The School of Nursing is in need of pregnant volunteers for a DNP class on Sunday, March 21 from 2-3 p.m. Volunteer subjects will be interviewed by the students, who will also measure your abdomen, listen for fetal heart tones, and ask questions. Compensation of $50 will be provided. If you or someone you know might be interested and willing to participate, please contact Amber Vermeesch, nursing, at vermeesc@up.edu.
Academics
Upcoming Zoom Updates for March
In the coming month, Zoom will release a number of new updates and features. You can find information on several of the most notable updates on the UP TechTalk site.
Career Center presents “Job Search 401 for the Class of ’21,” March 11
The Career Center is hosting Job Search 401 for the Class of ’21, a 3-part series to help graduating students prepare now for life after graduation. Topics include: career exploration, job search strategies, wellness, resumes/cover letters, what employers are hiring, and transitioning to life after college. The program begins on Thursday, March 11 from 2:30-3:30 p.m. via Zoom. Faculty and staff who know students who would benefit from the program are invited to encourage them to register no later than Tuesday, March 9. A registration link can be found here.
For more information, contact Amy Cavanaugh, Career Center, at cavanaug@up.edu.
Destination Declared workshop, March 8 and 10
The Career Center and the College of Arts and Sciences are hosting Destination: Declared – a 2 session workshop series designed to help students explore majors and choose one that will be a good fit. Faculty and staff who know students who may be thinking about changing their major and/or need to declare a major are asked to encourage them to participate.
For more information, contact Chelsea Chase, Career Center, at chase@up.edu.
Virtual Career Treks, March 4
The Career Center is collaborating with Pacific Northwest institutions to host a series of virtual career treks. By attending virtual career treks students will have an opportunity to: hear from employees about company culture and career paths, learn about internship and entry-level career opportunities and how to apply, and cultivate and expand their professional network. This week’s trek is on Thursday, March 4 from 4-5 p.m. with Tableau. Additional companies include Vacasa, PNNL, and the FBI.
For more information, contact Audrey Fancher, Career Center, at fancher@up.edu.
TLC Teaching Tip of the Week: Playing in the Classroom, Seriously
As we all skip, amble or trudge through our 4th semester of remote teaching, a recent essay from the teaching arm of The Chronicle of Higher Education offers ways to incorporate play into college classrooms. In the complete essay, linked here, author Sarah Rose Cavanaugh fleshes out each of the strategies offered in this streamlined version, and for most provides a research-based rationale and ideas on how to make it happen in a Zoom or Teams environment. For those who are content with just the facts, here are Cavanaugh’s 5 ideas/arguments for incorporating play into college classrooms, all of them tweakable for multiple disciplinary contexts:
- Play is a natural way to learn, as in doing so we are usually testing possibilities, strengthening cognitive and physical repertoires and imagining future scenarios that demand emergent knowledge and skills.
- Play offers mental breaks from dire news, a particularly compelling truth when students’ media feeds and daily conversations teem with danger and threat from phenomena over which they have very little—if any—control
- Take a few minutes (3-5 max) to have every one find a fun gif that either demonstrates a concept you are studying or captures how the learning is going, then do some screen-sharing in breakout rooms or with the whole group. It’s amazing how apt and memorable some of those gifs can be, so this strategy has the additional bonus of making course material adhere to brains in lasting ways.
- Use improv “warm up” or community-building activities and don’t call them icebreakers, as the first rule of icebreakers is that everyone hates icebreakers. Have students find an object in their room or home that could demonstrate a concept from the course; have a snowball discussion in which students move from pairs to quads to octets building on conversation about cases, examples or dilemmas relevant to concepts they are studying.
- Move, move, move: 30-second yoga stretches, twists or jumps are investments of time that re-start waning attention spans and bring everyone in on the oxygenating fun, even if a few videos turn quickly off.
Moment of (Sobering) Beauty: Ezekiel’s Valley of the Dry Bones
This week’s glimpse into The Saint John’s Bible is artist Donald Jackson’s re-imagining of the Valley of Dry Bones in the prophet Ezekiel’s vision. Notice the allusions to extermination of the planet (abandoned cars, oil spills) and its people (genocides in the Shoah and Rwanda). Musician Tyler Lawrence ’24, provides the haunting soundtrack.
Rank and Tenure: 2021 Tenure, Promotions
The provost’s office has announced the following promotions and grants of tenure, effective July 1, 2021:
- SimonMary Aihiokhai, theology: Tenure, Promotion
- Nicole E. Auxier, nursing: Tenure, Promotion
- Louisa Egan Brad, psychology: Tenure, Promotion
- Lizhong Hao, accounting: Tenure, Promotion
- David Turnbloom, theology: Tenure, Promotion
- Joshua Swidzinski, English: Tenure, Promotion
- Cara J. Poor, civil engineering: Tenure, Promotion
- Rev. Daniel J. Parrish, C.S.C., business: Tenure, Promotion
- Patricia McShane, philosophy: Tenure, Promotion
- Rachel Hutcheson, chemistry: Tenure, Promotion
“How High Are Your Mountains?” lecture, March 4
The Pamplin School of Business’ Learning Labs Series presents “How High Are Your Mountains?” on March 4 at 3 p.m. Celeste Mergens, CEO/Founder of Days for Girls, will share the tools that have helped facilitate the organization’s global conversations in tough situations. You will be inspired while also learning these techniques that apply to connections for work, relationships and intentional design. Register here.
ReadUP: Pick Up Your Reserved Book
If you reserved a copy of this year’s ReadUP book selection, How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, head over to the Clark Library to pick it up. You can check the library’s open hours here.
Didn’t reserve a book? No worries. You can read one of the many digital copies available through the library.
Book discussions for staff and faculty start Friday, February 26. You can find out more about them and register here. Other resources, including a reading guide, are available on the ReadUP website.
And don’t forget to mark your calendar for the conversation with Dr. Kendi via Zoom on Wednesday, March 31, at 5:15 p.m. as part of the Schoenfeldt Distinguished Writers Series.