The next Chapel is Tuesday, Oct. 7, 11:10 a.m. in First Free Methodist Church. Alumni and students will share on the topic, "Growing in your faith during college. The complete Chapel schdedule is available online. All faculty and staff are invited to join a community lunch each week after Chapel in the SUB Fireside Room. Bring your lunch and share fellowship with others across campus.

A message from Educational Technology and Media: Over the summer, Canvas rolled out updates, and we also upgraded Teams Meetings and OneDrive integrations. In this session, we’ll update you on what’s changed and show you how to use these new tools in your courses.

Workshop Options:
1-2 p.m. On campus at ETM, lower level of the library
3-4 p.m. Online via Teams (link will be emailed after registration).

Registration link: https://forms.office.com/r/wti8zUELwR

(Can't make it? You can request the recordings through the registration link or by contacting ETM at etmhelp@spu.edu.)

Mark your calendar for these upcoming workshops for Autumn Quarter:

Thursday, October 30: Making Thinking Visible: Designing Annotation Assignments in Canvas, 1-2 p.m. on campus at ETM, lower level of the library or 3-4 p.m. online via Teams.
Thursday, November 13: Sharing Strategies: Online Group Presentations and Peer Feedback with Teams & Canvas, 1-2 p.m. on campus at ETM, lower level of the library or 3-4 p.m. online via Teams.

The library is hosting "LibraryFest" on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 4–6 p.m. Learn about services, spaces, staff, and resources with games, learning activities, challenges, and prizes. Connect with other campus resources such as the Center for Success, IT, and student media groups. There will be free pizza and snacks.

For marine biologist and SPU alumna Rachel Jordan, science and Scripture are means of knowing creation and Creator. In a public lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 8, at 3:30 p.m. in Demaray Hall 150, Jordan will share from her new book, If the Ocean Has a Soul, as part of a Faith and Science panel discussion with Professor of Biology Eric Long, Professor of Biblical Studies Sara Koenig, ecology and theology double-major Olivia Clark, and President Deana Porterfield. The panel discussion will be moderated by Professor of Biology Cara Wall-Scheffler.

A message from Health Services: Our local Safeway pharmacy team will be coming to campus to provide a wide variety of vaccines to faculty, staff, and students. The dates are Tuesday, Oct. 21, and Wednesday, Oct. 22, 11 a.m.–2 p.m. in the Health Services lobby (Watson Hall). You must sign up for an appointment using the specific date links below and bring your insurance cards, as most vaccines are covered by insurance. This is a great time to update your flu vaccine, COVID-19 booster, tetanus booster, shingles, or any other routine vaccine you may need. Sign up today!

Tuesday, Oct. 21: Sign up here.

Wednesday, Oct. 22: Sign up here.

Please join the Seattle Pacific Seminary for the Alfred S. Palmer Lectureship on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 7 p.m., in the First Free Methodist Church sanctuary. Dr. Stephen Newby, former SPU professor of music, and Prof. Robert Darden will discuss their new book, Soon & Very Soon: The Transformative Music and Ministry of Andraé Crouch. The book highligts how the groundbreaking gospel artist reshaped American music through his innovative compositions, performances, and multiracial vision with examples drawn from his career.

A message from Information Technology. As a reminder, all university devices must be updated to Windows 11 by Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. We began communicating this requirement last academic year and now we are approaching the final deadline. If you have not yet scheduled a time with IT to perform the upgrade, please be aware that this is a hard cut-off date.

• Microsoft will officially end service for Windows 10 on Oct. 14.
• To prevent service disruptions, IT requires that all devices be upgraded by Oct.10.
• You will lose access to your device once Windows 10 reaches end-of-support, unless it is upgraded to Windows 11.
• Users who have not updated may lose access to critical university resources.

For those pressed for time, IT can provide a like-for-like device swap (same make and model). If you choose this option, please ensure all of your files are backed up beforehand.

If you are unsure whether your device has already been upgraded, or if you still need to schedule an appointment, please contact IT Support as soon as possible.

Thank you for your cooperation in keeping our technology secure and supported.

The Faculty/Staff Bulletin is published every Monday during the academic year. The next deadline is Thursday, Oct. 9, and the next issue will be published Monday, Oct. 13.

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 and will be published for two consecutive issues; they can be resubmitted for an additional two weeks.

Christy Barnes, adjunct instructor and Center for Professional Education coordinator, gave a presentation at the recent city of Edmonds "Write on the Sound" conference. Her presentation was titled, "This is the Place: The Power of Setting in Your Poetry." This is the description of her presentation: Poets are invited in this session to focus on the poetry of place and the power of a strong setting. Context will draw upon both the presenter's chapbook, Commodore Rookery, and relevant examples by well-known poets. Take away points include tips to revitalize the emotional landscape of attendees' poems by considering the power of setting; identifying places they feel drawn to and explore the themes inherent in these strong connections to place and landscape; and examples from modern poets to help strengthen and revise their drafts.

Professor of Psychology Paul Youngbin Kim was recently awarded a Council for Christian Colleges and Universities Networking Grant to support the creation of a gratitude intervention for chronic pain across cultures. Team members on this project include several colleagues from universities in the U.S. and South Korea.

An article by Martin Jimenez, program director for Pivot NW Research at Seattle Pacific Seminary, titled "Lavish Invitation and Celebration," was published in Christ & Cascadia.

An article co-authored by Joshua Tom, associate professor of sociology, titled “Religion and Racial Bias in Artificial Intelligence Large Language Models,” was published in Socius, the open-access journal of the American Sociological Association. The co-authors were Todd W. Ferguson (Rice University) and Brandon C. Martinez (Providence College). Tom explains the article. "A growing body of research has demonstrated that LLMs replicate preexisting social biases around gender and race; we extend the analysis to include religious identities. We prompted multiple LLMs to generate sermons, specifying different combinations of racial and religious identities of the hypothetical religious leader. We then assessed the readability scores of 175 synthetic sermons to see whether LLMs create texts of varying complexity based on race or religion."

Humanities Washington has named Professor Emeritus of History Bill Woodward to his tenth tour with the statewide Speakers Bureau. During 2026-28, Woodward will be booked by libraries, museums, and other community organizations to talk about, “The Spokane Olympian Who Shot Off His Hand and Transformed the Army.” James Drain, the focus of Bill’s current research, was disabled in a hunting accident, but recovered to lead significant reforms of both the Washington state National Guard and the U.S. Army. He then headed America’s gold-medal marksmanship team in the 1908 London Olympics. He served in Europe in World War I — the only disabled officer at the front.

Cathi Davis, principal of Ruby Bridges Elementary in Woodinville, Washington, in the Northshore School District and a PhD education candidate at SPU, was recently named the 2025 Elementary Principal of the Year by the Association of Washington School Principals. She was interviewed about her career in education and her doctoral program for SPU Stories.

Alumna Rachel G. Jordan is the author of a new book, If the Ocean Has a Soul. The marine biologist and lay theologian has been featured on podcasts with Esau McCaulley and Annie F. Downs. She was interviewed about her time at SPU and her journey to a career in science for SPU Stories in an article titled, "From Omelettes to Oceans."