You are invited to join University Ministries for our FINAL Chapel service for the 2019-20 academic year. We will focus on the imagery of Jeremiah 17:7-8, featuring testimonies from graduating seniors Mireya Garcia and Nathan Samayo. Please join us live on YouTube at 11:10 on Tuesday, June 2 — or simply visit the UMin YouTube Channel at any point thereafter to watch at your convenience.

Seattle Pacific Art Center invites you to participate in this year’s Visual Communication Senior Show, “Off the Grid,” by following them on Instagram or Facebook @spuviscom20, or joining them for the official site launch on Thursday, June 4, at 12 p.m.! — viscom20.spu.edu.

The Online Field Guide offered by the Center for Career and Calling can now be taken for credit. The guide provides career, vocation, and spiritual offerings that help students understand themselves better, lean into their core strengths, build their professional skills and materials, and learn discernment tools to help them navigate decision-making now and for the rest of their lives.

Starting this summer, the CCC will offer all four modules of the Online Field Guide, each as a separate course. These four online courses, each worth one credit, are available for the upcoming summer sessions and for the 2020-21 academic year. As always, the guide will also remain available as a non-credit bearing course for any student at SPU who wishes to take it voluntarily. It currently resides on every student’s Canvas dashboard.

GS 1004: Online Field Guide: Explore Career Options (1-credit, online)

GS 2004: Online Field Guide: Discover Your Calling (1-credit, online)

GS 3004: Prepare for Life After College (1-credit, online)

GS 4004: Launch into Your Next Steps (1-credit, online)

The Center for Career and Calling is open for virtual appointments all summer to help students with their job search, including our 2020 graduates. Plus, LinkedIn Learning is offering 14 free courses to help students and professionals navigate searching for a job at this time — including Digital Body Language, Video Interview Tips, Learning LinkedIn, Digital Networking Strategies, and more. Companies are still hiring, and we want to help our students be prepared!

More than 6,800 SPU parents and family members received the May In the Loop e-newsletter last week, which included news about President Martin’s Zoom interview series, information about summer classes, news for parents of incoming students from SFS, and more.

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.

A message from the Art Department: We are pleased to announce this year’s Illustration/New Pictures Senior Exhibition, Interconnections, featuring Belen Contreras, Robyn Hill, Madison Hunt, Emilia Sunderland, and Samantha Stewart. Typically we would be celebrating this work on display at SPAC Gallery on campus. However, for the 2020 remix, these student projects can be enjoyed at your leisure in their online galleries.

The SPU Art Department is pleased to announce this year’s Photography/Digital Media Senior Exhibition, POPULACE, featuring students, Blake Carpenter, Qyara Fonteno, Spencer George, Guy Larson, Sammi Ledbetter, Katie Mansfield, and Alison Meharg.

This year, these student projects can be enjoyed at your leisure in their online galleries at spacgallery.com/photography2020, as well as at a virtual exhibition, imaginatively placing their works in virtual 3D environments.

Fall/winter reservation requests are now being taken for the Faculty/Staff House at Camp Casey Conference Center on Whidbey Island for full-time faculty and staff. The dates of stay are September 28, 2020, through January 4, 2021. Reservation requests are due by June 5, 2020. The fall/winter requests are selected by lottery and are not affected by summer stays at Casey. Please remember: If you will be away from your SPU email over the summer, provide an alternate email to contact you, should your name be drawn.

Due to COVID-19 and governmental restrictions, there is some uncertainty about the fall, but we hope to be open! If we have to cancel your stay due to COVID-19, we will refund your payment.

Visit the Camp Casey website to request a reservation. Questions? Contact Camp Casey at 866-661-6604 or campcasey@spu.edu. We look forward to seeing you this winter or sooner!

The Office of Human Resources is hosting a Retirement Ready webinar series as we come to the close of the academic year. It is an opportunity for faculty and staff who are making plans or preparing to retire in the near future to hear from professionals in the industry and those serving our specific SPU plans. We hope that you will be able to join us live, or take advantage of these recorded events if you cannot.

Our speakers will address insights and strategies on a variety of retirement topics:

Get Ready to Retire
Ronee Dakin, Transamerica Retirement Planning Consultant
Date: Friday, June 5
Time: 12:30 p.m.

Planning for a Smooth Transition from SPU Benefit Plans
Matt Alvis and Cherylin Shdo, SPU Human Resources
Date: Monday, June 8 
Time: 12:30 p.m.

Understanding Your Post-Employment Health Benefits
Christina Fendley, Institution Client Relationships Manager with Emeriti Retirement Health; and Lauren Hach-Wilkins, Medicare Account Manager, Aetna
Date: Friday, June 12
Time: 12:30 p.m.

Watch for specific webinar details and links to come by email. Each webinar will be recorded for those that cannot attend live with links posted to our HR wiki once they are ready.

Please join our students and their loved ones by watching the (prerecorded) virtual ceremonies that will “go live” on the following dates and times (and will be available afterward online):

• Graduate Commencement – Saturday, June 13, 2 p.m.
• Undergraduate Commencement – Sunday, June 14, 4 p.m.

Ceremony viewing will be available at spu.edu/virtualcommencement. Feel free to engage in the social media campaign happening as we get closer. Use #SPUgrad when you post or share.

The Faculty/Staff Bulletin is published every Monday (or Tuesday if Monday is a holiday) during the academic year. The next Bulletin will be published Monday, June 8. The deadline is Thursday, June 4. If you have information or event news, send it as soon as possible to Bulletin editor Tracy Norlen at fsb-editor@spu.edu. Submissions may be edited for clarity. The Bulletin will begin an every-other-week summer schedule on June 15.

From the Office of the Provost: We have six faculty retirements at the end of this academic year. Each week in the Faculty/Staff Bulletin we will highlight one retiring faculty member.

Kevin Bolding, associate professor of electrical engineering, 25 years of service.

Professor Kevin Bolding earned an MS (1991) and a PhD (1993) in computer science and engineering from the University of Washington. His undergraduate preparation in computer science and mathematical sciences came from Rice University. For two years prior to joining the engineering program at SPU, Kevin was head of the Chaotic Routing Group at UW, where, among other accomplishments, he completed the design of the fault-tolerant Chaos Router.

Throughout his years as an electrical engineering faculty member, Kevin also served as electrical engineering department chair and director of engineering and computer science. He led SPU’s engineering senior design year-long sequence of courses for more than two decades. He shepherded SPU’s general engineering and computer engineering degrees through their initial Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) secondary accreditation cycles, and the engineering degrees collectively through six ABET accreditation visits. He has taught nearly every electrical engineering and computer engineering major, and the majority of computer science majors, who attended SPU during these 25 years. 

Kevin earned the STEM Faculty of the Year Award in 2014. His expertise and teaching are focused on the areas of microcontroller system design and communication system analysis. His interests extend beyond these areas, though. Kevin has served on multiple campus committees and task forces. He and his family worship and serve at Rainier Avenue Free Methodist Church.

Janet Hauck, business and social sciences librarian, has been appointed to a two-year term as a member of the American Library Association’s Business Reference and Services Section Program Planning Committee. In this role, Janet will assist in planning twice-yearly programs for academic and public business librarians who attend the American Library Association’s national conferences.

An article by Bomin Shim, associate professor of nursing, titled, “Reflections on the Spiritual Lives of Caregivers of Spouses with Dementia: Receiving Grace,” has been published in the Journal of Christian Nursing.

Join the School of Health Sciences as they say “thank you” and “farewell” to colleagues Mary Coucoules, Emily Crow, Lyndsay MacKay, April Morgenroth, and Julie Pusztai during an open-house-style Zoom happy hour on Friday, June 5, at 4:30 p.m. with recognitions at 4:45 p.m. To join the Zoom event, contact Katie Bennett, administrative assistant for graduate nursing, at kbennett@spu.edu.

For his monthly cartoon, Nate Hoover, office manager in the School of Theology, explains this month’s feature: Sometimes a comic idea grows from a simple word pun. “Refruitment” was the word, but I soon thought of a military recruiting office. The word “re-fruit-ment” also called to mind tomatoes and cucumbers. They are often thought of as vegetables, though they are actually fruits — in a way, the recognition of their true food category is a process of re-fruiting the vegetable. I put it all together for this cartoon. Hope you enjoy!

More