The Daily Bruin

Exciting new changes are being made to the Christmas celebration for George Fox employees! After experiencing tremendous growth in the number of students and employees over the last 20 years, the long-held campus Christmas celebration is being retired.

The new event will be hosted for George Fox employees (halftime and over) and their spouses (no children, please), and will include free admission to the performing arts department’s Christmas concert, “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.” This spectacular performance, involving more than 175 students, is adding a third on-campus concert this year to accommodate all who want to attend.

The celebration is set for Saturday, Dec. 11. It will include:

• Hors d’oeuvres and dessert, featuring special music, Christmas carols, and a devotional, at 5:30 p.m. in the Stevens Center
• Christmas Concert: “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” at 7 p.m. in Bauman Auditorium

Hors d’oeuvres reception
Invitations will be sent in the mail. Responses for the reception should be sent to the Office of University Relations by Dec. 6.

Concert
George Fox employees may pick up their tickets – limit two per employee – starting Wednesday, Dec. 1, at 9 a.m. at the first-floor Information Center in Stevens Center. Phone reservations will not be taken except for employees at the Portland and Salem centers. (If you find you will not be able to attend the concert, please return your tickets).

Robin and Ruth Baker look forward to starting this new tradition with you!

Have you wondered how health care reform is affecting your benefits? The HR department will be tracking and communicating the changes as they become effective on the Benefits webpage. Please check this page regularly for updates. There are two changes that affect your flexible spending account – one immediately and one Jan. 1.

Career Services will host a Graduate School Emphasis Week Oct. 18-22. The week will include a “Getting Into Graduate School” presentation from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 20, in Stevens 109; a George Fox graduate schools fair from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, in the Hoover lobby; packets of information for students; and a discussion blog on Career Services’ website.

Registration for the Oct. 20 presentation is available on Bruin Careers and is limited to the first 40 people.

Interested in living or working overseas, but not sure how to do it? The Big Guide can help. The Office of Career Services has a subscription to this great interactive website that allows you to access its abundant resources for free.

Visit careers.georgefox.edu and find the link under “News and Updates” to activate your free account. Once registered, you can network with others interested in living or working abroad, both inside and outside of George Fox, and can access numerous videos and text resources to help you prepare for your upcoming adventure.

If you have any questions, contact Career Services at ext. 2330, via e-mail at careers@georgefox.edu, or in person at our new location on the first floor of the Stevens Center.

Thank you to the 155 employees who responded to a request earlier this month to update your ethnicity and race information to allow the university’s data to be in sync with the new reporting requirements of the U.S. Department of Education.

There are still about 350 employees who have not yet taken time to do this; hence, this second request. Your voluntary self-reporting will help the university (and Sheila Abercrombie in particular) more easily and accurately report this data (in aggregate only) on reports such as IPEDS.

If you have not already done so, would you please take just a minute or so to update your information now?

1. Log into 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.

The Newberg campus will be closed Friday, Oct. 8, for the mid-semester holiday. All offices, the Bruin Bookstore and the library will be closed.

The George Fox Behavioral Health Clinic is offering a free eight-week parenting class for parents of ages 1-18. Build better relationships with your kids and get better behavior, too! Snacks provided. Sorry, no childcare is provided.

Sessions last from 5:30 to 7 p.m. each Monday from Monday, Oct. 11, through Monday, Nov. 29. Classes meet in the new Behavioral Health Clinic building next to the Villa Academic Complex on Villa Road in Newberg.

Questions? Contact Joel Gregor at jogregor@georgefox.edu.

Several new George Fox University employees will be introduced at a George Fox Auxiliary luncheon at noon Friday, Oct. 15, in the Cap and Gown Room. Reservations are required and tickets are $7.50 per person.

The new university employees will share their backgrounds and talk about their pilgrimage to George Fox. To make reservations, contact Margene Haworth at 503-538-0604 by Monday, Oct. 11.

With the advent of October, we ask you to please nominate a colleague that you believe is deserving of this month’s award. Your nomination should include a concise but specific summary of the person’s recent contributions (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 via e-mail to Peggy Kilburg by Oct. 22. The President’s Executive Leadership Team will then select the recipient from the nominations submitted. The winner will be announced at our community meeting on Thursday afternoon, Oct. 28, and will receive a $100 gift card to The Allison.

Gmail has announced the option of turning off the conversation view in your e-mail. Tired of related e-mails being “stacked” into one message? Simply click on “Settings” in the upper-right corner, then the “General” tab. The sixth option on the list will turn off conversations and let every e-mail you receive remain independent in your in-box.

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.

Available on the HR website are vacation accrual charts with instructions, one each for support staff and administrators. Please use this chart along with the information on your Sept. 30 pay statement to determine how many hours of vacation you need to use before Jan. 1, 2011. Your vacation balance on your Sept. 30th pay statement does not take into account any vacation you may have taken in September since those time sheets and time-off reports have not yet been received or processed in HR. Links to these charts can be found by clicking this link.

If you have any questions after you have reviewed your vacation balance and the chart that applies to your vacation accrual, please contact HR for assistance.

This Monday, Oct. 4, Dr. Anita Weiss will speak on the lives of women in Pakistan and Afghanistan for the university’s Liberal Arts and Critical Issues Forum. Weiss is a professor of international studies at the University of Oregon and specializes in development issues and gender. She is currently working on two books, Interpreting Islam, Modernity and Women’s Rights in Pakistan, and Pathways to Power: The Domestic Politics of South Asia.

Weiss will present in two sessions: from 4:40 to 5:40 p.m. and from 7 to 8 p.m. in Hoover 105.

Next week, the university will host the biennial meeting of the Conference on Faith and History (CFH) Oct. 6-9. The theme of this year’s conference is “The Search for Peace, Justice and Equality.” Approximately 170 attendees will be presenting more than 150 papers on a variety of historical subjects.

For location, content and cost information, visit the university’s history webpage, the society’s web page or contact Caitlin Corning.

This is a reminder that 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.

The university community is invited to Paul Otto’s lecture tracing the use of wampum in ceremony, trade, currency and friendship. Please join us at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 5, in Hoover 105 and learn the history of these “Beads of Power.”

Interested in looking at a digital solution for giving students immediate feedback? Join IT for a session on how to use the FoxTALE Grade Book as part of your assessment tool kit.

IT will host two face-to-face sessions: On Tuesday, Oct. 5, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the Portland Center (Room 210) and on Thursday, Oct. 7, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in Hoover 211. Can’t make it? Join our webinar on Wednesday, Oct. 6, from 3 to 4 p.m. Pacific (PDT).

Space is still available for these sessions. Sign up on this R.S.V.P. form. For details on what this session covers, see Add Assignments and Grades printable instructions at Faculty Quick Guides for FoxTALE.

See all of the faculty and staff development sessions IT hosts at Schedule of Events.

The Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends and the university’s Center for Peace and Justice would like to invite all students, faculty and staff to this weekend’s conference: “Christians and Immigration in a Land of Contradictions: A Call to Biblical Action.”

On Friday and Saturday, join with other concerned Christians as we educate ourselves about immigration in the United States. Together, we will examine details of immigration law and history, hearing firsthand stories about the immigrant experience and be inspired by fellow Christians working to share the love of Christ with our immigrant brothers and sisters. Although there is no charge for those from George Fox, participants are asked to register online at this link.

For a detailed schedule of events, please see our page on the university’s website.

Questions? E-mail peaceandjustice@georgefox.edu.

We hope to see you this weekend.

Blessings,
George Fox Center for Peace and Justice

Tickets are still available for this Thursday’s concert featuring internationally acclaimed pianist Valentina Lisitsa in Bauman Auditorium. The performance begins at 7:30 p.m.

Lisitsa will play a selection of Chopin and Liszt pieces in celebration of their 200th birthdays (Chopin was born in 1810 and Liszt in 1811). She is making the appearance to benefit the Friends of Music program, the main resource fund for the university’s Bösendorfer concert series.

Tickets are only $5 for all university students and employees (get your ticket at the box office). To learn more about Lisitsa, visit valentinalisitsa.com. Don’t miss seeing this gifted pianist perform!

Tilikum Center for Retreats & Outdoor Ministries’ annual Potlatch celebration is Saturday, Oct. 16, at 7 p.m. in the Klages Dining Room. All are welcome, and the registration deadline is Monday, Oct. 11.

The event celebrates past donors and program supporters and presents the camp’s “Foundations for the Future, Phase 2” campaign. To R.S.V.P., call 503-538-2763 or e-mail tilikum@georgefox.edu.

Student supervisors: The first pay day of the new school year for student employees is Friday, Oct. 15. For us to meet this deadline, we need your students’ September time sheets by Tuesday, Oct. 5, by 5 p.m.

Please be sure the student’s name, ID number and cost center number is legible on each one. Also, don’t forget to sign them and be sure the students did as well. Please do not send students to HR to sign their time sheets.

If you still have paperwork for new or returning student employees, please get it turned in as soon as possible.

Thanks so much for helping us get our students paid in a timely manner!

– HR