A message from Human Resources: Open Enrollment is now underway and runs until Nov 1. This is your opportunity to make changes to your benefits election, including medical, dental, vision, and flexible spending accounts executed through Banner. We have NEW Voluntary Life, AD&D, and other voluntary benefit providers. This will require new enrollment for 2025 through Banner. Learn more about 2025 Open Enrollment and instructions for using Banner to make changes. Watch for HR Open Enrollment emails this week!

To help with your benefit decisions, Human Resources will host its annual Benefits Fair over two days, Tuesday, Oct. 22, and Wednesday, Oct 23, 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. in Upper Gwinn. Take a few moments to stroll around the fair with your co-workers. This will be an opportunity to talk with benefits providers from Aetna, HSA Bank, Delta Dental, VSP, Transamerica, and more. Learn about changes in our wellness plan, prescription drug cost saving opportunities, new voluntary benefit providers, and more. There will be raffle gifts at each table, including two opportunities to win Kraken tickets!

Benefits Seminars: (Enter a chance to win two Kraken tickets by attending a Benefits Seminar!)

• 11:30 a.m. Aetna Program Features (Aetna Health & Voluntary Plans)
• 12 p.m. Retirement Plan Essentials (Transamerica)
• 12:30 p.m. Taking Full Advantage of Your Health Accounts (HSA Bank)
• 1 p.m. Aetna Wellness Program (Aetna Wellness)

A message from Computer and Information Systems: For Fall 2024, the AV systems in Otto Miller Hall 109 and Eaton Hall 112 were upgraded with new hybrid features. Both rooms have new cameras and microphones and now support hybrid classes and events, including conferencing, live-streaming, and recording. Connect easily via USB to the in-room PC or your laptop. More information on the upgrades can be found online.

As part of SPU's celebration of International Education Week (November 18–22), the Office of Intercultural Programs would like to feature stories of our international staff and faculty — especially those who originally came to the United States as students. Why did you choose to come to the U.S.? How has your cultural identity shaped who you are? What do you want to share with our students? If you are interested in sharing your story, please contact Miriam Schmidt in the Office of Intercultural Programs at mschmidt@spu.edu.  We will likely be hosting a poster display of these stories, and this will not require a lot of your time. Many thanks!

A message from Health Services: Our local Safeway pharmacy team will be on campus Oct. 22-23 from 11 a.m.–3 p.m. in lower Watson Hall (beneath Health Services) to provide a wide variety of vaccines to faculty, staff, and students. Please sign up for an appointment spot using the specific date links below. Bring your insurance card as most vaccines are covered by insurance. This is a great time to get updated on your flu vaccine, COVID-19 booster, tetanus booster, shingles, or any other routine vaccine you may need. Sign up today or walk-in for an appointment.

Tuesday, Oct. 22. Sign up online.

Wednesday, Oct. 23. Sign up online.

Join the SPU Library in celebrating Open Access Week! Together with Educational Technology Services (ETM) and librarian colleagues, we’ll work with you to self-archive your scholarship and increase discoverability. We also hope this will benefit those who might have no other way to access it. There will be a short overview of self-archiving at 11 a.m. Bring your laptop and either drop-in or stay the entire time. We look forward to coming together as a community to further the work of open access. Coffee, tea, and cookies will also be available. We look forward to seeing you there!

Thursday, October 24, 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Library - the ETM offices (lower level)

Please join the Seattle Pacific Seminary for its first public lecture of the year on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 7 p.m., in the First Free Methodist Church sanctuary. The speaker is Dr. Richard Middleton who will present the lecture, “Who Can Stand before YHWH, This Holy God?: The Challenge of Ark Narrative for Our Times (1 Samuel 4-6)." This lecture will explore how the holiness of God calls our polarizing ideologies into question. The respondent for this lecture will be Sara Koenig, SPU professor of biblical studies.

The Faculty/Staff Bulletin is published every Monday during the academic year or Tuesday if Monday is a holiday. The next deadline is Thursday, Oct. 24. The next issue will be published Monday, Oct. 28. 

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.

In August, Alberto Ferreiro, professor emeritus of history, spent two weeks in Salamanca, Spain, doing research at the Pontifical University of Salamanca and then presented a paper at the XIX International Conference at Oxford University. The paper, titled “Canon 17 of the Fourth Council of Toledo (633), the Apocalypse, and the Visigothic Liturgy," has gone through a peer review and will be published in the journal, Studia Patristica (Peeters/Oxford).

Here is the paper's abstract: The academic consensus is that the Fourth Council of Toledo (633) was one of several councils that met in Visigothic Hispania and had a substantial impact in several areas of ecclesiastical life. A primary one is the development of the Visigothic liturgy to foster more uniformity of structure and ritual. The influential role of Isidore of Seville who presided over the council is universally acknowledged. This was one of several major phases that the liturgy of Hispania experienced that was called thereafter by several names —Visigothic, Isidorean, Hispanic, Mozarabic; today it is known as the Hispano-Mozarabic Rite.

Among the canons promulgated on the liturgy, Canon 17 has been perplexing because of the problem it addressed that on the surface seems so out of place for the seventh century. The bishops had to uphold the Johannine authorship and the inclusion of the apocalypse in the canon of the New Testament and its use in the liturgy. On the face of it, such questions of canonicity and authorship of the whole of the New Testament seemed to have been settled already. This canon presents questions that up to now no scholar has ventured to answer adequately. Are the offending priests members of a sect in Hispania? Were there debates over New Testament books in Visigothic Hispania? Why, furthermore, were they refusing to read the apocalypse at Easter or Pentecost? Were there external influences that can possibly explain this position? There are answers to these questions that in this brief note are presented to bring clarification to this fascinating canon.

On October 12, Professor of Art Katie Kresser delivered a keynote address at Calvin University's 2024 Kuyers Conference on Teaching and Learning. This year's conference theme was "Integrated Education in a Reductionist Age." Katie's talk was titled "Aesthetic Conditioning in a Reductionist Age."