Seattle Pacific University would like to thank the following faculty, staff, and students for their wonderful contributions in celebrating this year’s graduating students:

High Events Team
Sarah Walter, Michelle McFarland, Maliea Lowe-Hale, Annette Rendahl, Madisynn McCombs, Derek Wood, Kenda Gatlin, May Tag Yang, David Rither, Marty McAlpine, Colleen Steelquist, Amanda Stubbert, Courtney Hollander, Kyle Brown, Curt Jacobson, Matt English, Rashmi Shrestha, Gina Whitehouse, and Bruce Congdon 

Commencement Commemorative Boxes
Colleen Steelquist, Sam Davis, Sarah Walter, Michelle McFarland, Annette Rendahl, Maliea Lowe-Hale, Madisynn McCombs, Christine Perkins, Courtney Hollander, Pam Martin, Lynn Anselmi, Jeff Jordan, Frank Kinard, Debbie Wilkins, Elaine Stevens, and Howard Byrd

Virtual Ceremony Participants & Production
David Rither, Marty McAlpine, Ron Haight, Dan Martin, Bruce Congdon, Cedric Davis, Stephen Newby, Lisa Ishihara, Lynette Bikos, Bo Lim, Cara Wall-Scheffler, Dave Nienhuis, Julie Antilla, Lorie Wild, Doug Strong, Sandy Mayo, Brian Chin, Danny Helseth, Dainius Vaicekonis, Sarah Walter, Michelle McFarland, and Annette Rendahl

Design, Web, & Communication
Colleen Steelquist, Jason Herrman, Elijah Cabiles, Sam Davis, Tracy Norlen, Esther Yun, Lynn Anselmi, Kathy Henning, and Mike Schubert

Program Coordinators
Katie Bennett, Emily Crow, Julie Ann Harrington, Tracy Coleman, Marilyn Hancock, Brenda Baker, Chloe Hays , Heather Maguire, Allison Groseclose, Megan Hamshar, Jackqueline Miller, Marcie Pickett-Johnson, and Teresa Tsang

Student Advisory
Darian Burns, Andrea Diaz, Pierce Salave’a, Nathan Samayo, and Sophia Chack

A message from Jacqui Smith-Bates, associate vice president for student life: In partnership with Alumni, Parent, and Family Relations, and University Communications, we are launching Help a Falcon Fly for students, and especially our seniors. This is a chance for them to gain skills, learn more about particular careers, and connect with professionals in the SPU community.

Help a Falcon Fly gives our generous and caring SPU community a chance to tangibly help a student by offering any of the following, and more:

• Informational interviews
• Mock interviews
• A short-term project at their organizations
• Information about available positions and internships at their organizations

Please share this information with students. And if you’d like to join in and help a Falcon fly by becoming a career volunteer, please do. In the first 24 hours after we sent out the email, 47 students signed up — so many more volunteers are needed! You can sign up here.

To better accommodate the short extensions for end-of-quarter exams and assignments that faculty are providing their students, the Spring Quarter grading deadline has been moved from Monday, June 22, to Friday, June 26, at 4:30 p.m. For programs who have outside agencies with firm deadlines prior to June 26, SAS is serving those students to meet their deadlines.

Join us Thursday, June 18, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. for Diversity 101. This virtual professional development workshop provides a shared language and framework for SPU employees to move forward in the work of diversity. Registration is available through Skillsoft or by contacting odei@spu.edu.

The SPU Art Department is pleased to announce this year’s Studio Art Senior Exhibition, "waking/sleeping," featuring work by graduating senior Dominic Renz. Typically, we would be celebrating this work on display at the Seattle Pacific Art Center Gallery on campus. However, for the 2020 remix, this student work can be enjoyed in an online gallery found at the SPAC Gallery website, spacgallery.com and at www.dominicrenz.com. Dominic’s work at SPU has encompassed a wide variety of material approaches, including painting, printmaking, photography, and sculpture. In this body of work, all of these media are presented with equal thoughtfulness; exploring what is seen and unseen.

Family and Consumer Sciences invites you to its virtual 2020 Interior Design Portfolio Show, online through June 30. These FCS seniors have prepared digital portfolios, résumés, and associate business papers to launch themselves into their new careers as interior designers. Explore these pages to see what students have accomplished during their time at SPU — and help us welcome them into a bright future.

The Faculty/Staff Bulletin, published weekly during the academic year, will be published every other week during the summer until September 7. The next Bulletin will be published Monday, June 29, and the deadline is Thursday, June 25. 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.

Professor of Biology Cara Wall-Scheffler was nominated and elected as a fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion, an organization committed to studies reflecting the conviction that the dialogue between science and religion is of wide social and cultural importance. Members of the society examine the relationship between science and religion from the perspective of many different disciplines, and membership includes scientists, theologians, historians, philosophers and others. Congratulations!

An op-ed by Brenda Salter McNeil, associate professor of reconciliation studies, titled, "'United’ States has never been honest about how hateful it is” was published in The Seattle Times in June 4, 2020.