A message from Student Involvement and Leadership: Following a successful New Student Orientation schedule shift last fall, we are excited to announce that New Student Orientation will once again take place over three days this September (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, September 27–29) to better accommodate our students and their families. Faculty Council and Senior Leadership have approved moving the opening ceremony for the 2024-25 academic year to Saturday, September 28, 2024.

As you remember, New Student Convocation is where we join to formally welcome our new students into the academic community at SPU by circling around them, visualizing the care and wisdom that will surround our new students throughout their time at SPU. This ceremony has proven to be a meaningful experience for our new students, their families, and our faculty and is a great powerful connection to Ivy Cutting at the end of a student’s journey with us.

Faculty are invited to join our students and families for lunch in Tiffany Loop beginning at 12 p.m., with the convocation and Circle of Matriculation ceremony occurring at 1:30 p.m. We hope you’ll be able to join us for the community meal; it’ll certainly make gathering for the convocation processional that much easier.

Saturday will also have additional opportunities for faculty to engage with new students (including UCOL Connections) and their families (Faculty Academic Forum). More details will be provided in the coming weeks. Questions or ideas can be directed to Orientation@spu.edu or Kevin Deschler, assistant director, Office of Student Involvement and Leadership, at deschlerk@spu.edu. Thanks!!

The Faculty/Staff Bulletin is on its summer schedule and will be published every other week through September 9. The next deadline is Thursday, Aug. 29. Due to the Labor Day holiday, the next issue will be published Tuesday, Sept. 3.

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.

Thanks to the support of Lilly Endowment Inc. and Wake Forest University, Seattle Pacific was awarded an Institutional Impact Grant for more than $600,000 as part of the Educating Character Initiative (ECI). 

The grant, titled "Classrooms that Cultivate Character: A Psychologically Informed Intervention and Assessment of Christian Virtues," will be led by School of Psychology, Family, and Community professors Brittany Tausen and Thane Erickson and assistant professor of special education Krystle Jalalian-Chursky.

The description of the project states, "Christian universities champion the importance of character education, but often lack explicit models to cultivate and assess character transformation. The current project will implement and assess a curriculum intervention informed by psychological science that targets five change modalities (situations, cognitions, affect, behavior, incentives) to enhance seven institutionally championed virtues (faith, hope, love, courage, justice, wisdom, temperance). The efficacy of this approach will be evaluated and disseminated utilizing our interdisciplinary expertise in mixed methods research and curricular development."

The work of the three-year project will be updated at cultivatecharacter.com.

ECI awarded $15.6 million in Institutional Impact Grants to 24 projects among 29 colleges and universities seeking to undertake a substantial and sustained effort to educate character in undergraduate populations across their institutions. These three-year grants range from $100,000 to $1 million. They will provide support to enable institutional leaders, faculty, and staff to infuse character in undergraduate curricula and programming in ways that align organically with their mission, context, and culture.

Congratulations! 

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

Daniel Adebayo, technology support analyst I, Computer & Information Systems
AJ Wright, coordinator, campus planning & property, Facility & Project Management

Professor of Music Carlene Brown was interviewed for a story on local public radio station KNKX-FM about music therapy titled "Music therapy uses sounds, lyrics and emotions to help patients." The story aired on Aug. 14. 

An article by Katherine Douglass titled "Pub Choir: Simply the best!" was published online by the Presbyterian Outlook. In the article, Katherine writes about her recent experience in this global musical event and the lessons it offers to church congregations. Katherine is the associate professor of educational ministry and practical theology.