The Daily Bruin

More than 60 choirs featuring the talents of more than 3,000 high school students will visit campus to compete in the Oregon School Activities Association’s 26th annual state choir championships Thursday through Saturday, May 3-5.

The event, scheduled in Bauman Auditorium, will feature schools at all classification levels. Class 3A, 2A and 1A choirs will compete on Thursday, May 3; Class 4A and 5A students will compete on Friday, May 4; and Class 6A choirs will convene on Saturday, May 5. Specific choir performance times are available on the OSAA website at osaa.org/choir.

Doors open at 8 a.m. each morning, and the competition begins at 9 a.m. At the conclusion of the performances in a classification, the outstanding groups will be recognized. General admission tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for students and will be available for purchase onsite. No charge cards will be accepted at the gate.

Choirs qualify for the event by winning their respective league competition or by meeting a specified quality scale and getting selected on an at-large basis.

George Fox is expecting approximately 30 to 40 new international students this fall. They will be arriving on Aug. 17 to begin the international student orientation.

Rather than house these students in empty dorm rooms during orientation, we are looking for about 15 to 20 families who would be willing to have up to two international students stay in their home the nights of Aug. 17-22 (students would be free to be with the families the entire weekend of Aug. 17-19).

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.

If you are interested in serving as a host family, please contact Dianna McIntyre (dmcintyr@georgefox.edu) or Alex Pia (apia@georgefox.edu). If you know of others who might be interested, please let us know so we may contact them.

Thank you for your willingness to consider this opportunity.

We’re looking for a 10 good walkers or runners to represent George Fox in the American Heart Association’s Heart & Stroke Walk, scheduled Saturday, May 19, in Portland along the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade.

Mohan Nair, chief innovation officer at Regence and executive in residence for the School of Business last fall, is working to build a strong team for this event. Because Robin Baker considers Mohan a colleague, innovator, mentor and friend, he is encouraging George Fox employees to sign up for this event.

Robin will be in Boise that weekend for commencement and unable to personally participate, so to show his support for Mohan and this event, he is making a $700 donation to his team and will contribute a $10 sponsorship to each of the first 10 employees who volunteer to walk/run on Mohan’s team.

This 5K walk (or run) is a healthy, fun, family-friendly event that promotes exercise in our communities and raises funds for cardiovascular disease research and for initiatives that promote prevention, treatment and better care for stroke and heart disease patients. No fundraising is required, although it is certainly an option. Kids and pets on leashes (just to be clear, only pets need to be on leashes) are welcome.

But wait: there’s more! This is not just a walk. Festivities begin at 8:30 a.m., and the walk begins at 10 a.m. After the walk, you can take your kids to the Kids Zone to enjoy some fun activities. And on a more serious note for adults, learn about your heart health with free CPR demonstrations and blood pressure screenings. Food tents will be available for all participants – with complimentary small sandwiches, various snacks and food and beverage samples.

To volunteer for Mohan’s team, please send an e-mail to Peggy Kilburg and mark your calendar for May 19.

More information is available about this event at this link. Please e-mail Peggy if you can join us in this event.

Mail Services is an unofficial drop site for all Oregon ballots. Arrangements have been made with the Yamhill County Elections Office for us to offer this service.

We accept any Oregon ballot (any county), and there is no postage necessary. The deadline for this drop-off site is 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 15. All out-of-state ballots must be mailed with postage.

Thanks,
University Mail Services

Staff, faculty and students: There are still some slots that need to be filled in order for next week’s C-CERT training to take place. If you have been considering taking this valuable emergency preparedness training, please contact Ed Gierok (ext. 2090) as soon as possible.

A minimum of three more people need to sign up in order for this training to happen next week, so please sign up soon!

The training is from Monday to Saturday, May 7-12. Sessions are from 8 a.m. to noon in EHS 125.

Yellow potted mums are still available for purchase in the Pennington House. Cost is $4 each.

Feel free to swing by when you get a chance!

It’s summertime at George Fox University – time to celebrate the reappearance of the sun, time for fellowship, and time to bring out the ice cream.

Your Staff Development Committee would like to invite you to the “Party Hall” at 3 p.m. on Friday, May 4, for some frozen treats. Take a break with us and feel the love!

– Your Staff Development Committee

Staff and students: Summer is a busy time for potential new students coming to campus to visit, and we’d like to welcome our visitors with a place to park. Rows have been set aside in the Hoover, Stevens and VAC lots for visitors, and security would like to ask you to please park elsewhere and to keep those rows free for our visitors.

Coming up, new students and their families will be on campus May 17-18 for Genesis, and we’d like to offer them the Hoover, Stevens and Wood-Mar lots for parking. Please park on the campus side of Meridian, on Sheridan and North Street, and in the Bauman lot on those two days. The Pennington lot will be used for convention guests that week, so leave it empty as well.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of our guests.

If you have questions, contact Nadine Kincaid at nkincaid@gmail.com.

The Veterans Certifying Official in the student financial services office has an opening for a VA work study position. An applicant must be a veteran or receiving VA educational benefits under a transfer of entitlement and currently registered for classes. “GFU Student Employment” eligibility not required. For all chapters except CH 33, students must be training at a minimum of three-quarters time. For CH 33, rate of pursuit must be at least 75 percent.

Please print and complete the Student Employment Application found at this link. Forms should be returned to Sherri Moore in the student financial services office.

If you have questions, please contact Sherri at smoore@georgefox.edu.

Plant Services is hosting its annual Phase II event this week. Items will be open for viewing in the Macy basement between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, May 2-3, and from 8 a.m. to noon on Friday, May 4.

At the end of every school year, many students leave behind good usable items for those who need them. These items often include blankets, clothing, kitchen supplies, small appliances, radios, room decorations, little tables, etc.

To help keep the dumpsters from overflowing and to be better stewards of our resources, Phase II was initiated. Many students have benefited from these items. For example, summer work-study students often find items they need for apartment living.

After students and staff view these items, they are donated to local charities.

Questions? Contact Debby O’Kelley at dokelley@georgefox.edu.

Michelle Cox (Counseling) is leaving the university this spring to begin a new position as director of student health and counseling services at Western Oregon University in May. Michelle is an alumna of Western Oregon and completed her internship at the WOU counseling center while earning her master’s degree at George Fox in 2003.

Jerry Young (Plant Services) retired from the university after serving as a plumber at the Newberg and Portland campuses for the past six-plus years.

Becky Greenwood (Salem Site Coordinator) left the university in late April. She moved to Puyallup, Wash., to help take care of her sister-in-law with terminal brain cancer.

Kathy Weiss, associate professor of biology, received the university’s Achievement Award for Undergraduate Teaching and Doug Campbell, professor of art, was named recipient of the Undergraduate Faculty Research and Scholarship Award. At the graduate level, Terry Huffman, an education professor in the Educational Foundations and Leadership program, received the Faculty Achievement Award for Graduate Research and Scholarship, while Chris Meade, assistant professor of management, received the Faculty Achievement Award for Graduate Teaching. You can read more about them here.

Sarah Gibson’s (Cinema and Media Communication) interactive documentary, Steve Taylor’s Digital Clone, was awarded the Best of Festival King Foundation Award in the faculty interactive media category at the Broadcast Education Association national convention as well as Best in Competition in the faculty interactive documentary category. This is the highest distinction at BEA given to only the top 1.2 percent of all entries. In addition, Gibson’s companion documentary, Steve Taylor is Not Dead, screened at North Central University’s new documentary festival as a non-competition invited lead entry. Sarah also presented a paper, “Social Media in the Courtroom,” at the Pacific Northwest Academy of Legal Studies in Business.

Kevin T. Jones (Communication Arts) presented a paper, “I’m guilty, but leave my family alone: Circumventing personal disaster through sex scandal apologia,” at the Northwest Communication Association annual conference April 12-14, in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The paper examined rhetorical strategies used by noteworthy individuals (i.e Tiger Woods) when confronting the media about a sex scandal. Several communication arts students presented papers as well. Seniors Lishan Zeng and Kaleb Olsen presented “The influence of uncertainty on self-disclosure/intimacy in intercultural communication,” and senior Amanda Kate Winkelman and junior Matayah Fox shared their paper “Mass Media Study: Online exposure compared to Internet involvement and disclosure.”

Jim Steele (Business) was a featured speaker on the topic “A Leader’s Guide to Navigating Change” at Corvallis LEADS (Leadership, Education and Development Summit), sponsored by the Corvallis Chamber of Commerce on April 20.

Joel Perez (Dean of Transitions and Inclusion) was quoted in an Urban Faith article, “Doing College Diversity Well,” that appeared on the organization’s website on April 27. The article is available at this link.

Douglas Campbell (Visual Arts) had “Check,” a mixed media piece, and “Enore,” a monoprint, accepted into a juried exhibit, “Full Moon Rising,” at the Red Raven Gallery in Salem, Ore. The exhibit runs from May 2 through May 30. Also, his poems “Reims Rendezvous” and “Paths” are included in the Spring 2012 issue of Windhover: A Journal of Christian Literature; his poem “The Demon Cupid” was included in the Winter 2011 issue of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review; and his poems “Rodin’s Gates of Hell” and “Constable’s Landscape” were included in the online journal Ides of March in April.

May 1        Patrick Allen
May 2        Elaine Smith
May 3        Angela Doty
May 5        Robert Bonner
May 6        Greg Smith, Dick Van Noord
May 7        Betty Cordill
May 8        Molly Hickok, Brent Wilson, Deb Worden
May 10      Jim Jackson, Christopher Meade
May 11      Melanie Newell
May 12      Marla Sweningson
May 13      Ethan Burke
May 14      Kathi Becker, Don Powers
May 15      Dirk Barram
May 16      Audrey Williamson
May 17      Paul Anderson
May 18      Paul Otto, Cynthia Weston
May 20      Val Orton, Dan Predoehl
May 22      Heather Ayala, Cliff Berger
May 23      Chuck Conniry
May 24      Brenda Morton
May 28      Beth LaForce

Any students wishing to earn between 1-4 hours of summer academic credit for the Discernment-Oriented Leadership Special Study should contact Paul Anderson by Friday afternoon (May 4).

This special study (CHMN 485; PSTD 585) is built upon the student’s participation in the Leadership Institute for Group Discernment May 21-24 at Tilikum (http://goodnewsassoc.org/leadershipinstitute/) and additional research tailored to the student’s interests.

IT is offering two instructional workshops on Google E-mail and Google Docs during week of April 30 at its Newberg campus and Portland Center locations.

• Google E-mail How-tos: Wednesday, May 2, 10-11 a.m., Portland Center
• Google Docs – Organization, Sharing and Collaboration: Wednesday, May 2, 11 a.m. – noon, Portland 210
• Google E-mail How-tos: Wednesday, May 2, 2-3 p.m., Stevens 307
• Google Docs Organization, Sharing and Collaboration: Thursday, May 3, 2-3 p.m., Stevens 307

View the schedule and sign up at this link. Questions? Contact Kandie Comfort at kcomfort@georgefox.edu.

The wireless network foxguest is being replaced with foxpublic and will be upgraded to WPA2 for better encryption and security. If you are currently using foxguest, you will be required to move to either foxwifi or foxpublic.

We encourage students and employees to use foxwifi and visitors to the campus to use foxpublic. Please contact Josiah with Portland Center IT at 503-554-6127 if you need assistance connecting to wireless. The wireless password can be found on the main page of MyGFU.

The Portland Center will see both foxguest and foxpublic wireless for a one-week transition period.

Employees who connect to foxwifi wireless at the Portland Center will no longer need to use VPN to access their desktop computer or files on the administrative network (foxserve, printing, K drive). You will still need VPN for off-campus access to these resources.

– IT

The wireless network foxguest is being replaced with foxpublic and will be upgraded to WPA2 for better encryption and security. If you are currently using foxguest, you will be required to move to either foxwifi or foxpublic.

We encourage students and employees to use foxwifi and visitors to the campus to use foxpublic. Please contact the service desk at 503-554-2569 if you need assistance connecting to wireless. The wireless password can be found on the main page of MyGFU.

– IT

For the first time, we are able to offer Spanish interpreting services at our traditional undergraduate commencement ceremony.

This service will be available only in Miller Gymnasium, and a ticket to Miller Gym is required. Headsets are limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at 2 p.m. on April 28 (one hour prior to commencement).

If this service would be helpful to you or a family member, please stop by the information table in the Wheeler Sports Center’s lower lobby.

If you have questions, please contact Joel Perez, dean of transitions and inclusion, at jperez@georgefox.edu.

Beginning Monday, we will have potted mums for sale from this weekend’s graduation festivities. All are yellow mums with a blue or green pot cover. The cost is $4.

Come to Pennington House anytime after 10 a.m. on Monday, April 30, to get yours. First come, first serve. You may also reserve flowers by e-mailing Mary Monahan at mmonahan@georgefox.edu or calling ext. 2134.

The employee recognition event that has been held in early May for the past few years will be part of the first community gathering at the beginning of the 2012-13 academic year on Friday, Aug. 17.

Service Award recipients, Support Staff Employee of the Year, Administrator of the Year, and retirees will be honored at this event.