UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

01-08-2018

Spring 2018 Provost’s Initiative for Undergraduate Research Recipients

The Provost’s office is pleased to announce recipients of the Spring 2018 Provost’s Initiative for Undergraduate Research awards. These faculty members have been selected to collaborate with and mentor an undergraduate on a co-designed research experience during the 2018 spring semester:

  • Ruth Dittrich, Economics: “Salmon recovery efforts in the Willamette River Basin. Will they withstand climate change?” with Clay Bozeman
  • Andrew Downs, Psychological Sciences: “The Relationship Between Different Types of Stressors and Mental Health Symptoms in College Students” with Paige Reohr & Kimberly Hubbard
  • Laura Dyer, Biology: “Evaluation of shear stress in the developing coronary arteries” with Kate Carpenter, Cole Malibiran, & Allegra VanderWilde
  • Louisa Egan Brad, Psychological Sciences: “Power, Privilege, and Defensiveness in Light of Psychology and Sociology” with Terese Foster
  • Christy Ivler, Mechanical Engineering: “System Identification Methods for a Hexacopter Unmanned Aerial System” with James Martin & Elizabeth Rowe
  • Laurie McLary, German Studies: “Second-Language Pedagogy in German Applied to a Course Revision to Include More Diverse Perspectives” with Emma Scheve
  • Jeff Meiser, Political Science: “Strategic Theory is Neither Strategic nor A Theory” with Sitara Nath
  • Martin Monto, Sociology: “The True Cost of College: Student Loan Debt and its Relationship to Depression, Anxiety, and Academic Performance” with Lauren Jones
  • Laura Mood, Nursing: “Enhancing educational capacity at Tipitaka Eye Hospital in rural Myanmar” with Henry Liang & Kaitlin Yap
  • Josh Swidzinski, English: “Abraham Cowley’s Pindarique Odes: A Digital Critical Edition” with Caroline Holyoak
  • Buck Taylor, Chemistry: “Computational Modeling of Olefin Metathesis Catalysts” with Sarah Zalucha, Christopher Elkhal, & Mitchell Law.

A reminder to faculty: applications for Summer 2018 Provost’s Initiative for Undergraduate Research awards are available now in the Undergraduate Research section here. Application for Summer 2018 are due February 28, 2018, at noon.

2017 University Staff Awards

Staff awards for 2017 were presented at the annual employees’ holiday banquet on Monday, December 18. The winners:

  • Carol Bruce won the Margaret W. Henzi Award for outstanding office/clerical employees, and was cited as “a valued member of our community, a treasured and loyal friend, a source of support and counsel, and an extraordinary ambassador for this University which she has so faithfully served.”
  • Peng “Mona” Wang won the Ted Deiss/Joyce and Virgil Dodson Outstanding Physical Plant Employee Award: “Among the University’s large team of dedicated custodial professionals, each of whom makes her or his own important contributions to our collective success, she has distinguished herself as one who is particularly loyal and dependable.”
  • The winner of the Hooyboer Outstanding Professional Staff Award: Allen Hansen, who joined the University of Portland in 2008 as a mechanical technician and now serves as technician supervisor in the Shiley School of Engineering. The Hooyboer Award honors the sort of dedication and commitment that drives and infuses the University’s best and most creative and visionary staffers.
  • Winning the Father Charles Miltner, C.S.C., Award: Sharon Hogan of the development team, who “works creatively and intentionally to ensure that donors are able to contribute to the University in ways that are deeply meaningful to them, while internally serving as a faithful champion of those donors’ personal passions and legacies.” Beginning with the late Fr. John Hooyboer, C.S.C., the first recipient, the award has been presented to diligent and creative men and women who have gone to sometimes extraordinary lengths to further the mission of the University. It is the highest employee honor bestowed by the University.
  • Adam Guggenheim, Anna Lageson-Kerns, Jose Nevarez, James Vega, Jose Velaszco, and Sam Williams were presented with the President’s Team Award “for their boundless energy and creativity in capturing and communicating the stories and settings that ideally portray the unique and special nature of the University and its community.”
  • The groundskeeping crew was presented with the President’s Team Award “for their outstanding, tireless work in enhancing and maintaining the University’s beautiful campus.”
  • Cross country head coach Rob Conner received a President’s Citation for his years of dedicated service and phenomenal success in both regional and national NCAA cross country competition.

See photos from the luncheon at this link.

For more information contact human resources at 8987 or hr@up.edu.

New Resources From Academic Technology Services & Innovations

To better serve the academic community, Academic Technology Services & Innovation will not offer drop-in workshops this term, according to Ben Kahn. Instead, ATSI is pleased to offer a catalog of on-demand professional development opportunities, available on your schedule, and designed to help faculty develop the skills to successfully integrate technology into their teaching. Our spring 2018 catalog includes training on Moodle (including the gradebook!), Office 365, WordPress, multimedia tools, recording video lectures, and more. Please use this link to view professional development offerings or request a session using the sign-up form at the bottom of the page. Sign up for a training you are interested in, and an ATSI staff member will reach out to you to schedule an individual or group training.

 

Time to Review Your W-2

The payroll office is in the process of producing W-2 forms, and ensure accurate information on their forms, employees are encouraged to carefully review their information, such as legal names, W-2 mailing addresses, social security numbers, and withholding W-4 allowances. Please submit any changes to the payroll office by January 17, 2018.

For faster service of the 2017 tax forms, please sign up for electronic delivery of W-2 forms. Please visit Self-Serve, Employee, Tax Forms, Electronic W-2 Consent (link). This remains in effect each year so you only must sign up once. The W-2’s will be available by January 31, 2018.

Submit Spring Butine Proposals and Reports through Moodle

The Committee on Teaching and Scholarship invites all regular faculty to submit spring cycle proposals to receive funding from the Arthur Butine Faculty Development Fund. Faculty can download Butine application materials, review selection criteria, and consult the timeline for applications by visiting this link to the Moodle site. Submissions of post-Butine reports, new Butine applications, and all supporting letters are also done through the Moodle site.
The deadline for submission through Moodle and the applicant’s respective dean and chair (if CAS) is no later than noon on Friday, February 16, 2018. Please note that applicants must discuss their Butine proposals with their respective deans prior to submitting applications for consideration.
Please contact Matthew R. Kuhn (TAS@up.edu) for further information.

Scheduling Library and Digital Lab Sessions

Ending one year leads to planning for the next! Now is a great time to schedule library instruction before the calendar fills up. The Clark Library offers instruction in two areas: information literacy and multimedia skills.

For information literacy, librarians collaborate with faculty to tailor sessions to students’ research needs. The Digital Lab coordinator provides assistance with creating assignments and instructs classes that have multimedia projects such as creating videos, digital posters, digital photography, and websites.

To request an information literacy session for your class, please email preferred dates and times to Heidi Senior at senior@up.edu. To arrange multimedia instruction, please email José Velazco at velazco@up.edu.

University of Portland Ranked Tops in Oregon by Kiplinger’s for 2018

According to Kiplinger’s Best College Values 2018, the University of Portland is the top ranked private university in Oregon for offering the best value for students based on academic quality, cost, and financial aid measures. The University was ranked 54th, rising four spots in the rankings, among all private universities nationwide. The University of Portland has been the top ranked private Oregon university for the past eight years, and has been ranked in the top 100 since Kiplinger’s began releasing its rankings of “Best Value Colleges.”

Kiplinger’s starts with data on nearly 1,200 public and private four-year schools, then narrows the list based on measures of academic quality. The quality criteria include admission rate (the percentage of applicants offered admission) and yield (the percentage of students who enroll out of those admitted), the four-year graduation rate, freshman retention rate, and student-to-faculty ratio.  Schools are then ranked on cost and financial aid measures, including the average student debt upon graduation and the median earnings of workers who started at a particular college 10 years earlier and who received federal financial aid. Quality criteria account for 55% of total points, and cost criteria account for 45%.

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance offers advice on managing money and achieving financial security, paying for college, and major purchases like automobiles and homes. The magazine has been published since 1947.

The complete rankings are available online at kiplinger.com/links/college.

Gonzaga Single Game Tickets on Sale Now

Fans, it is the day you all have been waiting for! Single game Gonzaga tickets are on sale starting Monday, January 8 at 11 a.m. Tickets are expected to sell out quickly so act fast! The men take on Gonzaga on Thursday, January 25. The game is set to begin at 8 p.m. For tickets and more information, go online to PortlandPilots.com/Tickets, visit the Pilots Box Office, or call (or text) 503-943-4687. Go Pilots!

 

CASE Gold, Bronze Awards

The marketing and communications office received notification of two awards in the 2018 Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District VIII Communication Awards competition:

  • The University’s quarterly journal, Portland Magazine, earned a Gold Medal in the “Print, General Interest Magazines, circulation 30,000-74,999” category for its spring 2017 issue, which was the last under the editorship of the late Brian Doyle. CASE’s District VIII represents 152 member institutions in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and all of western Canada.
  • The marketing and communications and development offices earned a Bronze Medal in the “Platinum: Best Practices in Fundraising” category for the “All Hands on Deck” campaign.

For more information contact marketing and communications at mktg@up.edu or x7202.

Brother Fulgence Dougherty, C.S.C., 1922-2017

Brother Fulgence (James) Dougherty, C.S.C., former director of international student services at the University of Portland, passed away at age 95 on Sunday, December 17, 2017, after a lengthy illness. Br. Fulgence spent 32 years at the University of Portland. From August 1978 to May 1992, he served as the director of the international student services program. With extensive cross-cultural experience from 30 years spent in East Pakistan, Bangladesh, Liberia, and Ghana, he was eminently qualified to assist foreign students in the transition to life and education in the United States. He was well-known for his tireless attention to a large number of students, many of them from the Middle East, as well as for his outreach to faculty and staff. After he left the program in May 1992, Br. Fulgence continued to serve at the University until 2009 as an assistant to the academic vice president, where he evaluated foreign transcripts. In 1988, he was awarded the University’s highest award for staff employees, the Rev. Charles Miltner, C.S.C. Administrative Award, presented to employees who have been of exemplary and outstanding service to the University.

Upon his retirement from the University, Br. Fulgence continued to live in Holy Cross Court for another year before moving to Columba Hall, Notre Dame, Indiana, in 2010. Because of increasing health care needs, Br. Fulgence moved to Dujarie House in 2016, where he passed away on December 17.

Please keep Br. Fulgence and his family and Holy Cross community in your thoughts and prayers.