The Daily Bruin

The Villa Academic Complex will host a candidates’ forum featuring hopefuls for two state House races and the Yamhill County commission seat. The event, hosted by the Christian Chamber of Commerce of the Northwest, is scheduled from 7:30 to 9 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 28. There is no charge to attend, although attendees have the option of purchasing an $8 catered breakfast.

Jim Weidner (State House Dist. 24), Kim Thatcher (State House Dist. 25), Mary Starrett (Yamhill Co. Comm.), Mary Stern (Yamhill Co. Comm.) and Jim Dyer (State House Dist. 25) are scheduled to appear. To learn more, contact Vida Ice at 503-750-9062 or John Fortmeyer at 503-537-9220. An R.S.V.P. is required and may be done by contacting the Christian Chamber organization at info@cccnw.net or 503-928-8354.

Join us Wednesday (Sept. 22) in chapel and hear Steve Sherwood speak on the Paradox topic of “God’s Will/Your Choice.” We look forward to worshiping with you!

Juniors and seniors are eligible to apply for a mission-learning trip to Nicaragua. PSYC 399: X-Cultural Experience in Nicaragua is an integration trip to serve and learn from at-risk girls rescued from a life of poverty on the city dump. To learn more, join us for an information session at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 23, in Hoover 104.

Faculty, please encourage students who might be interested to attend. To learn more, contact Kelly Chang (kchang@georgefox.edu).

An all-employee meeting is scheduled from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 30, in Hoover 105.

For those at the university’s regional sites, the meeting will be available for viewing at stream.georgefox.edu/live/commmtg.sdp.  If you have any problems connecting, contact the Service Desk at ext. 2569. In addition, a chat room has been set up to allow for interaction. A video recording of the meeting will be available for viewing in the days following the meeting at itunesu.georgefox.edu.

George Fox Evangelical Seminary will host author Scot McKnight for a one-day seminar, “In the Beginning was the Gospel,” from 9 a.m. to noon Wednesday, Sept. 29, in Room 155 at the Portland Center. The event is part of the seminary’s Ministry in Contemporary Culture series.

McKnight, author of The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible, will discuss “the many differences between how we ‘evangelize’ and how the apostles evangelized.” He poses such questions as “Do we need to re-examine the meaning of ‘gospel’?”, “Did Jesus preach the gospel or were the apostles the first to preach the gospel?”, and “How important is the cross to the gospel?”

Admission is $20 for employees and students. An optional deli lunch will be available on site for $10. To register online or learn more about McKnight, visit seminars.georgefox.edu.

The admissions office, in conjunction with Human Resources, is hosting an information session for all employees who have questions regarding the 2011 undergraduate admissions process for tuition remission students. Join us from 10:40 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 22, in Hoover 105.

Please note the location change to Hoover 105 due to the amount of interest we have been receiving.

The lost and found is overflowing! If you have lost an item, please come to the security office during office hours to see if we have your lost item(s). Also, if you have found an item on campus, please bring it to the security office so that we can try and match it up with the owner.

Thanks,
Security Services

The seventh annual Selah women’s seminar is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. this Saturday, Sept. 25, in Bauman Auditorium. Speakers Vicki Norris and Sarah Thomas Baldwin will share on topics related to the conference’s theme, “It’s Time to Simplify: Discover the Biblical Truth That Less is More.” The event will encourage you to live simply, prioritize your highest values, and spend your time and resources intentionally.

To register or to learn more about the speakers or workshops offered, visit selah.georgefox.edu. The seminar is free to the university’s traditional undergraduate students and costs $32 for employees ($47 at the door). Questions? Visit the event website or contact Amy Lorenz (University Relations) at alorenz@georgefox.edu or ext. 2134.

Beginning in the fall of 2011, we will be adding a common book component to the First Year Experience program. In preparation, we would like to solicit book recommendations from as many people in our community as possible. Please take some time to recommend one or more books for this program.

After we receive recommendations, the committee will begin the task of narrowing the list down to three to five books that we will all read. The decision will be made by the end of February and announced in March. The criteria will include the following three things:

• Must meet the diversity outcome for the First Year Seminar program, which includes the following:

– Socioeconomic

– Race/ethnicity

– Gender

– Religious

– International

• Books must not be more than 500 pages

• Should spark meaningful dialogue

You can make a recommendation by clicking on this link.

Tickets are now on sale for a concert featuring internationally acclaimed pianist Valentina Lisitsa at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 30, in Bauman Auditorium.

The performance, which will include a selection of Chopin and Liszt pieces, marks a return to George Fox for Lisitsa, who performed at the fourth annual Bösendorfer Artist Concert Series in February. She is making this appearance to benefit the university’s Friends of Music program.

Tickets are $5 for all university students and employees. Additional tickets are available for $20 (adults) and $10 (alumni and seniors). All tickets may be purchased at music.georgefox.edu. To learn more about Lisitsa, visit valentinalisitsa.com.

Most of us don’t worry too much about a writing mistake or two. It’s what we have to say that really matters, right?

Well, yes – and no.

The bad news is that too many editing errors can keep our readers from taking us – and our ideas – seriously. The good news is that most of our errors are relatively easy to fix, once we figure out which ones we’re prone to make.

On Tuesday, Sept. 21, Bill Jolliff (English) will identify the 10 errors that professors are most likely to mark on student work, and he’ll demonstrate how to fix them. The session begins at 6:30 p.m. in Stevens 208. Faculty, please encourage students to attend.

The university’s Creation Care Committee encourages you to check out the Newberg Farmer’s Market, open for two more Tuesdays between 1:30 and 6 p.m. at the Chehalem Cultural Center, located on Sheridan Street across from the library. It is an opportunity to get fresh local fruit, vegetables, flowers from local farmers, local honey, beef and much more. Support the local food supply while also eating really delicious food and enjoying live music.

A group of George Fox students protested “school girls night” at a Portland strip club Friday. To read more about the protest, visit The Crescent’s website.

Please send an e-mail to Peggy Kilburg (HR) by Friday, Sept. 24, if you would like to nominate a support staff member or administrator for September 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, and any other information that you believe makes this person deserving of this award.

The President’s Executive Leadership Team will then select someone for this honor from the nominations submitted. The winner will be announced at the employee meeting on Sept. 30 and will receive a $100 gift card to The Allison.

The admissions office, in conjunction with Human Resources, is hosting an information session for all employees who have questions regarding the 2011 admissions process for tuition remission students. Join us from 10:40 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 22, in Hoover 104.

Questions? Contact Taylor Martin (Admissions) at tmartin@georgefox.edu.

A reminder to employees and students: Those students who have internships, classes, work, etc., during the chapel hour who feel they need (for whatever reason) partial or full exemption from Spiritual Life credits need to fill out an exemption request form. It can be found at spirituallife.georgefox.edu.

The form is due by Friday, Sept. 23. You can drop it by the Office of Spiritual Life or mail it to Box 6264.

Read through the Bible on the quad for the last week of September! Bring a friend, bring your Bible, share a snack, invite your floor, chip in and read, or just sit and listen to the spoken Word of God. We’ll be reading between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m. each day from Sept. 27 through Oct. 1.

God bless,
Timothy’s Charge

A group of students partnering with the International Justice Mission chapter on campus is protesting at a club in Portland Friday night (Sept. 17). The club is promoting a “School Girls Night” and does not understand the correlation between such a term and sex-trafficking of children. We are going to peacefully protest and communicate that this is an issue we feel affects a huge population of people, specifically in Portland.

If you have questions, please e-mail or call Lisby Rogers at erogers07@georgefox.edu or ext. 3223.

The more people we have, the greater impact we can have, so please join us. We’ll meet in the Le Shana lobby at 4:30 p.m.

As you may be aware, George Fox asks new faculty and staff to voluntarily answer questions about their race and ethnicity. This helps us when we report information in aggregate (it is never reported for individuals) about our employees.

Recently, the U.S. Department of Education implemented new race and ethnicity categories that require responses to two questions rather than one. This allows for better reporting given the changing makeup of our nation’s population. You might recognize these questions from the 2010 U. S. Census form.

We would appreciate it if all employees responded to the new questions to enable us to better comply with the new reporting requirements (on IPEDS and other reports).

To do so:

1. Login to MyGFU.

2. Navigate to Self Service > Campus Personal Information > Ethnicity. (The message in the screen mentions “students,” but it is applicable to employees as well.)

3. If you indicated racial/ethnic information to George Fox in the past, it will be shown. Respond to the questions, and check the “The information is correct as entered” box.

4. Click Submit.

Again, reporting your race and ethnicity is voluntary, but it is very helpful to us as we assess our programs and serve our diverse world.

For more information, visit this link.

Thank you,
HR

The university community is invited to a Liberal Arts and Critical Issues lecture this Monday, Sept. 20. Grant Farr, professor and associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Science at Portland State University, will speak on “The ‘Muslim Community'” from 4:40 to 5:40 p.m. and from 7 to 8 p.m. in Hoover 105. Those interested are encouraged to attend the later session for space reasons.

The session is the latest in a series of fall presentations on the topic “Islam and the West.” The series will continue each Monday during fall semester and will not simply be about academic principles, theoretical challenges, or questions for debate. Rather, it is designed to help people with honest questions get information that will help them understand the current controversies surrounding Islam.

Questions? Contact Caitlin Corning at ccorning@georgefox.edu or ext. 2673, or Elizabeth Todd at detodd@georgefox.edu or ext. 2648.