The Daily Bruin

More than 200 students will receive undergraduate and graduate diplomas at the university’s midyear commencement ceremony this Saturday, Dec. 18, in the Wheeler Sports Center. Seating begins at 1 p.m., and the ceremony will start at 2 p.m.

Tickets are not required; however, seating is limited to 10 guests per graduate. At 1:45 p.m., a live broadcast of the ceremony will be available to watch at this link.

David Le Shana, president emeritus of George Fox, will deliver the commencement address. Le Shana also has served as director of public relations, college pastor, evangelist and chaplain at Taylor University.

More specifics on the ceremony are available at commencement.georgefox.edu.

Student supervisors, please be sure to collect your student employees’ time sheets before they leave for winter break. Please submit these time sheets to Human Resources right away. If they will be working over the winter break, turn them in when they are done for the month. While we would like the time sheets as early as possible, ALL December time sheets must be turned in to Human Resources by Tuesday, Jan. 4, by noon.

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, 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.

New Students? If you have hired students for December, please hand-deliver their paperwork right away. We need to set up students in the system before the time sheets arrive.

If you have hired students to start in January, please submit their paperwork as soon as possible.

Thanks very much.

– HR

Early Wednesday morning IT will be upgrading network services for the Portland campus.  This will affect printing and shared drives.  It will not affect your personal computer, your network (“H”) drive, or your Internet connection.  IT staff will be in the building all day to help reconnect you to printing and shared drives.

More information will be shared at the Portland Center Community Lunch today.

If you are able, please turn off your computer when you leave for the day on Tuesday. This will assist both you and IT with the upgrade.

Please email or call Bruce Arnold with questions.

Stock up on Bruin items for the new year and come to the Bruin Bookstore’s Christmas sale! Save up to 20 percent on all imprinted items (except diploma frames). Sale ends Dec. 23.

The December Community Lunch will be held in Room 155 on Tuesday, Dec. 14 from noon to 1 p.m.

There will be door prizes!!!!

Kam & Kam Catering will be serving their famous chicken fajitas & all the fixings for just $3.

We will be honoring Barb Braun for her service to us before, seeing a video of the GRAD Night event, and hearing a couple Portland Center updates.

TODAY, Dec. 13, the staff and faculty of the Portland Center will be hosting the 6th Annual Wassail Party in the main lobby on the first floor from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Stop by anytime, even a few times if you like.

Wassail is a warm spiced cider drink and we’ll have loads of treats, maybe even a few healthy ones.

There will be intermittent caroling, continuous conversation, and always some Christmas fun!

Hey-ho! Got books laying around the house that you’ve read but no longer need?

Bring them to the library and put them in the blue bin by the copy machines! They will be donated, sold to fund the non-profit or recycled. See the link below for more details.

http://www.books4giving.com/

The Fitness Center will be closed from 5 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 17, until Monday, Jan. 10. Ask Santa for a one-month membership to a health club to jump start your New Year’s resolution! The track is available also.

Have a wonderful Christmas.

An all-employee meeting is scheduled from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 16, 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. 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.

Poinsettias will be sold for $5 after this weekend’s Christmas Concert. You may pay and reserve your poinsettias at any of the performances, but they will not be available for pick-up until after Sunday’s performance.

If you cannot make it on Sunday, they will be available for pick-up on Monday in the music office.

Please send an e-mail to Peggy Kilburg (HR) by Monday, Dec. 13, if you would like to nominate a support staff member or administrator for December 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 community meeting next Thursday, Dec. 16, and will receive a $100 gift card to The Allison.

All George Fox employees can purchase Entertainment 2011 Books at a discounted employee price. Enjoy $30 in bonus savings cards with each edition. Example copies are available for viewing at the Information Desk in the Stevens Center (see Barbi Doran).

Order yours (Portland and/or Greater Oregon) for only $20 (retail price is $35). Call Susan Lowry-Nix at Entertainment Publications at 503-753-7045 or e-mail her at slowry-nix@entertainment.com to order your copy.

One last reminder: The deadline for submissions to the William Stafford poetry contest is Wednesday, Dec. 8, at midnight. This is an excellent opportunity for students to become published in an upcoming anthology of poetry honoring Stafford. As well, each of the three finalists will receive $50 compensation for their work.

We have received some submissions already, however we would like to see more! Submissions should be electronically sent to william.stafford.poetry@gmail.com.

For more information, click this link. Questions? Write peaceandjustice@georgefox.edu

This Friday, Dec. 10, is the final day employees will be able to complete the Best Christian Workplaces survey, so please take about 10 minutes to do so this week if you haven’t already. Just log in to this link and use the access code 2079-571.

If you would rather complete the survey on paper, please request it from Chris Koch. You can then return it to him and he will ensure that it is submitted confidentially. The Best Christian Workplaces Institute will present the survey results in summary format to maintain all employees’ confidentiality. These results will be shared with employees early in 2011.

Wednesday, Dec. 8, is the final day employees may pick up their complimentary tickets for Saturday’s employee Christmas concert event. Stop by the first-floor Information Center in the Stevens Center before 5 p.m. to claim your two free tickets (for employees half time and above).

The presentation, “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” is scheduled this Friday through Sunday, Dec. 10-12, in Bauman Auditorium. Performances are scheduled Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The complimentary tickets are designated for Saturday’s performance. Additional tickets may be purchased at music.georgefox.edu.

Questions? Contact Debbie Hawblitzel (Performing Arts) at ext. 2620 or dhawblit@georgefox.edu.

Shane Roghaar, our TIAA-CREF representative will be at Portland Center Tuesday, December 14 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

You may make an appointment with him to discuss your investments by opening the invitation on the HR/Benefits web page: http://www.georgefox.edu/offices/hr/EmployeeBenefits/beneforms.html

The university’s Center for Peace and Justice will host an evening with Liberian speaker Saah Joseph, who will present “From Liberia with Love: Experiences of War/A Life of Peace” from 7 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 8, in the Cap and Gown Room.

Joseph grew up as a Christian in Liberia, left his family at a young age, and escaped from the war to Sierra Leone when he was 12. After encountering another war, Joseph fled through three more countries until ending up at a refugee camp.

Joseph has worked with humanitarian organizations, including the Red Cross, for which he helped reunite war-torn families. He returned to Liberia and started to set up schools for refugee children. Currently, Joseph works at an organization called PLAN for the Children Humanitarian Aid. The organization recently started a school in a refugee camp, Mount Barcley, which enrolls 900 children.

In addition to Joseph’s presentation, the evening will include a special musical performance by Lasana “Lazso,” who will sing African gospel songs before and after Joseph’s talk. He too escaped war in his native country and survived persecution, poverty and personal failure.

Questions? Contact Melanie Newell at ext. 2686 or mnewell@georgefox.edu.

Monday, Dec. 6, is the last day to R.S.V.P. for the employee Christmas celebration on Saturday, Dec. 11.

The event includes:

• Hors d’oeuvres and dessert, featuring special music, Christmas carols, and a devotional, at 5:30 p.m. in the Stevens Center. Please R.S.V.P. to Evangeline Pattison (ext. 2121) or epattison@georgefox.edu by the end of Monday.

• Christmas Concert: “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” at 7:30 p.m. in Bauman Auditorium. George Fox employees may pick up their complimentary tickets – limit two per employee – 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). Tickets will be available through Wednesday, Dec. 8, at 5 p.m.

Questions? Contact Evangeline at ext. 2121 or epattison@georgefox.edu.

University policy allows a maximum of one year’s vacation accrual to be carried over into the next year. Any excess accrued vacation balance is forfeited.

Available on the HR website are vacation accrual charts with instructions, one each for support staff and administrators. Please use a chart along with the information on your Nov. 30 pay statement to determine if you need to use any vacation before Jan. 1, 2011.

Please keep in mind that the vacation balance on your Nov. 30 pay statement:

• Does not include any vacation you may have taken in November since those time sheets and time-off reports have not yet been received or processed in HR
• Does not include vacation you will earn in December

Links to these charts can be found at this link. If you have vacation hours that should be used by Dec. 31, please talk to you supervisor about scheduling time off between now and then.

December holidays include Thursday and Friday, Dec. 23-24; Monday, Dec. 27; and Friday, Dec. 31.

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

Looking for on-campus employment, an internship, or full-time employment? Check out BruinCareers, a new interactive job-posting system for students and alumni. In MyGFU, click on Career Services > BruinCareers. New users must create a new account.

Questions? Contact Career Services at careers@georgefox.edu or 503-554-2330.