Staff and students: Here is a list of helpful links to check road conditions before you start out on that trip home or to visit friends and relatives for Christmas:
Security Services wishes you a safe trip and a wonderful Christmas break!
Just a reminder … The Bruin Bookstore’s web address has changed. You can find us online at gfubookstore.com.
Still need a ride to the PDX airport, bus or train station?
Last call for students looking for a ride to/from GFU over Christmas break. Â The transportation connect will close at the end of the day today, Thursday December 15.
For info about getting a ride, please go here: Â For more info go here.
Friday is the last chance to submit your best photos for our contest. Enter our senior business capstone photo contest and help support a great cause!
Cards of Hope is being organized to create photo greeting cards to support The Garden of Hope, which works to protect vulnerable and at-risk children and teenage women from abuse and exploitation in Thailand. You can help Cards of Hope by sending in your best picture of places, nature and local landmarks.
The best submission will receive a grand prize of $30 cash!
How to Enter
Each entry consists of a single image and the required information: your name, telephone number, e-mail address and photo location. There is a limit of six entries per person. Photographs must be in digital JPEG or JPG format. E-mail your entry to cardsofhopegfu@gmail.com.
All rights to use of the photo are waived with submission for the contest and a chance at the prize. See terms and details in the information section of our Facebook page.
Questions? Contact Hilary Sarjent at cardsofhopegfu@gmail.com.
It’s good to know you’re covered when the flu bug hits and you can’t work. Regular university employees, half time and above, have sick leave and vacation to provide continued pay during an employee’s own illness or that of a dependent child, spouse, parent or parent-in-law who requires care.
If that flu bug should lead to pneumonia, and you are off work more than five consecutive days or hospitalized, you will need to bring a doctor’s note releasing you to return to work. If you or a family member has a serious illness, you may be eligible for federal or Oregon family leave. In that case, you or your supervisor should contact HR to request this FMLA/OFLA leave.
These leave laws don’t pay you while you are off work – your sick leave and/or vacation will do that – but they do protect your job, usually for up to 12 weeks. Even if you have plenty of paid time off, if your leave meets the requirements for FMLA/OFLA leave, the university is required to offer it to you, so it’s always important to contact HR.
But that’s not all!
If your pneumonia lasts at least six days and longer than your sick leave and vacation, you may be eligible for short-term disability salary continuance. This benefit is available to employees who have worked for George Fox at three-quarters time for at least a year, and it pays 60 percent of your regular wages after sick leave and vacation are used up for up to six months from the onset of your illness. Medical certification is required, along with periodic updates and a release to return to work.
But wait, there’s more!
If you have an illness that lasts longer than six months, you’re still covered. Our long-term disability insurance would continue your pay at 60 percent until you are back at work, until you receive other benefits that exceed the value of your disability, or until you retire.
While these are great benefits to have if you need them, we hope you won’t! Stay well this winter (and read the details in the employee handbook online, pages 39-47).
– HR
To simplify the process of preparing for a new semester, IT will automatically create a FoxTALE site for all of your spring and summer 2012 courses that are listed in MyGFU. You will no longer need to log into MyGFU to activate FoxTALE course sites. Each FoxTALE site will automatically enroll students, but the sites are hidden from students. You have control over when, or even if, you make a site available (visible) to the students.
We estimate that the spring 2012 FoxTALE course sites will be created by Dec. 21. Watch employee e-nnouncements for a confirmation.
See the FoxTALE for Faculty web page for more details.
Paul Otto (History) published an editorial, “Political Commitments and Doing Justice,†in Capital Commentary, a weekly current-affairs publication of the Center for Public Justice. The center, established in 1977 by a group of citizens interested in developing and communicating an integrated biblical view of political service and responsible government, is an independent, nonpartisan organization devoted to policy research and civic education.
Ed Higgins’ (English) flash science fiction story, “First Contact,†was published in the Dec. 8, 2011, edition of the online science fiction zine Farther Stars than These.
Richard Silver (Print Services) was named the university’s employee of the month for November.
Have news to share in e-Colleague? Send it to Sean Patterson at spatterson@georgefox.edu.
Tami Ankeny returned to the university this week to serve as interim camp program director at Tilikum. Previously, she had worked in residence life at George Fox before leaving to work in Romania last summer with Word Made Flesh.
Andrea Heath (Undergraduate Admissions) will be leaving George Fox at the end of December after serving at the university for nearly five years. She and her husband, Micah, plan to move to France in the summer to serve as missionaries with Greater Europe Mission. They will be working with missionary kids, third-culture youth and university students.
Dave Kelley (Financial Affairs) left the university earlier this month to pursue other opportunities.
Dec. 13 Steve Grant, Marcey Keefer-Hutchison
Dec. 14 Janelle Olivarez, Amy Wolff
Dec. 15 Paul Corbett-Furgal, Rich Muthiah, Cliff Rosenbohm
Dec. 17 Becky Ankeny, Gary Buhler, Viki Defferding
Dec. 18 Carol Hutchinson, Katy Turpen
Dec. 19 Andy Campbell, Phil Smith
Dec. 22 Robin Ashford, Jenny Getsinger
Dec. 23 Rodger Bufford
Dec. 24 Jeong Ahn, Greg Allen, Bethany Goldman
Dec. 25 Abby Burgess, Debby O’Kelley
Dec. 27 Kim Rautenberg
Dec. 28 Robert Simpson
Dec. 30 Lori Dekruyf
Dec. 31 Sherrie Frost
Jan. 1 Raelene Fendall, Bob Harder, Mandria Montplaisir
Jan. 3 Julie Green, Sarah Marvin, Amber Russell
Jan. 4 Brenda Graf, Chris Koch, Dan van der Water
Jan. 5 Joy Reimann
Jan. 6 Merrill Johnson
Jan. 7 Cathy Peterson
Jan. 8 Jonathan Morell
Jan. 9 Mary Cameron, Shannan Wheelock
We have 2012 Entertainment® Books available through this Friday, Dec. 16! These make great gifts at the discounted employee price of $20 (Costco price is $35). Enjoy $30 in bonus savings cards with each edition.
Choose your book – either Portland or Greater Oregon– and purchase it at the Information Desk in the Stevens Center (or contact Barbi Doran to send one to you).
A group of students are collaborating with the university’s Center for Peace and Justice and Center for Global Studies to run a book drive in partnership with Better World Books to raise money for Invisible Children, an organization dedicated to bettering the lives of children in Central Africa through advocacy and education.
The book drive has begun and ends this Friday, Dec. 16. Books can be dropped in one of four donation bins on campus: in the Stevens Center lobby, Bruin Den, EHS Atrium and outside the bookstore.
The Rationale
Through this book drive, unwanted books become the means to rebuild
 schools and provide scholarships to students in northern Uganda.
On college campuses,
 many
 thousands of
 amazing
 books are
 thrown out every year at the end of the semester. Because books
 change edition
s so frequently, there are always many books that the bookstore buys
 back for pennies, or
 not at all. These are the books we want you to donate. Some
 of you will
 even
 donate books
 you can sell back because
 you want to support the
 cause.
Which Books to Donate
Textbooks are
 the
 best
, but
 any book
 coming from our campus will
 do, including everything from classical
 fiction to a
 book on microwave
 cooking.
Students, staff, faculty and administrators: Don’t hesitate to donate as many books as you can. If they can’t be sold by Better World Books, at least they will be recycled instead of filling landfills.
If you have specific questions about which books qualify, please e-mail Melanie Newell at mnewell@georgefox.edu or visit this link.
Student supervisors, please be sure to collect your student employees’ time sheets before they leave for winter break. Please submit these time sheets to Human Resources right away. If they will be working over the winter break, turn them in when they are done for the month.
While we would like the time sheets as early as possible, all December time sheets must be turned in to Human Resources by Wednesday, Jan. 4, by noon. The earlier due date is required because pay day will be Jan. 13 (since Monday, Jan. 16, is a holiday).
Please be sure the student’s name, ID number and cost center number is legible on each one. Total them. Sign them and be sure the students did as well. (If the student is not available to sign it, please send it without the signature, and HR will contact the student.) Please do not send students to HR to sign their time sheets.
Federal Work Study regulations require that students delivering their own time sheets must have them in a sealed envelope.
New students? If you have hired students for December, please hand-deliver their paperwork right away. We need to set up students in the system before the time sheets arrive.
If you have hired students to start in January, please submit their paperwork as soon as possible. Thanks very much.
– HR
Don’t forget to turn in your December time sheets to your supervisor  before you leave for winter break.  Be sure your name is typed or printed legibly at the top, it is complete and accurate, and you have signed it.
If you will be working over the winter break, make sure you sign and turn in your time sheet when you are done working for the month. The last day of the month is Friday, Dec. 30. Pay day is on Friday, Jan. 13. Have a wonderful Christmas!
– Human Resources
Is there someone at George Fox who has made a difference in your academic career? Someone who ignited a spark to make you want to learn or attend class or who has acted as a role model? Take a moment to write an e-mail, e-card, or traditional “thank you†card to that professor (or other person). Try to be specific as you describe how this person has contributed to your life.
Newberg students can stop by the student life office’s front desk (third floor of Stevens Center) or the Academic Resource Center (the ARC in the second floor of  library) to pick up a blank card. Of course, one can make or buy one’s own card.
It is that time again. What has donuts, tired students, eggs, pajamas, carved ham, and waffles in common?
LATE NIGHT BREAKFAST!
Late Night Breakfast is happening on Dead Day (Monday, December 12) from 10-11 p.m. in the Bon. There is no charge for students, regardless of your meal plan. Come hang out and take a study break as you enjoy this meal, on ASC.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email Elizabeth Tolon at etolon06@georgefox.edu
Students and employees will be able to get information on class cancellations and/or school closings in any of the following ways:
1. By listening to their local radio or television station – kgw.com, koin.com, kptv.com, katu.com, columbian.com, oregonlive.com
2. By checking e-mail
3. By calling Newsline, the university’s recorded source of information, at 503-554-EVNT (3868)
4. By calling the George Fox switchboard (503-538-8383)
5. By visiting the websites for Portland-area media
6. By visiting georgefox.edu
Purchase tickets in the Bruins Den during lunch and dinner!
Winter Formal Swing Dance!
Evergreen Aviation Museum
Sunday, December 11
8 p.m.-10 p.m.
Tired of your clothes? Make room for the new…
Recycle your clothes and get a free drink too!
The Fitted Fox is hosting a launch party of their clothing business here at George Fox University.
Where: The Foxhole
When: 8:30-10 p.m. Dead Day, December 12
What to Bring: 3-5 pieces of qualifying clothes
to get a free drink on us!
What qualifies?
Clean, fashionable clothing that is winter/spring appropriate and in good condition. Right now we’re taking…
Men’s: shirts, jackets, sweaters, pants, hats and scarves
Women’s: shirts, jackets, sweaters, pants, hats and scarves plus dresses and skirts
~Questions…find us on facebook: The Fitted Fox
Come down and hang out before the midnight breakfast hosted by ASC at 10 p.m. Â in the Bon!
Please remember to water your Christmas trees and, in the case of students and those leaving over the holidays, remove them before you leave for break. Thank you and Merry Christmas!
– Plant Services
Plant Services has some ink cartridges that we would like to give away.
Here’s the list:
If interested, contact Debby O’Kelley at dokelley@georgefox.edu.
