President Porterfield will hold a post-BOT Town Hall on Thursday, March 6, 2:30–3:30 p.m. in Upper Gwinn. She will give an update on the winter Board of Trustees meeting. The presentation will be recorded and shared after the meeting for those unable to attend.

The Office of Student Ministries invites faculty and staff to an Ash Wednesday service on March 5, 12–12:30 p.m. in First Free Methodist Church. 

A message from Computer and Information Systems: Please note that the Helpdesk will be closed between March 13–25. During this period, all phone calls will be sent to voicemail and all assistance will be by appointment only through Helpdesk tickets. To schedule an appointment, please use our booking system where you can choose from available 30-minute slots between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. Appointments can be scheduled up to three hours in advance. Once you book your appointment, a ticket will be automatically generated to notify us. You can email us at help@spu.edu  to create a ticket and you can make an appointment online. If you have any questions, please let us know. We look forward to assisting you at your scheduled time. Thank you!

A message from the Workday Implementation Team: We have started the Test phase of the project that will run until May. There are two types of testing during this stage: End-to-End and Payroll Parallel. In End-to-End testing, we test all the business processes from start to finish to ensure they proceed through all stages and handoffs correctly. After that, we will do Payroll Parallel testing. This is the phase where we run a full payroll calculation process in Workday, with real timesheet and leave hours from Banner and compare it to what Banner calculated for the same period to ensure that each employees’ payroll is exactly correct in the new system.

With this stage of testing, our testing pool for Workday is growing as well. The team has already reached out to some individuals to ask if they would be willing to test their normal activities in Workday, but we have room for some more eyes on the system too. If you’d be willing to commit to 2-4 hours of testing per week (often as scheduled one hour meetings) for 4-6 weeks, please email workday@spu.edu and we’ll connect you with the appropriate testing team for your role.

You are invited to join SPU colleagues at upcoming planned casual gatherings as part of our Journeying Together!

• Bring your own lunch and join us on Monday, March 10, 12:30–1:30 p.m. in the SUB Fireside Room. We would like to have time just to enjoy each other’s company over lunch! (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Planning ahead, mark your calendars for similar times together in April and May.

• A time of prayer and fellowship on Wednesday, April 9, 7– 8 a.m. in McKenna 117
• Bring your own lunch and join us on Thursday, May 22, 12:30–1:30 p.m. in the SUB Fireside Room

Join the SPU Library, SPU Store, and Educational Technology & Media in celebrating Open Education Week by participating in a workshop in the ETM offices (Library lower level) on Thursday, March 6, 1– 2 p.m. We will explore open textbooks across different disciplines to support your upcoming textbook adoptions. Open textbooks are free online resources and open licensing allows them to be used, shared, and adapted, providing increased accessibility, cost savings for students, and flexibility for faculty in matching course content to objectives. We look forward to seeing you there! 

Workshop registration link: https://forms.office.com/r/wti8zUELwR

Please note that registration is encouraged to help us prepare, but it’s not required. Walk-ins are always welcome.

Seattle Pacific Art Center Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by artist May Kytonen. "Field of Belonging" is a collection of works that examine identity, memory, and connection. From embroidered floor plans layered with Chinese lattice designs to wax-resist constellations, each piece serves as a space to explore questions of home, heritage, and belonging. These works act as vessels for ancestral memory, tracing the connections that bind us to place and a sense of belonging.

The exhibit runs through Friday, March 7. SPAC Gallery is located at 3 West Cremona Street and is open Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m.–4 p.m. or by appointment.

An article co-authored by Family & Consumer Science adjunct faculty member Maggie McGinnis was published in the Journal of Food Science. The article is titled, "Current and potential future uses of sorghum to increase nutrient density for human foods."

An article by Kimberly Sawers, professor of accounting and management, titled, “Faith-Based Business Education,” was published in the January issue of Faith in Business Quarterly Volume 23.3 – FIBQ.

Roger Schoenhals, former director of Planned Giving and the Seattle Pacific Foundation, died on Feb. 14, 2025. The son of longtime Music Professor Lawerence Schoenhals, Roger graduated from Seattle Pacific in 1961. He was an ordained Free Methodist minister, Bible teacher, and former editor of Light and Life magazine. He became a leader in the field of planned giving as the founder and editor of Planned Giving Today, a nationally recognized resource for training, motivation, and collaboration. He received the Frank Minton Professional Achievement Award from the Washington Planned Giving Council in 2013.

Roger served as director of Planned Giving and the Seattle Pacific Foundation from 1986 until 1990. He also published numerous e-books of meditations on the Lord’s Prayer, the Psalms, and life-lesson books, such as Dogs, Camping, and Other Candid Tales and Hikes, Flights, and Lookout Stories. His book, Awake, My Soul, a series of 102 meditations on the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossians, was published in 2014.

A celebration of life will be held Saturday, March 8, 2 p.m. at Warm Beach Free Methodist Church in Stanwood, Washington. All are welcome.

Read more about Roger in his online obituary.