01-10-2022

In this ongoing series, Marketing & Communications will introduce design and brand assets to help you with your marketing needs. 

This week: Virtual Zoom Backgrounds

Are there several Zoom meetings in your foreseeable future? Sigh 🙄. We know how you feel. But… you can download our brand-approved virtual backgrounds for your Zoom calls to add some visual appeal to those meetings!

Simply visit ShareUP, download your virtual backgrounds, and upload them to Zoom while in a meeting. 

Directions: 

• Navigate to the virtual backgrounds in ShareUP, by selecting this link. 
• Select “ShareUP Login” to gain access.
• Once you are logged in, hover over the thumbnail with the template you’d like to use and select the download icon (bottom right corner).

The virtual background should download directly to your computer. If you need help installing your virtual background in Zoom here are the instructions.

Reach out to Chris Long (longc@up.edu) with any questions.

What do Chicken Nuggets, MTV, and smartphones have in common? A lot more than you think. Join us as’UP’s Eric Anctil, education, explains the paths humans travel as they invent and industrialize technologies to solve problems, but often create engagement gluttony in the process. Anctil fears a future in which technology is cancerous—starti​ng with benign, healthy cells and becoming a metastasized tumor that consumes everything it touches. With a sense of humor and an unblinking examination of everyday technologies, Anctil will provoke and inspire with a series of action items designed to help us seize control of the future, work to be the processors of our own experiences, and retreat from the gluttony of constant engagement. Tuesday, January 25 at 5:00 p.m., Doyle Auditorium (Dundon-Berchtold 004). Or virtual livestream at: uportland.zoom.us/j/93735286315. Free and open to all. Masks required. For ADA accommodations or more info: up.edu/garaventa or 503-943-7702. Co-sponsored by Beckman Humor Project and the Garaventa Center.

The UP Writing Center—an awesome peer-tutoring resource that can support student writers from any discipline—opens Jan. 18, for the semester. We will be continuing our multimodal approach this term, where students can choose to meet their Writing Assistant online (via Zoom) or in person in the Learning Commons (BC 163). We count on faculty to get the word out to students about this valuable resource, so please consider encouraging your students to seek us out. Our 22 Writing Assistants (WAs), representing 14 majors and all five UP colleges, can help writers from all disciplines, at all levels, and at any stage of the process, from brainstorming ideas to understanding assignments, and from outlining to revising. Students can book appointments through our online scheduler and explore our website for writing-related resources.  

One of the best means of getting students to bring their work-in-progress to the Writing Center is for faculty themselves to encourage them to do so (some professors require at least one visit; some give extra credit to students for using our services). When talking to your students about the UP Writing Center, you might keep in mind the following:

• Our goal is not just to inspire better papers, but create better writers. This means we don’t “fix” papers; we work with students to improve their overall writing skills for this and future tasks.
• Writing assistance isn’t just for students with major grammar or mechanical problems. Instead, we focus on higher-order concepts such as argument, organization, development, and other areas. Even accomplished writers can make progress on their work in a half-hour session.
• While our Writing Assistants represent most majors as well as the professional schools, they are trained in a semester-long course to work with students from any discipline.
• When a student meets with a Writing Assistant to discuss a paper for your course, you’ll get a copy of the conference report—a brief summary of what the student and Writing Assistant worked on (This is an easy way of keeping track of who visited the WC for assigning extra credit).

A highly effective way to familiarize your students with the Writing Center and to demonstrate your support for our services is to invite a Writing Assistant to drop in to your classroom to give a 5-10 minute presentation during the first few weeks of the semester. Email our hotline writing@up.edu with the day and time of the class you’d like a Writing Assistant to visit, and we’ll get back to you shortly.

UP no longer requires students in writing-embedded courses (English 112 and Philosophy 150) to purchase the Pocket Cengage Handbook, so if you’d like to refer your students to a reputable resource for issues of grammar, mechanics, and citation, we recommend the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). 

To foster student writing integrity at UP (i.e., find cases of plagiarism when they occur), consider using the Turnitin function through your class Moodle page. When creating the online assignment to which students will upload their papers, simply toggle on the “Turnitin” switch and papers will be automatically screened for plagiarized content. 

Finally: as the Director of the Writing Center, I (Molly Hiro, English) am happy to be a point of contact on all writing-related matters this semester. Would you like a designated Writing Assistant to work with you and your students this term? Do you need insight on crafting better writing prompts? Help with strategies for evaluating student writing? I’d be glad to work with you on any such concern: hiro@up.edu.

Beauchamp Recreation & Wellness Center  

Please find the Beauchamp Recreation & Wellness Center hours for the Spring term here:

Week 1 Spring Term (Starts Monday, January 10, Ends Tuesday, January 18) 

Monday – Thursday, January 10 – 13, 11:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. 

Friday, January 14, 11:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. 

Saturday, January 15, 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. 

Sunday, January 16, 1- 2:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. 

Monday, January 17, 11:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. 

Tuesday, January 18, back to regular hours: 

Monday – Thursday, 7:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m. 

Friday, 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. 

Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. 

Sunday, 12:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m

OIEDI wants to share the University’s successes, events, and more relating to diversity, equity, inclusion, and internationalization in its upcoming Spring 2022 newsletter! Please fill in this form with your submissions. Additionally, if you have an idea or resource for OIEDI’s Community Conversation, please share! Email oiedi@up.edu with any questions.