You may want to schedule an appointment with your financial advisor to better understand your taxable income for 2026. You can also schedule a virtual or in-person consultation with one of Drexel’s TIAA advisors by calling 800.732.8353, Monday–Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., or visiting tiaa.org/schedulenow-drexel. You can meet virtually, or in person with a TIAA advisor at 3201 Arch St., suite 430, on Jan. 29, Feb. 12 and March 26. You can also contact TIAA participant services on 800.842.2252, Monday–Friday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Academy of Natural Sciences FY26 Provisional Indirect Cost Rate

The Academy of Natural Sciences (ANS) has finalized its negotiation of its indirect cost rates for grants, contracts and other agreements with the federal government effective July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026. These rates, as well as the finalized fiscal year 2024 rates, have been posted on the Comptroller’s website along with the new rate agreement [PDF] from the United States Department of the Interior.

Full Physical Equipment Inventory Begins Jan. 20

Fiscal year 2026 (FY26) is considered a base year for developing the facilities and administrative (F&A) rate proposal for submission to the Division of Cost Allocation (DCA) of the Department of Health and Human Services. The F&A rate proposal is the tool used to set the indirect cost rates for the University. Drexel’s proposal is required to be submitted to DCA by Dec. 31, 2026, based on the FY26 financial activity. Representatives from Inventory-ID will be on campus to complete the inventory beginning on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. It is anticipated that they will be on site through the end of February 2026. For details, view the related announcement.

Fiscal Year 2027 Proposed Fringe Benefit Rates

Drexel University has submitted the fringe benefit proposal to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to establish the fiscal year 2027 fringe benefit rates for sponsored projects. These rates are not final until Drexel receives the official rate letter from DHHS; however, Office of the Comptroller does not expect any significant changes when they are finalized. It is anticipated that the University will not receive the approved final rate letter for at least three to six months. Therefore, you should begin to utilize these proposed rates on any proposal submissions that will have salary and wages after July 1, 2026, to ensure that you have budgeted adequate funding. Coeus and Banner have been updated to reflect the new proposed rates effective July 1, 2026.