The Daily Bruin

 Registration for the All-Campus Spring Retreat is now open.  Stop by the Bruin Den between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.  Don’t miss out on this encouraging and fun-filled weekend on the beach!

Parents of George Fox students will gather at the Newberg campus and in homes along the West Coast to pray for the George Fox University community from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, March 14. We are gathering prayer requests that will guide this time of prayer.

If you have a prayer request that you would like to be remembered in prayer, please send your request to the Office of Spiritual Life at spirituallife@georgefox.edu. If you would like the request to be anonymous, please indicate so in your e-mail. Please e-mail your requests by this Friday, Feb. 26.

Beginning Monday, March 2, the Mail Services courier will be delivering to the Salem campus on Mondays and Thursdays each week. Service to the Portland Center will continue each day Monday through Friday.

Items for the Portland or Salem campuses must be brought to University Mail Services by 9:45 a.m. and clearly labeled to show the intended recipient or department.

“Oregon Field Guide” filmed a segment on hummingbird flight bio-mechanics and energetics for Oregon Public Broadcasting. The episode features our very own Don Powers (Biology) along with Bret Tobalske, his research collaborator.

The segment will air on OPB TV at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, and again at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, March 1. The segment is entitled “Hummingbirds aren’t just fun to watch, scientists are discovering they still have a lot to learn from them.”

ASC will have blue “Bruins” foam fingers in the SUB on Thursday, February 26 from 11:50 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.  Support the women’s basketball team on their historic run, and grab a piece of Bruin history for just $1.00!

Shane Roghaar, our TIAA-CREF representative, will be available for one-hour appointments between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. March 10 (Portland Center), March 11 (Newberg) and March 12 (Newberg). You may make an appointment with him to discuss your investments using the online reservation system. See the invitation posted on the HR/Benefits Web page.

Employees in other locations, or those who are not available at this time, may call Shane to arrange a telephone consultation at 503-452-6981.

Eligible employees should be receiving a customized packet from Sun Life with information about our new voluntary life insurance benefit. You must have been here at least a year and working three-quarters time or better to be eligible. Please be sure to return your enrollment forms to HR by March 16.

Sun Life will be on campus to present this new benefit to you and to answer questions at the following dates and times:

• Thursday, Feb. 26, at noon in Portland Center Room 295
• Monday, March 2, at 9 a.m. in the Executive Dining Room
• Monday, March 2, at 9:30 a.m. in Hoover 104
• Monday March 2, at 11 a.m. in VAC 117
• Tuesday, March 3, at 11:30 a.m. in VAC 117
• Tuesday, March 3, at 1:30 p.m. in the Executive Dining Room
• Wednesday, Feb. 25, at Plant Services

This is your opportunity to sign up for the benefit without having to show proof of good health. Employees in other locations will hear soon about long-distance info sessions.

Employees are invited to attend an all-community meeting from 3 to 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, in Bauman Auditorium. The meeting will provide employees an opportunity to receive campus updates. Your participation is strongly encouraged.

For those at the university’s regional sites, the meeting will be available for viewing at stream.georgefox.edu/live/commmtg.sdp. For best results, use Mozilla Firefox for your web browser, and your computer must have QuickTime Player installed. Simply copy the link into the address bar of your browser. If you have any problems, contact the Service Desk at ext. 2569.

Attention Students: 

If you have been planning on applying for one or more of the Bruindata Scholarships and have yet to do so, this week is your last week before it’s too late.

Sunday, March 1 at 8:00 a.m. the door of opportunity will be closed.  Please complete the process prior to then. Student Financial Services will not be able to accept applications after that day and time.

If you are interested in global issues, love to travel, enjoy learning about other cultures and foreign languages, and have a heart for community service, the Peace Corps may be the right fit for you. The organization will host an on-campus  information session and application workshop from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 3, in Lemmons 15 on the Newberg campus.

Come to this Peace Corps event to learn more about living and working overseas. To learn more, visit the Peace Corps website.

Housing selection for Fall 2009 is coming up soon.

Housing selection will run in one round. You will complete a short series of forms in BruinData. The selection forms will be up March 16-21 (the week before Spring Break). Placements will be made during the break.

There are a few changes from last year:

• There is no off-campus sign-up page for seniors. Only seniors who wish to live on-campus need to go through the selection process. If you are not certain of your senior status then e-mail housing@georgefox.edu to confirm your status. Please see http://www.georgefox.edu/offices/student_life/residence/offcampus.html for more information about qualifying for off-campus housing.

• Fall 2009 class registration will not have a bearing on housing selection.

• Most groups will have more housing options available to choose from. Please note that groups still must have at least 5 people in order to include Le Shana hall as a living area preference.

We’ll have more information posted here and around campus each week. You can also stop by the Student Life Office to ask questions or send your questions to housing@georgefox.edu.

Jeff VandenHoek (School of Management) will give leadership to the newest School of Management graduate program — a full-time MBA program that will launch on the Newberg campus this August. It will be a highly integrative, intense, intentional, cohort-based, 11-month program. We welcome referrals. Contact VandenHoek at jvandenh@georgefox.edu for more information, or visit the MBA page on the university’s website.

Due to a reallocation of resources to the full-time MBA and the accreditation process, we will faze out the Executive Track MBA program with its current cohorts when they graduate in 2010. Twenty-two executives have graduated, and 24 are currently in the Executive Track MBA program. To hear Dean Ken Armstrong’s announcement about the changes, visit the university’s iTunes U site. Scroll to “Campus Spotlight” and click on “School of Management.”

The Department of Performing Arts will continue its busy recital season next week. All events will be held in Bauman Auditorium.

On Wednesday, March 4, Chris Guyer, clarinet, will present a senior recital at 7:30 p.m.

On Friday, March 6, the second Students in Recital event is scheduled from 12:40 to 1:30 p.m. That, evening at 7:30 p.m., pianists including Kenneth Willson, Barbara Stewart, Dan Miller, Becca Couch, Bethany Taft, Joseph Forster, James Pick, Cameron DeWhitt, Allen Cassell, Andrew Payne and Beth Sellers will present a multi-piano extravaganza.

Finally, at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 7, Emily Yarnold, soprano, and Ashley Salisbury, mezzo-soprano, will present their junior recital.

Please join us in supporting our students. Admission is free.

You’re invited to join the university’s International Justice Mission Chapter for a sex-trafficking awareness event from 7 to 11 p.m. Thursday, March 5, in the Duke Atrium of the Stevens Center. The gathering will include food, live music, and plenty of chances to learn more about this very serious issue and ways that you can create change here in Oregon and abroad.

To next year’s Juniors:

Please download a copy of the information sheet on the juniors abroad website: Sign Up Instructions for May 2010 Juniors Abroad
There will also be a:

JUNIORS ABROAD INFORMATION MEETING
6:00 PM, Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Hoover Room 105

Information on waiting in line and the annual tent city will also be presented at this meeting.

Please make every effort to attend this meeting.

____________________________
Paul Chamberlain, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry
Director of Juniors Abroad
503-554-2702
EHS 320

Are you ready to help new students during Orientation and First Year Seminar?! 

Make a difference for new students by applying to be an Orientation Leader/Peer Advisor!  This is an important role and applications are due Friday, February 27 to the Student Life Office. 

Download an application here: http://www.georgefox.edu/offices/student_life/forms.html. 

Questions? Contact Meredith Dougherty at mdougher@georgefox.edu.

Orientation Committee application deadline extended to Friday, February 27! 

Help prep for Orientation and assist new students in August!  Download an application at http://www.georgefox.edu/offices/student_life/forms.html and return it to the Student Life Office. Your help is needed!

Join Bon Appetit Tuesday as we celebrate Fat Tuesday for lunch and dinner in Klages Dining Hall. Lunch will feature a cajun-style gumbo along with muffaletta sandwiches and dirty rice.

We’ll kick it up a notch for dinner as we serve pecan-crusted chicken with creole meuniere sauce, blackened redfish and smoked sausage, shrimp and chicken jambalaya, and Bananas Foster for dessert.

Free to those on meal plans and only $7.75 for everyone else. Wear your smile, get some beads and enjoy some great food and music.

Beginning with our Friday, Feb. 27 pay day, you will no longer receive a printed pay statement from the university if you are on direct deposit. Instead, you will be able to view (and print if you would like) your pay statement through PeopleSoft by following these simple steps:

1. If you do not already access PeopleSoft, you can use this link to get to the sign-in page. If you haven’t already added the login address to your favorites, this would be a good time to stop and do that.
2. Use the same user ID and password that you use to log in to e-mail and Bruindata.
3. Open “Self Service” in the menu on the left and click on “Payroll and Compensation.”
4. You will see a list of all of your pay statements that have been processed in PeopleSoft (beginning with our first payroll on Oct. 31) with some basic information included in each of the columns.
5. Click on the pay date in the far left column labeled “Check Date” to open your statement as a PDF file. You can then print it if you want a hard copy, you can save the PDF file to another folder, or you can just refer to it again in the future in PeopleSoft.

HR will post an e-nnouncement for the next several months to remind employees on pay day that their statements will be available only online to give people time to get used to this new procedure. This new process helps the university be a good steward of both financial and natural resources by reducing paper and envelope usage. It also will save significant time for staff in both HR and Mail Services.

Employees who are not on direct deposit will continue to receive their pay checks with statements attached through the mail. However, we strongly encourage all employees (except student employees) to get on direct deposit.

Thursday, Feb. 26
7 p.m. – Women’s basketball vs. Whitman (Northwest Conference Tournament), Wheeler Sports Center/Miller Gym

Friday, Feb. 27
2 p.m. – Women’s tennis vs. Linfield, George Fox campus courts

Saturday, Feb. 28
11 a.m. – Men’s tennis vs. Lewis & Clark, George Fox campus courts
11 a.m. – Men & women’s track and field in Frank Haskins Invitational (dual meet vs. Linfield), Colcord Field
7 p.m. – Women’s basketball vs. TBA (Northwest Conference Tournament), Wheeler Sports Center/Miller Gym

Tickets for the Northwest Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament are $6 for adults and $3 for students 18 and under and seniors 55 and over. Students from the participating schools in each tournament game will be admitted free with a valid student ID card. Regular season passes are not valid for any postseason events such as the NWC Tournament or NCAA playoffs. The Bruins are 25-0 and ranked No. 2 nationally (WBCA poll).

For more information, contact the sports information office at ext. 2926.