Beginning Tuesday, January 5, all residential students will be required to take a COVID-19 test. The offices of Student Life, Health Services, Residence Life, Athletics, Facilities & Project Management, and Health Sciences along with biology faculty will set up testing stations in the lowest level of the Dravus Parking Lot. Residential students have been assigned time blocks to take the test. Students will receive their test results within 30 minutes, and Residence Life will be onsite and ready to assist students who test positive.

The Office of Inclusive Excellence is implementing a three-part professional development workshop and yearlong engagement focused on racial equity and pedagogy for faculty members. The third workshop will be held Thursday, Jan. 21, 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Learn more here.

Through Tuesday, Jan. 19, faculty and staff will receive two bonus meals if they purchase a Faculty-Staff Block 10 Meal Plan. That’s 12 meals for $87 (or $7.25 per meal). Limit one per person. You can use the plan in Gwinn Commons any time during service hours, or you can use it to purchase Simply to Go meals at the Corner Place Market, Academic Perks, or Common Grounds. Meals can be used for guests, too. Plans can be purchased through Banner. Meal balances roll from quarter to quarter as long as you are employed at the University. Questions? Call Housing and Meal Plan Services at 206-281-2188 or email mealplan@spu.edu.

A message from University Communications: We are excited to introduce a stunning new 360-video which will allow prospective students to walk through Tiffany Loop on a sunny day, visit Gwinn, check out classrooms and labs, and cross the Fremont Bridge to Gas Works Park — all from their home. The 360-tour also gives viewers a glimpse of surrounding neighborhoods and the Puget Sound region including downtown Seattle, Snoqualmie Falls, the Cascade Mountains and more. We encourage you to check out the new video and share it!

The 10th of each month is the last day to make changes to your upcoming payroll check. Do you need to add or remove your spouse and/or children from your health care plans? If so, contact Human Resources (HR) to complete the appropriate form. Changes might include events that are expected to impact your benefits and deductions, such as your spouse or children gaining or losing coverage due to employment, birth, marriage, etc. Additionally, any changes to your 403b account may take up to seven days to be provided to SPU for processing, so please contract Transamerica by the first of the month prior to your requested change. For changes to your 403(b) account, contact Transamerica Retirement Solutions at 1-888-676-5512 (5 a.m.–6 p.m. PST), or 1-800-755-5801. If you have any other benefits-related changes, call Cherylin Shdo in HR at 206-281-2816.

Camp Casey is temporarily allowing the general public to rent small buildings for household groups of fewer than 11 people. Please support Camp Casey by referring your friends and family! Rates vary from $160 to $400 night, with a discount of 15% during November–February. Available lodgings are currently possible to book online anytime.

From Staff Council: Inspired by The Great British Bake Off, we are holding a baking competition for staff that will take place in your kitchen and on our brand new Instagram account — spustaff.

Between now and Friday, Jan. 15, bake up something festive, snap a photo, and share your recipe! At the end of the competition, we will award Byen Bakeri gift cards for different categories, and gather all submissions for a campuswide digital holiday cookbook. More information and the submission form can be found at this Formstack link. (Please note: we will only accept submissions via Formstack.) 

Could you be "Star Baker" of the entire SPU campus? Enter and find out!

The Office of Inclusive Excellence invites you to join us 11:30 a.m.–1 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 14, for the workshop, Diversity 101: Exploring the What, Why, and How of Diversity at SPU. Learn more and sign up here.

All faculty and staff who come to campus must complete an online self-screening to attest that they meet certain criteria for being on campus (e.g., not exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms). SPU has developed a campuswide tool through Banner (login into Banner and select Personal Menu) to report a daily COVID-19 self-attestation for faculty and staff working on campus (including Camp Casey and Blakely Island). A link to the self-attestation form is also available on the Stay Smart website, which is now highlighted in the top banner on the SPU homepage.

The Faculty/Staff Bulletin is published weekly during the academic year. The next Bulletin will be published Monday, Jan. 11, and the deadline is Thursday, Jan. 7. If you have information or event news, send it as soon as possible with an image or graphic to Bulletin editor Tracy Norlen at fsb-editor@spu.edu. Submissions may be edited for clarity.

A message from Louise Furrow, vice president for university advancement: After 20 years of service at SPU, Marlon Sandlin is retiring as of Tuesday, Jan. 5. Please join me in extending your congratulations and appreciation for his contributions.

After earning an undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley in sociology, Marlon went on to earn an MDiv at Fuller Theological Seminary before beginning a career in gift planning. His approach to donor care reflects his ministry heart. Significant fundraising, whether current major gifts or ultimate estate gifts, is a question of stewardship discernment before God and Marlon has been a shepherd to SPU constituents.

Marlon learned relationship management, major gift work, and estate planning at Fuller Theological Seminary, and went on to serve also at Compassion International, World Vision, and Missionary Aviation Fellowship before coming to SPU. Gift planning and charitable estate gifts (i.e., bequests, gift annuities, charitable remainder trusts, etc.) can be complex and exacting work. It’s also a very personal and sacred conversation to have with a donor, discussing legacy and ultimate gifts an individual may be considering. Donors have consistently shown they respect Marlon’s expertise and trust his wisdom and pastoral heart in these conversations, often seeking him out or responding openly to his offers of assistance. In addition, Marlon is deeply respected in the field by his gift-planning peers and has long-term relationships with the top charitable advisors in the country who have, by extension, been resources for SPU.

When thinking of impact, I consider the purpose of the gifts on behalf of SPU’s mission and for the benefit of students. Many of these endowments support student scholarships and the University’s operations. Over his tenure with SPU, Marlon worked with donors to establish nearly 50 endowment funds, as well as fostering contributions to many more. He successfully solicited major gifts and annual gifts for current purposes, and in recent years he has led endowments and gift planning strategies and communications. The current value (June 30, 2020) of the endowments he worked to establish is nearly $6 million. He has also worked to establish nine new charitable remainder trusts with a current value of just shy of an additional $2 million. Further, Marlon secured 69 bequest expectancies (some of which have already matured).  In the course of establishing relationships with donors and working with them on their estate plans and planned gifts, Marlon has also had the opportunity to promote capital campaign needs as well as other funding needs for the University. Since 2008, Marlon additionally secured 31 major current gifts, also totaling nearly $2 million. He has been the relationship manager for 867 people (812 households) — 2,482 gifts as of early December. The dollar total comes to $28,362,318.54.

As is the nature of fundraising work, along the way he’s accumulated some interesting adventures. You might ask him or Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Craig Kispert about an exploration trip to a hunting/fishing lodge in Alaska that at one point was offered as a donation to SPU (and for good reasons, declined).

I appreciate Marlon’s ministry heart, professional expertise, high ethical standards, and work on behalf of SPU’s mission. He will be missed. Thank you, Marlon, for investing your time and talent through SPU, and may God bless you in this next chapter.

A manuscript by Stephanie Armes, assistant professor of marriage and family therapy, titled “Secondary Trauma and Impairment in Clinical Social Workers” was published in the Child Abuse & Neglect journal alongside colleagues from University of Georgia, Georgia State University, and UNC Wilmington. The paper was part of a special issue titled, “Promoting a Healthy and Resilient Child Abuse & Neglect Workforce.”

Katie Thralls Butte, assistant professor of health and human performance, recently had her article, “Stand Up Now: A sedentary behavior intervention in older adults of moderate to low physical function,” published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Aging. Her article detailed an intervention she designed and conducted with low-functioning older adults residing in continuing care retirement communities.

Krystle Jalalian-Chursky, assistant professor of special education, was recently invited to speak to students at Southern New Hampshire University on the topic, Multicultural and Bilingual Aspects of Special Education. The outcomes for the panel discussion were to help students:

• Understand the major issues in multicultural education and bilingual education and their implications for special education.
• Understand the major issues pertaining to disproportionate representation of ethnic minority students in special education.
• Understand the major issues in assessment as it pertains to culturally diverse populations.
• Understand the major issues of instruction for culturally diverse populations.

An article by Alberto Ferreiro, professor of European history, titled “Ex Orientis partibus nauigans Galliciam uenit: Was there collusion between Martin of Braga (c. 519/20–579) and the Byzantine Imperial Expansion in Hispania?,” was published in The International Scientific Conference Migration from Antiquity to the Present Day, 14–15 April 2018, Novis Sad, Serbia, 2020, pp. 17–34. Martin of Braga was from the late Roman province of Pannonia, present-day Hungary and Serbia. He made his mark as a missionary in Galicia in northwestern Spain. The study highlights the movement of clergy and ascetics from east and west in the Mediterranean by focusing on this most compelling figure. This is Alberto's 16th published study on Martin of Braga.