Now is a great time to request new spring course sites, archive and reset courses, and export grades for safekeeping. For new course sites, contact the IT Service Desk and include the course number and name and also whether you want content from your existing course site copied to the new site.
See the FoxTALE Quick Guides website for documentation on archiving and resetting courses to prepare for a new semester.
The university is seeking a full-time admissions counselor to do recruiting for the School of Education’s EDFL program. This position is currently open only to internal applicants (employees). Please e-mail hr@georgefox.edu to obtain a copy of the job description and transfer request if you are interested in applying for this opening.
To apply, you will need to submit the completed transfer request, cover letter and resume to Human Resources no later than Friday, Dec. 18.
Please send an e-mail to Peggy Kilburg (HR) if you would like to nominate a support staff member or administrator for Employee of the Month. Your e-mail should include the person’s name, job title, a concise but specific summary of this person’s contribution(s) to the university, its students, and/or its employees in the past 30 days or so (what was done, who was impacted, etc.), and any other information that you believe makes this person deserving of this award.
Please submit your nomination by Friday, Dec. 11. The President’s Executive Leadership Team will then select the Employee(s) of the Month from the nominations submitted. The winner(s) will be announced at the all-employee meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 16, and will receive a $100 gift certificate to The Allison.
Your input is appreciated for a university brand promise survey being conducted by the Marketing Team, a strategic planning committee of 13 faculty and staff members. Please check your e-mail in-boxes for the message entitled “Need your input.†It includes an explanation of the project and the accompanying link to the six-question survey. The questionnaire only takes a few minutes and expires on Wednesday, Dec. 9.
As an employee of George Fox, your input is valued, so please take a few minutes to participate. Thank you for helping us with this project.
Would you please take a few minutes to submit your November time sheet (support staff) or time-off report (administrators) to your supervisor right away? As always, please be sure it is complete (including your ID number), accurate and signed by both you and your supervisor before sending it to HR at Box 6108. (If your supervisor is not available to sign it, please send a copy to HR and keep the original until it has been signed.)
The link on the HR website for staff time sheets is located at georgefox.edu/offices/hr/TimesheetNov09.xls; the administrator time-off report form is located at georgefox.edu/offices/hr/Timeoffreport.doc.
A tip to help you remember to do this each month: Set a recurring appointment on your Outlook calendar for the first business day of each month with a brief notation, “Turn in time sheet.” That gives you one less thing to have to remember.
When traveling on university business, please use the trip calculator on the Financial Affairs Web page (georgefox.edu/offices/fin_affairs/tripcalc.html) to determine whether it is less expensive to rent a vehicle or request mileage reimbursement for use of your personal car. The university travel policy states that you will be reimbursed for the lesser of the two amounts. If you choose to drive your own vehicle, even when it costs less to rent, you will only be reimbursed for the smaller amount.
If you have questions, please contact Karon Bell.
What do grades represent? Are they an objective measure of knowledge? Do they show growth in understanding? Do grades give evidence of subject mastery? A recent Chronicle of Higher Education article (tinyurl.com/GFUgrades)Â challenges professors to reconsider the purpose of grades and the manner in which grades are used.
Join a conversation about accuracy, fairness and effectiveness of grading practices. Should you choose to read ahead of time, look over the comments below the article. You will need your university library card number to access the article from off campus; the link should take you directly to the article if you are on campus.
The session will be held from noon to 1:20 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 3, in Cap & Gown A (note the different location than on academic calendar).
To reserve a lunch, e-mail Jere Witherspoon (jwithers@georgefox.edu) by 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 1. Everyone is welcome to attend the session, whether bringing a lunch or reserving a lunch. Please have your lunch ready so we can begin the conversation at noon.
All faculty — full time, part time, and adjunct — are invited to attend Faculty Teaching Forums (FTFs). Video podcasts of FTFs will be available on iTunesU.
Please send an e-mail to Peggy Kilburg (HR) if you would like to nominate a support staff member or administrator for Employee of the Month for December. Your e-mail should include the person’s name, job title, a concise but specific summary of this person’s recent contributions (past 30 days or so) to the university, its students, and/or its employees (what was done, who was impacted, etc.), and any other information that you believe makes this person deserving of this award.
Please submit your nomination by Friday, Dec. 11. The President’s Executive Leadership Team will then select the Employee(s) of the Month from the nominations submitted. The winner(s) will be announced at the all-employee meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 16, and will receive a $100 gift card to The Allison.
The university will be closed Thursday and Friday, Nov. 26-27, for the Thanksgiving holiday. All offices, bookstores and libraries will be closed those two days.
Everyone is encouraged to come to the Bruin Basketball games this Friday, but if you are unable to attend in person, watching on the Internet should be a better experience this year. Stretch Internet is the host that will be delivering our video stream. We are excited because the quality should be better thanks to more bandwidth and better production software.
Check out the schedule by clicking this Stretch Internet link. The first games to be broadcast will be Friday’s (Nov. 20) home openers.
– IT
If a balance of more than one year of vacation accrual remains after December time sheets and time-off reports are processed (in January), the employee will lose the portion that exceeds one year’s accrual.
To determine your accrual rates and how much you may need to use by Dec. 31, HR has prepared a chart and instructions for support staff and a chart and instructions for administrators to be used along with the information on your Oct. 30 pay statement. Links to both can be found at georgefox.edu/offices/hr/EmployeeBenefits/beneforms.html.
They also provide useful information about the balances on your monthly pay statements. If you have any questions after you have reviewed your vacation balance, please contact HR for assistance.
Thanksgiving is drawing close and I know that many of you are looking forward to the time you spend with family. This Thursday, Nov. 19, we will host our monthly all-employee meeting in Hoover 105, and I wanted you to know that I will be available for general questions from 3 to 4 p.m. on that day. We will then provide formal reports on various areas on the institution from 4 to 5 p.m.
I would be happy to dialogue with you regarding the current discussions regarding football, physical therapy, future growth, or any topic you wish to discuss. We will have coffee and treats available at 3 p.m. so I would encourage you to come and ask questions. See you then.
Robin Baker,
President
P.S. For those at our regional sites, the meeting will be available for viewing at stream.georgefox.edu/live/commmtg.sdp. In addition, a chat room has been set up to allow for interaction. A video recording of the meeting will be available for viewing the following day at itunesu.georgefox.edu.
Students enter our classrooms with a range of motivations and abilities. In an upcoming Faculty Teaching Forum session, “Call Me Coach: Lessons From the World of Coaching,” we will discuss strategies and techniques from coaching that can inform our ability to draw out the best in our students. Neal Ninteman (Engineering) will be our presenter.
The session will be held from 12:40 to 2 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18, in Cap & Gown A (note the different location than on academic calendar).
To reserve a lunch, e-mail Jere Witherspoon (jwithers@georgefox.edu) by 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 17. Everyone is welcome to attend the session, whether bringing a lunch or reserving a lunch. Please have your lunch ready so we can begin the conversation on time.
All faculty — full time, part time, and adjunct — are invited to attend Faculty Teaching Forums (FTFs). Video podcasts of FTFs will be available on iTunesU.
Monday is last day to submit nominations for November Employee of the Month.
Please send an e-mail to Peggy Kilburg (HR) if you would like to nominate a support staff member or administrator for Employee of the Month. Your e-mail should include the person’s name, job title, a concise but specific summary of this person’s contribution(s) to the university, its students, and/or its employees in the past 30 days or so (what was done, who was impacted, etc.), and any other information that you believe makes this person deserving of this award.
Please submit your nomination by Monday, Nov. 16. The President’s Executive Leadership Team will then select the Employee(s) of the Month from the nominations submitted. The winner(s) will be announced at the all-employee meeting on Thursday, Nov. 19, and will receive a $100 gift certificate to the Jory Restaurant at the new Allison Inn & Spa in Newberg.
We are currently considering moving to a password-protected electronic version of the Bruin Directory instead of printing a hard copy. The electronic version would be available on computers connected to the Internet. It would have all of the same information as the current Bruin Directory and would be searchable.
We believe that such a change would be cheaper and easier for students and employees. Please fill out this brief survey to help us as we consider this change: http://bit.ly/4hHhki.
FoxTALE will be unavailable on Tuesday, Nov. 10, from 6 to 7 a.m. (PST) for scheduled maintenance. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Please send an e-mail to Peggy Kilburg (HR) if you would like to nominate a support staff member or administrator for Employee of the Month for November. Your e-mail should include the person’s name, job title, a concise but specific summary of this person’s recent contributions (past 30 days or so) to the university, its students, and/or its employees (what was done, who was impacted, etc.), and any other information that you believe makes this person deserving of this award.
Please submit your nomination by Friday, Nov. 13. The President’s Executive Leadership Team will then select the Employee(s) of the Month from the nominations submitted. The winner(s) will be announced at the all-employee meeting on Thursday, Nov. 19, and will receive a $100 gift card to The Allison Inn & Spa, including its restaurant, Jory.
Would you please take a few minutes to submit your October time sheet (support staff) or time-off report (administrators) to your supervisor right away? As always, please be sure it is complete (including your ID number), accurate and signed by both you and your supervisor before sending it to HR at Box 6108. (If your supervisor is not available to sign it, please send a copy to HR and keep the original until it has been signed.)
The link on the HR website for staff time sheets is: georgefox.edu/offices/hr/TimesheetOct09.xls
The administrator time-off reports is at: georgefox.edu/offices/hr/Timeoffreport.doc
A tip to help you remember to do this each month: Set a recurring appointment on your Outlook calendar for the first business day of each month with a brief notation, “Turn in time sheet.” That gives you one less thing to have to remember.
It is time once again to order university stationery. For detailed order instructions, go to the university communications website.
Elizabeth Holme (Print Services) will work with the Office of Marketing Communications in ordering general university (i.e. non-departmental stationery) letterhead and envelopes. You will continue to purchase all non-departmental stationery (including “second-sheet letterhead”) through her.
Orders are due by Wednesday, Nov. 4.
The Oregon legislature has levied a 1 percent tax on health insurance premiums, effective Oct. 1, to provide access to health care coverage for low and moderate income Oregon children currently without health insurance. The tax is matched 2-to-1 by the federal government. To offset this 1 percent premium tax, Kaiser has raised its premiums to George Fox and all of its other employer groups by a corresponding 1 percent.
The university has agreed to absorb this increase for the remainder of this plan year in addition to the 80 percent contribution it already makes, so employees with Kaiser coverage will not have to pay this premium increase until any change in premium for the new plan year (March 31, 2010 payroll deduction).
Because the Pioneer Educators Health Trust plan is a self-insured multiple employer welfare trust rather than an insurance company, it was not subject to this new 1 percent premium tax.
