In this latest SPU Voices Podcast, you will meet Chantel Vinson ’98, a senior wellness instructor at Culver Academies. A former health and physical education teacher and junior high basketball coach, Chantel has won awards for her selflessness and is beloved by many students and parents because she has chosen to pay forward the gift she was given growing up. Listen now.

Please join the SPU Art Department in celebration of our Visual Communication Design Major Senior Exhibition, "Resilient." The exhibit features design work by a “resilient” group of students — Astrid Bui, Claire Conway, Jordan Davies, Kae Doan, Sana Hakim, Natalie Hoff, Julien Howard, Ken Aaron Kok, Michael Lewis, Vivian Liu, Lily Morgan, Ivy Nguyen, Theresa Nguyen, Caitlyn Olexer, Blake Peterson, Madison Porter, Jenna Rasmussen, Serena Schirm, and Hannah Thompson. The exhibition will be on view through Friday, June 10.

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.

The Faculty/Staff Bulletin is published weekly during the academic year, and every other week during the summer. The Bulletin is now on a summer schedule. The next deadline is Thursday, June 16, and the next issue will be published Monday, June 20. 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.

Here are the summer publication dates. 

June 20
July 5
July 18
Aug. 1
Aug. 15
Aug. 29
(Weekly publication resumes Sept. 6).

Mark Walhout, professor of English, 35 years

In 1987, after a Midwestern education (a BA from Wheaton College and an MA and PhD from Northwestern University), Mark brought his expertise in American literature and literary criticism to Seattle Pacific’s English and Cultural Studies Department.

An avid reader, Mark has frequently published reviews in Books and Culture, and has accrued ever-broadening academic and cultural interests, including post-9/11 fiction, fictionalized biographies of Jesus, literary hoaxes and plagiarism, Christian academic freedom, and the work of postcolonial critic Edward Said. Mark’s latest work is a dual biography of Said and Charles Malik, titled Arab Intellectuals and American Power (2020).

Mark served as the chair of the English department for over 20 years. His colleagues deeply appreciate his ethic of faithful and selfless service, to which he would prefer you not draw attention. While Mark’s plans for life after retirement remain somewhat undefined, for such a thoroughly inquisitive cultural critic they are certain to include more research and writing.

Matt Bellinger, assistant professor of communication, recently presented a new paper, “Meeting Marx on the Road to Damascus: Dorothee Soelle’s Rhetoric of Religious Socialism,” at the Rhetoric Society of America’s biennial conference.

Mohammad Shah, assistant professor of global development, had his paper, “The Conundrum of Policy Stability: The Case of Afghanistan’s Centralized Planning and Budgeting Policies,” published in the Asian Journal of Peacebuilding.

Becky Hughes, associate professor of history, is participating in the Curt C. and Else Silberman Seminar from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on “Teaching Holocaust Photographs” from May 31 to June 10.

Alberto Ferreiro, professor of European history, had an article accepted for publication titled, “Did Priscillian have a Manichaean view of Creation?” Festschrift for Johannes Grohe. Aschendorff, 2023. Select authors were invited to contribute to this volume honoring a great scholar and friend. Priscillian was a fourth century bishop in Hispania who gained a wide following as an ascetic and preacher. He was accused of every manner of heresy and immorality by his enemies that resulted in his execution in 385 by a usurper emperor; the church condemned the execution. The charge of Manichaeism was as false as all of the other charges. In about a half dozen studies, Alberto has demonstrated that Priscillian was at times on the edge doctrinally but was never an outright heretic and never an immoral deviant. Priscillian was the topic of his Weter lecture at SPU in 1991 titled, “Sexual Depravity, Doctrinal Error, Character Assassination in the Fourth Century: Jerome against the Priscillianists.” Professor Glenn W. Olsen was the respondent.

Please join the Office of Human Resources in welcoming the following new SPU staff members:

• Aly Cotte, visits and events coordinator, Undergraduate Admissions
• Harrison Stegemiller, events coordinator, Conference Services