SPU is hosting a food truck event on Wednesday, September 23, 5-9 p.m. in conjunction with the first day of new student Orientation. Five food trucks will be selling dinner on the 5th Avenue Streetscape, located between Weter and Marston Halls. Faculty and staff are invited. Seating will be available in Tiffany Loop and on the 3rd floor of Gwinn Commons. Visit the Orientation website to see the list of food trucks and their menus.

More

Campus Card Services is pleased to announce that a new campus currency called Falcon Funds was launched September 1. This new currency replaces both Advantage Points (for dining purchases) and Debit Dollars (for non-dining purchases). Falcon Funds are accepted all over campus and for all types of transactions (dining purchases are still tax free). Our hope is that a single campus currency will be less confusing, easier to use, and less restricted. Learn more.

More

Looking for a way to engage with new students?  For the first time, the Office of Student Programs is inviting staff and faculty to sign up to help new students move into their campus residence on Wednesday, September 23, between 3 and 7 p.m. Pick a two-hour shift (3-5 p.m. or 5-7 p.m.). Email Kristen Voetmann, Orientation director, at voetmannk@spu.edu with your name, preferred shift, and T-shirt size.

Early-bird tickets for SPU’s annual Sacred Sounds of Christmas concert are now available. This event sells out every year, so buy your tickets early. The concert is Monday, November 30, 7:30 p.m., in McCaw Hall at Seattle Center. Sacred Sounds of Christmas features the best of traditional Advent and Christmas carols from around the world, performed by the Music Department's nationally recognized student and faculty musicians. For the first time, SPU’s Gospel Choir will participate in the concert. Buy your tickets online.

More

University Services is pleased to announce that we have partnered with a new company, Canteen, to update and expand the campus snack vending program. Sixteen new snack and drink machines have been installed across campus, featuring traditional snacks, healthy snack/drink combos, milk, and fresh-brewed coffee. All machines are equipped with campus card readers that accept Falcon Funds. Please check the vending website for a complete list of vending locations. 

The Falcons invite all faculty and staff to join us for another exciting year of SPU athletics, and it won't cost you a dime. Faculty and staff receive complimentary general admission tickets (including spouse and dependent children up to a maximum of four tickets) to all regular-season home events in Brougham Pavilion and home soccer games at Interbay Stadium. Simply show your staff I.D. at the ticket window.

From Conference Services: As a new academic year is about to begin and event requests are coming in, it’s a good time for a few reminders about requesting space on campus. All space requests for meetings and events can be made through SPU Room Finder. For general campus space (classrooms, meeting rooms, etc.) the typical response time for a request is two business days. Requests for Upper Gwinn may take a bit longer, as the space is in high demand and many times Conference Services needs to consult with other event requestors and service providers to confirm all event details before putting the space on hold. Once you receive a “Hold Email,” pay close attention to the deadline date of keeping or releasing the requested date, as other clients may be waiting for the same date. Please remember to wait for an official confirmation before moving forward with the planning of any event. If you have questions, contact Conference Services at 206-281-2187 or conferenceservices@spu.edu.

If you are planning an event in Martin Square, Tiffany Loop, Fifth Avenue Streetscape, SUB lawn, or other outdoor space on campus, reserve it through SPU Room Finder. Submitting an event through Room Finder allows you to book space and send the information to the SPU Master Calendar (if appropriate) at the same time. All events held on campus can now be entered through Room Finder, and all SPU-sponsored events not on campus can be posted directly through the SPU Master Calendar by selecting “Submit an Event.”

More

Thursday, September 24 
Men's soccer vs Northwest Nazarene, Interbay Stadium, 7:30 p.m.
Women’s volleyball vs Concordia (Ore.),  Brougham Pavilion, 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, September 26
Women’s volleyball vs Western Oregon, Brougham Pavilion, 2 p.m.
Men's soccer vs Concordia (Ore.), Interbay Stadium, 7 p.m.

For the latest in Falcon sports, visit the website.

More

The Faculty/Staff Bulletin is published weekly during the academic year. 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 next deadline is Thursday, September 24. The next Bulletin will be published Monday, September 28.

The SPU Staff Council named Danielle “Dani” Richmond, student employment coordinator in Student Financial Services, as the August Staff Member of the Month. Dani oversees the university’s student employment program and has been the project lead on the new SPULink website. Read more about Dani on the Staff Council website. Congratulations!

More

An article by Rolin Moe, assistant professor and director of Educational Technology and Media, was recently published in the online digital humanities journal Hybrid Pedagogy. His essay, “Rationalizing Sisyphus,” takes a critical look at a recent spate of thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and educators who believe failure should be repurposed as a positive attribute for schooling. By deconstructing the mythology around an oft-quoted Samuel Beckett paragraph ending in "fail better," Rolin engages educational scholarship, educational psychology, and critical theory to question why our education system wants to celebrate failure when its structure is designed to punish failure. The journal article is open-access and can be found online.

More

Professor of Geography Kathleen Braden was in Budapest on September 1 to give a presentation titled “Environmental Governance of Recreational Hunting in Russia” for the Geographies of Nature Session at the fifth European Geography Congress.

Professor of Sociology Jennifer McKinney recently presented a paper titled “Beyond Religion: Teaching Data and Research Skills with the Association of Religion Data Archives (theARDA.com)” at the 2015 American Sociological Association meetings in Chicago.

Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering Don Peter team-taught a weeklong course on entrepreneurial leadership to engineering students at the Acropolis Institute of Technology and Research at Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India, last February. Don joined a team of three other instructors from the Bellevue-based International School of Entrepreneurial Leadership (ISOEL). His course was the third and final part of a three-week entrepreneurial leadership course offered to Indian university students through ISOEL. He led sessions on personal and business ethics and fundamentals of starting a successful business venture. In an appropriate and low-key way, these courses allowed students to see how principles based on a Christian worldview can lead to business success. The Indian students were very enthusiastic to learn how to become independent venture leaders. Their final assignment was to create a model for a new socially-conscious business appropriate for their culture and location. While in India, Don also attended a one-day conference on entrepreneurial developments in south Asia where representatives from a number of countries gave presentation on what they are doing to empower people with economic opportunities. Especially emphasized in both his course and in the conference was what we call “social venture” and they call “social entrepreneurship.”

The Office of Human Resources would like the SPU community to join us in welcoming the following new staff members.

Kyle Jacobsen, route maintenance, Building Maintenance
Bobbi Knudsen, women’s basketball assistant coach, Athletics 
Cara Lord, gymnastics instructor, Athletics
Jordan Wallace, coordinator of housing and meal plan customer service, University Services

The Herald (Everett, Washington) published a story obituary on School of Education Certification Officer Greg Gelderman, who died September 1 in a car-bicycle accident in Mattawa, Washington. A memorial service for Greg was held September 12 at Westgate Chapel in Edmonds, Washington.

More