The Daily Bruin

If there is any possibility that you will use tuition remission during the 2009-10 academic year, whether for yourself, a spouse, and/or dependent(s) you must complete a Tuition Remission Request Form for each person and submit it by Monday, March 2.

Please go to HR’s tuition remission instructions page for instructions on completing the Tuition Remission Request Forms, including links to the forms themselves. Please be sure to read this information before you begin completing a Tuition Remission Request Form. Incomplete forms will be returned without being processed.

For information about the tuition exchange program, contact Karlyn Fleming (Academic Affairs).

The university has been given a group code with Family Life that provides a 31 percent savings for employees and their spouses interested in attending one of the organization’s conferences. Family Life hosts weekend conferences designed to promote healthy marriages. Registration must occur at least 10 days before a conference in order to get the discount.

If you are planning to attend one of these conferences, simply fill in “corporateprogram” on the online form where it asks for Group Code.

Marketing Communications is currently collecting orders for name tags. Please submit your requests online. Provide the name of the person for whom the name tag is needed; title or department; and the budget to be charged. Examples of titles/departments include: Dean of Students/Office of Student Life, Admissions Counselor/Undergraduate Admissions. Supervisors should determine a standard for his or her area and attempt to remain consistent.

The next order will be placed Friday, Feb. 13. Communications will verify your request and the information provided and place your order with all others.

The Office of Marketing Communications is now collecting orders for business cards. Orders are due Tuesday, Feb. 10. Please place your orders through your department’s administrative assistant. Expect delivery in mid-March.

Please submit your order using our online form: georgefox.edu/offices/communications/creative_srv/bus_cards.html.

If you have not already done so, please submit your January time sheet (support staff) or time-off report (administrators) this week. Please be sure it is complete, 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.

We have added spaces to include your Cost Center and Employee ID numbers since that information is needed to access your record in PeopleSoft, so please take an extra moment to provide that information.

Link to the time-off report: georgefox.edu/offices/hr/Timeoffreport.doc
Link to January time sheet:  georgefox.edu/offices/hr/TimesheetJan09.xls

Holiday note:  Do not write any hours on January 1, 2 or 19 unless you worked any of those days.

We have discovered that the leave accrual balances showing on pay statements this month are not correct. The current monthly accrual was not added, and the year-to-date totals did not start over with the new year. With the rush to produce W-2s, we have not yet found an answer why, but be assured that we are aware of the problem and will get it fixed for you. Thanks for your patience!

– Human Resources

Along with your Jan. 30 direct deposit statement (or paycheck), please watch for your 2008 W-2 in your mail Friday, Jan. 30. Most of the information on these forms is easy to understand or explained in the fine print on the reverse, but we thought it would be helpful to provide a little extra information.

Items in Boxes 12a through 12d are required by IRS. The amount (if any) in Box 12a labeled “C” is the taxable cost of your group term life insurance paid by the university in 2008. (This amount was also included in your pay as taxable income in 2008.) The amount (if any) in 12b labeled “E” is the contribution you made to a supplemental retirement plan beyond the 3 percent that the university matches.

Box 14 shows the amount of your contribution to the university-sponsored retirement plan and is labeled “403B,” which is the IRS code/section assigned to our plan. This represents 3 percent of your pay from the time you began participation.

Employees (and their tax preparers) often ask why the amount in Box 1 is different than the amount listed in Box 3 and 5. Because any contributions you made to the retirement plan(s) are not subject to income taxes, those amounts (shown in 12b and 14) are not included in Box 1. However, those contributions are still subject to Social Security and Medicare (FICA) taxes, so they are included in the amount shown in both Box 3 and 5. If you add the amount in Box 1 to any amounts in Boxes 12b and 14, the total will equal the amount in Box 3 and 5.

You may find this information boring and/or confusing, but we recommend you save and keep it in a safe place, along with your W-2, so you will have both when you (or your tax preparer) files your tax return.

Finally, big kudos and many thanks to Brooke McGillivray, Melodee Powers and Tory Cole for their extra efforts to get these 2,300 W-2s out ahead of the legal deadline. Processing these for the first time in PeopleSoft created some extra challenges and extra work.

According to a Chronicle Review article by Tim Clydesdale, “Today’s students know full well that authorities can be found for every position and any knowledge claim, and consequently the students are dubious (privately, that is) about anything we claim to be true or important.” Given our students’ unprecedented access to information, often accompanied by ambivalence toward authority, what changes might faculty and administrators make to better engage our students?

This will be the topic of a Faculty Teaching Forum, “Wake up and Smell the New Epistemology,”  from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 4, in Hoover 104 (Hoover-Hatfield Library). You are welcome to join in this discussion facilitated by Patrick Allen (Provost). If you would like to read the article “Wake up and Smell the New Epistemology” ahead of time, visit this FoxTrax site.

To reserve a lunch, e-mail Jere Witherspoon (jwithers@georgefox.edu) by 1:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 2. 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 at the “Events and Resources” link on the Center for Teaching and Learning website.

The e-nnouncement posted Jan. 26 had the wrong hire date range for the 10-year awards. It should have read: To receive a 10-year award, your hire date is between Sept. 2, 1998, and Sept. 1, 1999.

Employees slated to receive a 10-year award on May 4 are: Lionel Johnson, Margaret Fuller, John Smith, Blair Cash, Nancy Thurston, Mary Olson, Susan Newell, Mark McLeod-Harrison, Dave Hansen, Jeff Duerr, Mike Campadore, Wayne Adams, Missy Terry, Peg Hutton, Denise DeCicco, Robin Baker, Brad Weldon, Mark Carlton, Claudia Hirsch, Karlyn Fleming, Sean McKay.

Based on the corrected date range, please contact Peggy Kilburg (Human Resources) by e-mail if you believe your name should be on the list for 10-year awards; or, conversely, if you believe your name should not be on the list.

Looking for information on what resources are available to university students and employees? The newly revamped Resources webpage has the most popular links used by students and employees — Bruindata, E-nnouncements, Employee Directories, and many other commonly used locations. Visit georgefox.edu/resources_for/index.html.

At georgefox.edu/strategicplan you will find the current input from faculty and staff on the proposed mission, vision, and values statements. Input from students, the nursing and math-science-engineering departments, and from the Salem and Redmond sites will be included when those visits are completed.

The Mission-Vision-Values Task Team met Friday and will propose statements to faculty and staff hopefully within two weeks.

Thank you,
MaryKate Morse

Do you anticipate receiving a five-, 10-, 15-, 20-, 25-, 30-, or 35-year service award this spring? If so, please check to be sure your name is included in one of the lists below. Awards will be presented on Monday, May 4, to Newberg employees, half time and above. (Portland employees will have a separate awards event in the same time frame.)

If your name is not included in one of these lists but you believe you should receive an award, or if your name is on the list and you don’t think you should receive an award this year, contact Peggy Kilburg (Human Resources) by e-mail and include your hire date. (If you are a rehire, your previous benefits-eligible experience at George Fox counts toward your service award.) Your help is most appreciated to ensure that the right employees are honored at this event.

• To receive a five-year award, your hire date is between Sept. 2, 2003 and Sept. 1, 2004
• To receive a 10-year award, your hire date is between Sept. 2, 1999 and Sept. 1, 1999
• To receive a 15-year award, your hire date is between Sept. 2, 1993 and Sept. 1, 1994
• To receive a 20-year award, your hire date is between Sept. 2, 1988 and Sept. 1, 1989
• To receive a 25-year award, your hire date is between Sept. 2, 1983 and Sept. 1, 1984
• To receive a 30-year award, your hire date is between Sept. 2, 1978 and Sept. 1, 1979
• To receive a 35-year award, your hire date is between Sept. 2, 1973 and Sept. 1, 1974

Five-Year: Tamara Cissna, Rick Muthiah, Carol Jaquith, Jim Steele, Jeremy Stephens, Kyle Wattenbarger, Greg Smith, Jason Schwanz, Sean Patterson, Cynthia Weston, Jonathan Morell, Robert Fisher, Kathy Heininge, Ron Mitchell, Mary Peterson, Kelly Borror, Jeong Ahn, John Barber

10-Year: Lionel Johnson, Margaret Fuller, John Smith, Blair Cash, Nancy Thurston, Mary Olson, Susan Newell, Mark McLeod-Harrison, Dave Hansen, Jeff Duerr, Mike Campadore, Wayne Adams, Missy Terry, Peg Hutton, Denise DeCicco, Robin Baker, Brad Weldon, Mark Carlton, Claudia Hirsch, Karlyn Fleming, Sean McKay

15-Year: Deb Worden, Brent Wilson, Carl Lloyd, Dwight Kimberly, Bill Jolliff, Scot Headley, Carlisle Chambers, Bill Buhrow, Larry Shelton, Peggy Kilburg, Larry Mennenga, Lisa Leslie, Alan Thurston, Andy Baker, Dave Kelley, Patty Cooke, Mikell Benham

20-Year: Viki Defferding, Don Powers, Martha Iancu, Laura Klaus, Kenn Wilson, MaryKate Morse, Paul Anderson, Danya Ochsner

25-Year: None

30-Year: None

35-Year: Mike Wirta

Employees are invited to attend an all-community meeting from 4 to 5 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22, in Hoover 105. The meeting will provide employees an opportunity to receive campus updates. Your participation is strongly encouraged.

For those at the university’s four regional sites, the meeting will be available for viewing at stream.georgefox.edu/live/commmtg.sdp. For best results, use Mozilla Firefox for your web browser, and your computer must have QuickTime Player installed. Simply copy the link into the address bar of your browser. If you have any problems, contact the Service Desk at ext. 2569.

Faculty are invited to attend a Faculty Teaching Forum, “Notes from a Career in Teaching,” from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22, in Hoover 104 (Hoover-Hatfield Library).

What are foundational lessons you have learned from your experience as a teacher? Join in a conversation about 10 teaching lessons learned by Murray Sperber, a professor for more than 40 years. You can read Sperber’s Chronicle of Higher Education article ahead of time, but doing so won’t be necessary for fruitful discussion.

To reserve a lunch, e-mail Jere Witherspoon (jwithers@georgefox.edu) by 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 20. Everyone is welcome to attend the session, whether bringing a lunch or reserving a lunch.

All faculty — full time, part time, and adjunct — are invited to attend Faculty Teaching Forums (FTFs). Video podcasts of FTFs will be available at the “Events and Resources” link on the Center for Teaching and Learning website.

Over the three-day weekend (8 a.m. Jan. 17 to 5 p.m. Jan. 19, PST), IT will be installing critical updates to the PeopleSoft system. These updates are necessary to process Federal Financial Aid changes as well as the 2008 payroll W2’s.

Faculty and administrators will not be able to access course rosters or schedule information while the system is down. Faculty teaching courses this weekend should access their class rosters prior to Saturday morning when the system goes down. Also, all administrative functions in the production system will be unavailable over the weekend.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

The university will close Monday, Jan. 19, to observe the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. There will be no day or evening classes or chapel at the Newberg campus, and the Portland Center, Salem Center and Boise Center will be closed. Also, all the university’s offices, libraries and bookstores will be closed.

In March of 2008, the university’s libraries conducted a major user satisfaction survey using LibQUAL, a web-based survey from the Association of Research Libraries. A summary of survey results is available on the library’s blog, accessible at blogs.georgefox.edu/library/?p=191.

The university’s libraries are now offering a customizable library toolbar. Use the toolbar for quick access to the library homepage, key library content, searching the catalog, blog updates and more. Add your own gadgets like top YouTube feeds, music and games. Find out more at georgefox.edu/offices/murdock/HowTo/toolbar.html.

Mileage reimbursement update: For miles driven on or after Jan. 1, 2009, the university will pay a mileage reimbursement rate of 55 cents per mile. The IRS lowered the rate due to the drop in fuel prices effective Jan. 1.

Please go to the Financial Affairs Common Forms page for the updated Employee Reimbursement form which reflects this new rate. If you have any questions, please call Financial Affairs.

If you have not already done so, please submit your December time sheet (support staff) or time-off report (administrators) this week. Please be sure it is complete, 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.Now that we are using PeopleSoft, we cannot easily access your record by employee name to do data entry. For this reason, it would be helpful if you added your ID number and cost center number to your time sheet or time-off report. This will save us having to look up this information before doing data entry. By next month, we will try to revise these forms to ask for this information.

A word about the holidays: Do not write any hours on the dates marked holidays unless you worked any of the holidays — Dec. 24, 25, 26.

A word about the campus closures: If you were scheduled to work the days the campuses were closed, record the hours you would have worked (or worked if you came in). It is fine to also note “snow day” or “campus closure” on those dates, too. (We were closed all day on Dec. 15, 22 and 23; closed two hours early on Dec. 17; and opened two hours late on Dec. 18.)

If you were scheduled for vacation or sick day(s) during any of the campus closures, you should record the time off as vacation or sick days. If you were not able to get to campus on any of the days we were open, you should use vacation for the time you missed.For more information about campus closure policy, visit the university’s website.