The Daily Bruin

A Scantron machine is available for use in the Center Street House (History and Political Science Department) during regular business hours. Feel free to come at any time during business hours. The machine is located in the kitchen area. Instructions are posted and the machine is very easy to use. Scantron forms are available for purchase in the bookstore.

University Relations is taking part in a prom dress donation drive for high school students in the Alaskan village of Savoonga, which will host its first-ever prom night on May 7. Please consider donating your used prom or formal dresses to the Savoonga village girls by Monday, Feb. 15.

Dresses can be dropped off at the Office of University Relations in the Pennington House (1000 Sheridan St.) on the Newberg campus. We will take responsibility to ship them to the village, located on St. Lawrence Island just below Siberia in the middle of the Bering Sea. We are also looking for men’s suit jackets and jewelry.

Contact the Office of University Relations for more information (ext. 2121 or epattison@georgefox.edu).

Student supervisors, please submit your students’ January time sheets to HR by Thursday, Feb. 3, by 3 p.m. Please do not send them through the campus mail unless you are at the Portland Center.

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 this week, 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.

If you happen to still have any paperwork to submit on a newly hired student who worked in January, please hand-deliver it right away — no later than Tuesday, Feb. 1. We need to set up students in the system before the time sheets arrive.

Thanks very much.

HR

It’s time to order university stationery. For order instructions, go to the marketing communications website. You will continue to purchase all non-departmental stationery (including “second-sheet letterhead”) through the university’s Print Services.

Orders are due by Tuesday, Feb. 1.

BETTER BOOKS (Better than last semester!) for sale at the Portland Center Library in the usual spot!
Hardbacks: $2
Paperbacks: $1
Sets (unless otherwise marked): $10

Don’t forget to attend the theatre department’s winter play, Doubt, by John Patrick Shanley. Performances are Thursday through Saturday, Feb. 3-5, and Thursday through Saturday, Feb. 10-12, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 6, at 2 p.m. in Wood-Mar Auditorium.

All George Fox employees receive one complimentary ticket. Students will be admitted free on both Thursdays. Your complimentary ticket is only available at the Box Office in the Bruin Bookstore. Additional tickets are $12 for adults, $8 for alumni and seniors, and $6 for students and children under 12. To purchase tickets or read a synopsis of the play, visit theatre.georgefox.edu.

W-2 forms will be available in campus boxes on Friday (except for those that normally receive their pay statements at their home addresses). Most of the information on these forms is easy to understand or explained in the tiny fine print on the reverse, but we thought it would be helpful to provide a little extra information:

• Items in Boxes 12a – 12d are required by IRS. The amount (if any) in Box12a labeled “C” is the taxable cost of your group term life insurance paid by the university in 2010. (This amount was also included in your pay as taxable income in 2010.) The amount (if any) in12b 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 “TIAA” 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 Karen Rathkey for their extra efforts to get these 2,400 W-2s out ahead of the legal deadline of Feb. 1.

The Justice Conference is scheduled in Bend, Ore., Feb. 11-12, and will feature 12 speakers (including Shane Claiborne and Chris Lahr) and the support of 50 organizations, including George Fox’s Center for Peace and Justice. Also featured will be hundreds of book titles, all about the biblical nature of justice (see event website at thejusticeconference.com).

World Relief is co-sponsoring this event, which will provide a great opportunity to make connections with the various people and organizations attending. It will also provide a great venue for fruitful discussions and valuable learning about justice.

Several members of our staff and faculty are already planning to attend as well as a few students. The Center for Peace and Justice is willing to provide transportation and hopefully lodging for anyone interested in attending. Right now, until the end of the month, there is a ticket special of $49. For tickets, visit this link.

Pass this information onto interested persons! It will make for an awesome weekend.

Important: We are seeking connections to a church or a venue in Bend that we could stay at Friday night. Please let Melanie Newell know if you can be of assistance.

Contact Melanie (mnewell@georgefox.edu or ext. 2686) if you wish to learn more or are interested in attending.

Marketing Communications will host a staff/faculty portrait session from 2 to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 1, in our Le Shana Hall studio. These high-quality studio portraits will be used on the university website and will be available for professional promotional use.

Please call or e-mail Danette Newkirk (ext. 2125) to let us know what time you are planning to come. You can still come without prior notice, but your university photo ID will be required for entrance at the southwest side (the side facing Coffin Residence Hall) of the building.

Don’t forget Wednesday afternoon’s all-employee meeting, scheduled from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in Bauman Auditorium (please note the location change).

For those at the university’s regional sites, the meeting will be available for viewing at this site. A chat room has also been set up, and a video recording of the meeting will be available for viewing in the days following the meeting at itunesu.georgefox.edu.

We are beginning the process of returning unsold textbooks to publishers. Please encourage your students to buy them now at the Textbook Annex.

After next week, we will have limited stock on hand. Also, a friendly reminder that students may no longer receive a refund for books purchased. If you are considering canceling a book, keep in mind the money students have already spent and will not be able to get back.

Thanks for your continued support.

FoxTALE will be unavailable from 6 to 7 a.m. (Pacific Time) on Tuesday, Feb. 1, for scheduled maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Come see the university theatre department’s winter play, Doubt, by John Patrick Shanley. Performances are Thursday through Saturday, Feb. 3-5, and Thursday through Saturday, Feb. 10-12, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 6, at 2 p.m. in Wood-Mar Auditorium.

All George Fox employees receive one complimentary ticket. Students will be admitted free on both Thursdays. Your complimentary ticket is only available at the Box Office in the Bruin Bookstore. Additional tickets are $12 for adults, $8 for alumni and seniors, and $6 for students and children under 12. To purchase tickets or read a synopsis of the play, visit theatre.georgefox.edu.

Tickets for this Friday’s Oregon Symphony concert are still being requested! If you have had a change of plans and will be unable to use your two tickets, please return them to Barbi Doran (ext. 2099) because several George Fox employees still hope to attend!

Faculty are invited to attend a Lunch and Learn session entitled “POGIL (Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning); a Strategy for Teaching and Learning,” with Michael Everest (Chemistry) on Wednesday, Jan. 26. Join us from noon to 1 p.m. in Cap and Gown A.

POGIL is a learner-centered strategy that uses guided inquiry to lead students to construct new knowledge. It develops process skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and communication through collaborative learning.

Please R.S.V.P. to Karen Buchanan for this event.

Science Outreach Program classes will begin the week of Jan. 31 and end the week of March 14 (seven weeks). These are classes planned, primarily, for home school students and are taught by upper-class George Fox science students. Click this link for a list of classes being offered.

For additional information, please contact Jana Kaye at jkaye03@georgefox.edu or call 503-554-2728.

If you are a benefits-eligible employee and there is any possibility that you will use tuition remission during the 2011-12 academic year (fall, spring and/or summer semesters), whether for yourself, a spouse, and/or dependent(s), a Tuition Remission Request Form for each person needs to be submitted no later than Tuesday, Feb. 1 – one month earlier than in previous years.

Please go to this document for instructions on completing the form(s). Links to the forms themselves are contained in the instructions document. It is important to read this information before completing a form.

Please send an e-mail to Peggy Kilburg by this Friday, Jan. 21, if you would like to nominate a support staff member or administrator for January Employee of the Month. Your e-mail should include a concise but specific summary of this person’s contributions 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 winner will be announced at the community meeting in Bauman Auditorium next Wednesday, Jan. 26, and will receive a $100 gift card to The Allison.

Because it is wet and cold outside, those without homes put on layers of clothes to try and keep warm. The GFU Portland Center has agreed to be a collection site for jeans, socks, sweats, and coats to support local organizations who distribute these to the homeless in Tigard.

During the next two weeks a tent will be in the main lobby. The tent is to resemble where many of the homeless live throughout Tigard. Please bring clothing items you are no longer using, and drop them into the tent.

If you have questions or would like to know more about the effort to meet the needs of the homeless in Tigard, contact Darla Samuelson by email.

An all-employee meeting is scheduled from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 26, in Bauman Auditorium (please note the location change).

For those at the university’s regional sites, the meeting will be available for viewing at this site. A chat room has also been set up, and a video recording of the meeting will be available for viewing in the days following the meeting at itunesu.georgefox.edu.