Featured

The Dundon-Berchtold Institute will welcome Susan Sygall for an Ethics Week Conversation on Monday, February 3, at 7:15 p.m., in the Brian Doyle Auditorium. Sygall is a world-renowned disability rights and leadership advocate, a MacArthur Fellow, and an honorary doctorate recipient at the University’s May 2019 commencement.

While the event is free and open to all, the Dundon-Berchtold Institute asks that attendees please RSVP using this link.

Sygall is CEO and co-founder of Mobility International USA, a non-profit organization advancing disability rights and leadership globally. She has co-authored numerous publications and lectured throughout the world on a variety of topics related to inclusive international development, women’s leadership, and disability rights. She is a member of the International Women’s Forum, and also received the President’s Award from President Bill Clinton at the White House for her active role throughout our country and the world in empowering people with disabilities.

For more information, contact Hannah Pick, Dundon-Berchtold Institute, at x7825 or pick@up.edu.

For more information contact Kaitlin Bourne, recreational services, at bourne@up.edu or the UP team captain, Hans Nordstrom, mathematics, at x7295 or nordstro@up.edu.

Tara Prestholdt, biology, won the 2019 Excellence in Teaching Award at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association of College and University Biology Educators (ACUBE). The award is offered annually to honor faculty who both practice and promote effective, innovative teaching in the biology classroom.

While the entire campus is no doubt aware of Prestholdt’s polymathic proficiency, mathematics professor Stephanie Salomone explains it best: “Tara is a true mentor to her undergraduates. Tara’s expectations for her co-researchers are high. They will not just do good science, but they will be able to explain their work to people who are as far as possible from experts. They will not just enjoy science, or like science; they will find science exciting,the process of discovery exhilarating, and the difficult cognitive task of explaining science to laymen motivating. Every student that I’ve known who has worked in Tara’s lab has come out skilled in scientific research, and eager to get back into the lab or the field to do more.

“Further, Tara Prestholdt is dedicated to improving undergraduate education on campus and beyond. Tara’s work on the NSF-funded REFLECT project has helped transform the culture of undergraduate STEM education at UP into one that responds to the evidence of what makes for great teaching – active, hands-on, engaged approaches to instruction. She is a supportive mentor for other faculty who are new to evidence-based practices, she is innovative in her own approaches to teaching, and she is a leader who deeply deserves this recognition.”

All students, faculty, and staff are invited to participate in UP’s sixth annual ReadUP program. This year’s selection is The Leavers by Lisa Ko, who will speak on February 10, 2020 as part of this year’s annual Schoenfeldt Writers Series.

The Leavers, Ko’s 2017 debut novel, was a National Book Award finalist, winner of the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction, and was named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed, Bustle, Electric Literature, and others. According to a review in The Atlantic, “For topicality, Lisa Ko’s novel The Leavers, about an undocumented mother who suddenly disappears and the young American-born son she leaves behind, could hardly be better timed.”

ReadUP is the University’s annual celebration of literature in which the entire local campus community — students, faculty, and staff — are invited to read “one book together.” Free copies of each year’s selection are distributed by the Clark Library and in residence halls, and book discussion groups are formed in the residence halls and at faculty/staff brown bag lunches. The campaign culminates with a public lecture and discussion by the book’s author, as part of the Schoenfeldt Distinguished Visiting Writers Series. The author’s visit to the UP campus — and the efforts to get each year’s riveting selection into the hands, heads and hearts of UP students, faculty and staff — is sponsored by the Schoenfeldt Distinguished Writers Series, the Office of the Provost, Garaventa Center for Catholic Intellectual Life & American Culture, Clark Library, Office of Residence Life, the Office of University Relations, and the Office of Marketing and Communications.

To order your free copy, please click here. Orders will be taken starting Monday, October 21 through Friday, November 1. Starting Monday, November 11, students living in residence halls will pick up their books from their hall directors and for everyone else, books can be picked up from the Clark Library, any time between 7:30 a.m. and 10 p.m., at the main circulation desk.

All are welcome to join student activities in celebrating their annual Día de Muertos event, a night full of cultural celebration with authentic cuisine, educational performances, sugar skull decorating, music, and so much more, on Friday, November 1, at 6 p.m., in Bauccio Commons. Family members and the public are free to attend. To showcase a photo of a loved one for display the altar please email Stephen at laphen21@up.edu. Don’t forget to RSVP on Engage and please encourage participation from your students!