Associate Professor of Music Dainius Vaičekonis cordially invites you to take a journey around the world with legendary American pianist, composer, and pedagogue Leopold Godowsky during a speical multi-media piano recital on Thursday, Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m. in Nickerson Studios. Dainius will perform Godowsky’s works inspired by various cultures and scenes of the countries which the composer visited. The performance will be accompanied by projected pictures and photos that reflect the content of the music. This concert is a celebration of Dainius’s project in Indonesia during his sabbatical and the release of his CD,“Godowsky’s Triakontameron,” with Centaur Records label which was published earlier this year.

Join the SPU Music Department and choirs in celebrating the beginning of the Advent and Christmas season with a concert on Monday, Nov. 25, 7:30 p.m. in First Free Methodist Church. Choirs will perform familiar carols in which all can join in singing.

Please encourage students thinking of participating in this year’s Social Venture Plan Competition to come and get free pizza and swag at the kickoff meeting on Thursday, November 14, 11:30 a.m.– 12:30 p.m. in McKenna Hall 117. Students will learn how to get involved in the competition where teams of students from different majors plan sustainable businesses that meet real needs and make a profit. Check out our website for more information!

A message from Facility and Project Management: As a reminder, and unless there is an event scheduled on EMS or a request via TMA, temperature in offices will be lowered during the Thanksgiving break from 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 27, through Sunday, Dec. 1. Offices located in buildings without networked temperature controls (i.e., houses that were converted to offices) are asked to turn their thermostat to 60 F before departing for Thanksgiving. 

Regarding the upcoming Christmas closure, please let us know via TMA if there is a date earlier than Dec. 24 when all of the staff in a building will be working from home and the building temperatuire can be turned down. This would help us save energy as many buildings' HVAC systems heat the whole building, even if just a few offices are occupied. 

Please mark your calendars for Thursday, Nov. 21, in Upper Gwinn, 2–3 p.m. for a town hall with President Porterfield and an update on the autumn Board of Trustees meeting.

A message from the Workday Implementation Team: The Falcon Flame team is hard at work testing SPU's business processes within the Workday environment. Thanks again for your patience with us on normal campus operations requests while we do this implementation work to update our business processes! Many operational changes are taking place to streamline those processes within the best practice models provided by Workday. Most of those are in the backend, but some will be visible to campus users. One notable change that will be coming in parallel with the Workday project, and in support of it, is transitioning all campus employees to a new semi-monthly payroll schedule. We are still ironing out the details on timing for the transition for each portion of campus, but look for information from Human Resources on this topic in the coming weeks.

Want to know more about the Workday Project or the Falcon Flame team? See the Project Overview page in our Workday wiki space.

Do you have time for a 4-question survey to help us keep campus informed about the project?

A message from the Office of Intercultural Programs: International Education Week is November 18–22 and the Office of Intercultural Programs (OIP) will host a series of events throughout the week. International Education Week is celebrated and hosted by university campuses across the nation and the goal is to highlight the global initiatives present in day-to-day campus life. It includes international students, study abroad participants, and faculty and staff from around the world. Here is a snapshot preview of what we have planned:

Prior to the Week: Global Photo Contest — We want to see how you have engaged globally! Submit your favorite photo showing us how you have participated in global education this past year. We will select one photo from each of the following categories: People, Places, Culture. Submissions can be made here and are due by 11:59 p.m. on  Friday, Nov. 15.
Monday (11/18): SPU International Staff and Faculty Poster Fair.
Tuesday (11/19): Featuring the Intercultural Club Council — Engage with some of our student intercultural clubs and organizations such as Vietnamese Student Association and African Student Association.
Wednesday (11/20): Exploring the World — Come learn about some of our cross-cultural study away opportunities.
Thursday (11/21): Culture Share — Students from the GS 1007: Cultural Adjustment class will share their final projects with our community.
Friday (11/22): Global Photo Contest winners announced via email.

Follow OIP’s Instagram for detailed information of each event throughout the week. Email oip@spu.edu if you have questions. We are excited to celebrate International Education Week with you all this year!

The Faculty/Staff Bulletin is published every Monday during the academic year or Tuesday if Monday is a holiday. The next deadline is Thursday, Nov. 14, and the next issue will be published Monday, Nov. 18. 

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.

Jennifer McKinney, professor of sociology, has been named Lead Advisor for the reimagined Community Profile Builder (CPB) for the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA). The ARDA strives to democratize access to the best data sets on religion, offering data on U.S. and world religions, as well as tools for students, researchers, church leaders, and congregations. Jennifer helped found ARDA when she was a graduate student at Purdue University and served as assistant director and interim director before coming to Seattle Pacific.

A newly released research study by Professor of Biology Tracie Delgado and undergraduate students identifying salmon mislabeling in Seattle grocery stores and sushi restaurants was covered by local and national media. The study, titled "Fishy Business in Seattle: Salmon mislabeling fraud in sushi restaurants vs grocery stores," was published by PLOS ONE on Nov. 6,  a peer-reviewed open access mega journal published by the Public Library of Science. The research group acquired salmon samples from 67 grocery stores and 52 sushi restaurants. DNA from each salmon sample was isolated and tested to identify the fish species. Overall, the study revealed Seattle sushi restaurants were far more likely to sell farmed salmon mislabeled as wild salmon as compared to grocery stores.

KING-5 TV interviewed Tracie and students for a news story that ran on Nov. 6, and KUOW-FM ran a story on Nov. 7. On Nov. 8, The Seattle Times published a story with an interview with Tracie titled "‘Wild’ salmon isn’t wild at 1 out of 3 Seattle sushi spots, study finds." The research study was also covered by Popular Science, Science Daily, and Consumer Affairs. More coverage of the story can be found on the Delgado Lab @ SPU.

Nate Hoover, program coordinator for the MFA in Creative Writing Program, explains his monthly cartoon: Be careful what you ask for when you ask an engineer. To see more of my cartoons, follow me on Instagram @hoovernathaniel.

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