Institution
Private
Location
Des Moines, Iowa
Students
About 5,000, incl. graduate and law
Student Groups
About 150
Office
Student Activities
Launched
January 2026
WEBSITE
drake.edu
Background
A team at full capacity, running on paper and email
Drake's Office of Student Activities approves events, funding requests and paperwork for about 150 student groups. Before Lounge there was no system for any of it: forms lived on the website or in old copies, and staff tracked who was doing what from an inbox.
Drake's team was at full capacity across departments, and IT was in the middle of a three-year move to Workday. That made adopting a new student engagement platform seem impossible, despite how much it was needed.
Lounge was different. Drake's IT team signed off on it running on its own, and Director of Student Activities Tiffany Hach set up the whole campus herself.
Challenge and solution
Four problems, and how Lounge solved each
Forms everywhere
“We had a whole bunch of forms that were either found somewhere on our website, or I had a copy and had to send it out, or the students had an old copy and they would use that.”
Tiffany Hach, Director of Student Activities
Every form in one place
Reimbursements, purchase and card requests, catering waivers and the annual group audit all live in Lounge. Student details fill in automatically, and each form goes to the right reviewer: catering waivers go straight to the dining services director.
Events tracked from an inbox
“My predecessor really just had to work out of his email and figure out, okay, who is doing what, when have they talked to Sodexo, have they talked to events.”
Tiffany Hach
Instant reports, fully organized
Tiffany pulls an instant report with every event, date, room and need, fully organized for her monthly meeting with campus partners.
Clashes found too late
Groups booked rooms ~1 week before their events.
Every event reviewed before it goes live
General meetings post straight away; everything else comes to Tiffany first, so she catches clashes like a board of trustees week. Groups now book rooms 2 months ahead.
Parents asking where to look
“Every single session parents ask: is there a place that lists all of the organizations and clubs and all of the events?”
Tiffany Hach
One app to point to at orientation
“If your student is saying there's nothing going on and there's nothing to do, tell them they need to go to Lounge. Just download the app. There's something there for everyone.”
Why it worked
Implementation was straightforward, and Lounge's support made it easy
Students
Easy for students
“It is easily navigable by students. It gives them a lot of freedom to build what they want, share what they want.”
Admins
Easy for admins
“Easily manageable and editable by administrators.” Each form goes to the right reviewer, and student details fill in automatically.
Setup
Set up by one person
Tiffany built every event type, review route and form, with conditional questions, over the summer.
Customization
Built around Drake
Catering waivers go straight to dining services. Meetings post instantly; bigger events are reviewed first. Event types match how Drake works.
IT
No IT needed
Drake’s IT team signed off on Lounge running on its own, with no integration work during the Workday move.
Centralized
Everyone in one place
“Lounge keeps things in one spot.” Forms, events, reviews and instant reports, fully organized.
How the rollout ran
