Staff, faculty, summer students and summer work-study students: The summer lost and found is overflowing! If you have lost something this summer, please come to the security office before Friday, Aug. 30, as the unclaimed items will be donated to charitable causes that afternoon. We need to make room for fall’s lost and found, so please don’t delay!
We have a new enrollment counselor moving from Washington in need of temporary housing. We are eager to have her begin serving students; however, she is having a difficult time finding available housing (for her and her cat) prior to Oct. 1.
If you have anything or know of anything available, please contact Bill Buhrow at bbuhrow@georgefox.edu.
It’s time to order university stationery. For ordering instructions, go to the marketing communications website. Please continue to purchase all non-departmental stationery (including “second-sheet letterheadâ€) through the university’s Print Services.
Orders are due by Tuesday, Aug. 27.
If you’ve visited the George Fox website yesterday, you may have noticed things have changed. While most of the content of the site has stayed the same, the new design will both freshen up the look and feel of the site, and introduce some key new features:
We’d love to have feedback from the university community about the new design. As we move forward with more designs in the future, your input will be critical into how we move forward.
Please fill out our web survey form and let us know what you think. Or, if you would prefer to interact directly with us, e-mail webmaster@georgefox.edu.
Thanks,
The Web Development Team
Please join us as we discuss the Welcome Weekend schedule in detail tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9 a.m. in Hoover 105. We would like to update you on all of the changes happening this year and answer any questions you may have as we welcome the largest class in George Fox history.
Hope you can make it!
Questions? Contact Stephanie St. Cyr at sstcyr@georgefox.edu.
As you have probably heard, we have a large incoming class of undergraduate students. This is good news, but it comes with many complexities. One of the complexities is ensuring that all of our students who need a place to live on campus have a bed to sleep in on Aug. 29.
Currently we are in need of 16 spaces for male students. Gender and age add to this complex “dance.” Our sense is that this need will diminish and hopefully disappear by the day students check in (Aug. 29).
If it takes a little longer, one of our contingencies is to develop a list of faculty/staff that would be willing to host one or two (or five) students until things settle down in those first few days of the semester.
If you would be willing, have an extra bed in your home, and live in Newberg, please e-mail housing@georgefox.edu. We will add you to that list and contact you if we need your assistance.
Thanks for your care of our students. In our goal to be hospitable to all of them, finding a bed for them is important.
FoxTALE will be upgraded from Moodle version 2.2 to version 2.4 from 8 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 25, until 8 a.m. Monday, Aug. 26, to stay in alignment with updates at moodle.org. FoxTALE will not be available during this time. You can create assignments before the upgrade. Assignments in courses that go through the upgrade will be automatically converted to the new format. No further action is required.
Here are some of the highlights of the new version:
Sign up for one of the FoxTALE webinars we are offering over the next two weeks, or one of the labs we are hosting Aug. 28 in Newberg and Aug. 29 at the Portland Center.
Old FoxTALE available until Aug. 31, 2013
Here’s a reminder that old FoxTALE (foxtale19.georgefox.edu) will be available until Aug. 31, 2013. If you have additional course sites that need to be copied from old FoxTALE to new (current) FoxTALE, please contact the IT Service Desk before Aug. 20 so that assignments in those courses can be converted in the Aug. 25 upgrade.
If you have any questions, please contact the IT Service Desk.
Use your new, empty Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 sites as the sites in which you will teach. You may import content from another course site. See the instructions here for importing.
Your Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 sites are unavailable (hidden) to students. When you are ready to make a site available, go to Settings > Course administration > Edit settings on the course home page. Scroll down to the “Availability†section and select “This course is available to students†from the drop-down menu. Scroll to the bottom of the page and “Save changes.â€
If you have course content to move from old FoxTALE to new FoxTALE, please contact the Service Desk before Aug. 20 so that assignments in those courses can be converted in the Aug. 25 upgrade. Please note that old FoxTALE will no longer be available after Aug. 31, 2013.
You can create assignments before the upgrade. Assignments in courses that go through the upgrade will be automatically converted to the new format. No further action is required.
Metacourses Used Only for Special Cases
To folks who have been using FoxTALE for several years … Remember the good ol’ days when courses were set up with templates and metacourses? Well, those days are behind us now, and the process has simplified. Here is an overview of a course life cycle that we’ve been using since Fall 2012.
New course sites are created for each semester, and content can be imported (video) from one semester to the next. Metacourses may still be used in special cases where you want to use one FoxTALE site for multiple sections of the same class. If you still use metacourses, contact the Service Desk for assistance with setting them up.
Plant services has had an unusually busy summer. We are still in the process of completing multiple building and remodeling projects, as well as numerous office moves. As a result we have accumulated more than 700 open work requests. We are working hard to catch up but must complete student housing requests first.
Thank you for your patience during this very busy time.
Now would be a great time to update your vehicle registrations on MyGFU! Please delete any vehicles you no longer own by using the minus button to the right of that listing. Click on “Add additional vehicles” to bring up a fresh row of boxes to input new vehicle information. Once you’ve done that, please notify Nadine Kincaid at nkincaid@georgefox.edu so she can re-assign your parking permit to your new vehicle.
Permit info
If your current permit is in tatters, bring the shards to the security office and we can get a new one issued to you on the spot. Do you drive several cars to campus and forget to switch your permit from car to car? Additional staff/adjunct permits are available for $5 cash at the security office. It only takes a minute, and it would be great to do that before the semester starts, as the line is often out the door the first few weeks of school.
Parking challenges
Due to the very large incoming class and the construction in the Bauman lot, parking will be challenging for the first few weeks. Please either look at our parking brochure on the security services website, or come to the security office for your own copy and we’ll make suggestions for additional places to park during the craziness of the first few weeks of school. And if you live in Newberg, we’d love it if you could walk/bike/carpool/take the bus to school during Welcome Weekend and the first few weeks of the semester!
Info for adjuncts
Adjuncts: If you haven’t been on contract since fall of 2012, your parking permit has expired. Adjunct parking permits are issued for a calendar year, not an academic year. So, please check your parking permits, and if it expired last December 2012, please come to the security office between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and we can issue a new one on the spot.
If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to call security at ext. 2090.
Tuesday/Thursday summer yoga classes will continue at 8 a.m. in Minthorn Hall until classes start on Monday, Sept. 2. The only exception is that there will be no class on Thursday, Aug. 22.
Please mark you calendar for one of the Welcome Weekend overview meetings taking place next week. We will go over all of the changes in the schedule and will bring everyone up to speed about this year’s activities. We need everyone’s help in making every new student, family member and guest feel welcome.
Please join us either Monday, Aug. 19, at 2 p.m. or Wednesday, Aug. 21, at 9 a.m. in Hoover 105. We look forward to seeing you there!
Questions? Contact Stephanie St. Cyr at sstcyr@georgefox.edu.
All employees, half time and above, are requested to attend the all-community meeting scheduled from 8 to 11 a.m. tomorrow (Friday) in Klages Dining Hall on the Newberg campus. Breakfast will be served beginning at 8 a.m., with the program to follow from 8:40 to 11 a.m.
See you there!
We are still looking for 14 families who would be willing to host new international students during their orientation, Aug. 21-28. If you are able to host one or more students for all or part of this time, please contact Dianna McIntyre (dmcintyre@georgefox.edu) or Alex Pia (apia@georgefox.edu).
Families are asked to provide breakfast and dinner. Lunch will be provided on campus during orientation. We also ask families to provide transportation to George Fox between 8 and 8:30 a.m. and pick students up at approximately 5 p.m. Host families will receive a stipend to help defray some of the costs of meals and transportation.
Thank you for your willingness to consider this opportunity.
Security services would love to make you aware of another excellent resource on iGFU. After you log on to iGFU on your smart phone, computer or tablet, select “University Resources.” One option is “Emergency Procedures,” and after you click on that, you can choose the emergency and read some concise information on what to do.
This is extremely helpful if you aren’t in your office or classroom and are unable to view the Emergency Response Guides hanging on the walls. Be sure to check it out before you need it, and also familiarize yourself with the Emergency Response Guides posted around campus, as they contain more detailed information.
PGE has scheduled a power shut-down for MLRC, Heacock Commons, Wheeler and Edwards Residence Hall for today (Wednesday) from approximately 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thank you for your patience while they are working to hook up the Duke Athletic Center.
The first George Fox Auxiliary meeting of the new academic year is set for this Tuesday, Aug. 20, at 6 p.m. in the Klages Dining Room. The program will feature Provost Linda Samek, who will be introducing new faculty members.
Cost of the dinner is $10.50 (remaining meals throughout the year will be Friday lunches and cost $8.50).
Please R.S.V.P. to Judy Woolsey at 503-538-7314 if you plan to attend.
Because of the scheduled power outage for today (Wednesday), the BlueZone Store and Annex will be open from 1 to 4:30 p.m. We will resume our regular 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. schedule on Thursday.
Believe it or not, in less than three weeks our largest incoming class, of nearly 800 students, will step foot onto our campus. Not to mention almost 1,200 of their family and guests. We want to roll out the welcome mat and make them feel at home from the start. We need your help to make this happen. If you are interested, please click on the below link and sign up as a Welcome Weekend volunteer.
Regardless of whether you can physically serve or not, please pray for the Orientation Team, administration, student leaders and all of the faculty and staff who will help make this event possible. Let’s not forget the incoming students and their families as they make one of their biggest transitions of their life.
If you have any questions, please contact Stephanie St. Cyr at sstcyr@georgefox.edu or Onjalai Flake at oflake11@georgefox.edu.
Because of the scheduled power outage on Wednesday, Aug. 14, the Murdock Learning Resource Center on the Newberg campus will be open from 1 to 5 p.m. that day. We will resume our regular 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule on Thursday.
