UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

04-06-2020

Temporary Closure of Franz Campus Parking Lot

Construction is moving forward on the Franz River Campus, according to David Hobbs, construction and facilities. With this happening, the parking lot on the River Campus is now closed to faculty, staff, students, and the public to ensure the safety of all. The closure will last approximately eighteen months. The soccer fields may still be accessed via the Bluff Road. It is advised that people avoid going down Van Houten as there will be considerable heavy truck traffic over the course of construction.

For more information please contact Hobbs at hobbsd@up.edu.

Have You Considered Becoming a Leadership Fellow with the Franz Center?

The Franz Center is providing free leadership training and development during the 2020-21 academic year for faculty and staff who want to learn more about their leadership gifts and habits and about becoming a Leadership Fellow. There have been over 150 faculty and staff from across the University who have been trained as Leadership Fellows thus far, and the Franz Center is seeking to include 30 additional faculty and staff who will begin their training next fall. In addition to engaging in what some who have gone through the training describe as a “transformative experience” in which faculty/staff develop a deeper awareness of their leadership strengths and practice leveraging those strengths in service of the common good, after completing the leadership training, Leadership Fellows can serve as leadership instructors and coaches in the Leader Certificate program. Instructors in the Leadership Certificate program earn a stipend of up to $2,500/semester for their teaching or coaching.

All full-time faculty are eligible to participate. Because of certain restrictions, we are able to include only exempt (salaried) staff in the program. Please contact Dave Houglum, director of leadership for the Franz Center, at houglum@up.edu if you would like to participate, nominate a colleague, or need more information, by Friday, May 8.

Sabbatical Applications Due to Deans by June 15

Applications for sabbaticals for the 2021-2022 academic year are due along with faculty development plans to faculty members’ respective deans by June 15, 2020. All materials, including the letter from the dean to the provost, are due to the provost’s office by September 1, 2020. Faculty eligible to apply for a sabbatical must have completed seven years of full-time teaching at the University of Portland, or have completed at a minimum an additional seven years of full-time teaching since a previously funded University of Portland sabbatical.

Sabbatical requests are coordinated with departmental planning as well as the individual faculty member’s annual development plan. With careful planning the academic units have been able to take into consideration the needs of both the individual faculty member and the department or school. Additional information about sabbatical leaves can be found on page 42 of the Faculty Handbook.

For more information contact the provost’s office at 7105 or staten@up.edu.

2019-2020 Butine Spring Cycle Recipients

The Committee on Teaching and Scholarship (TAS) has determined award recipients for the 2019-2020 Butine Faculty Development Fund Spring cycle, according to committee chair Hannah Highlander, mathematics.  Butine award recipients are: 

  • Alexa Dare, $2000, “Streams Transformative Environmental Humanities Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, August 5-8, 2020.”
  • Vail Fletcher, $1890, “North American Association for Critical Animal Studies Conference (NAACAS), University of British Columbia, Kelowna, May 27-29th, 2020”
  • Eli Goldwyn, $1990, “18th Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease meeting in Montpellier, France. June 14-17.”
  • Amber Vermeesch, $2000, “American College of Medicine’s 67th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, May 26-30, 2020.”
  • Cara Hersh, $616, “New Chaucer Society 2020 Congress, Durham, UK, July 12-17, 2020”
  • Jakob Kotas, $2000, “Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Pacific Northwest Section Annual Meeting, Anchorage, Alaska, June 25-27, 2020”
  • Deirdre Katz, $1350, “International Mind, Brain, and Education Society Biennial Conference Montreal, Canada, May 18-20, 2020”
  • Ian Parkman, $2000, “Design Management Institute (DMI)‚ AI Academic Design Management Conference 2020, Toronto, CA, Aug, 5-6, 2020”
  • Angela Hoffman, $1330, “Natural product research for spring 2020 sabbatical”
  • Kathleen Bieryla, $2000, “2020 ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education) Annual Conference & Exposition, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, June 21-24, 2020”
  • Simon Aihiokhai, $2000, “Catholic Theological society of America, Baltimore, MD June 11-14, 2020”
  • Tara Prestholdt, $1800, “The effects of EÑSO (El Niño Southern Oscillations) on marine bio diversity and abundance”

For more information, contact Highlander at x7162 or tas@up.edu.

 

Controller’s Office: Electronic Submission of Payment Requests

The Controller’s Office will temporarily accept electronic submission of payment requests while the University is closed due to COVID-19, according to Lori Watson. Please combine all documents into one PDF file and submit to accounts_payable@up.edu.  Payments will continue to be processed but please note there may be some delays.  Thank you for your cooperation during this difficult time.

A Message From Fr. Mark, April 2

The following message was shared with faculty and staff by University president Rev. Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C., on Thursday, April 2:

Dear Staff and Faculty Colleagues:

If my recent experiences are like yours, the past few weeks have been filled with challenge and concern.  Nearly every person across the globe has been touched by the COVID-19 pandemic, including everyone who is part of our UP community.

When challenging times arise, I remind myself to pause and identify gifts for which I can be grateful.  Over the past few weeks, I find myself constantly returning to my gratitude for you, our staff and faculty.  Despite the challenges in your own lives, you’ve continued to serve our mission and our students.  You’ve exhibited tremendous creativity, flexibility, and grace.  You’ve helped us to retain what’s so distinct about UP, even amid unsettled times.  For your extraordinary efforts, please know of my gratitude and the gratitude of those we serve.

With this message, I’ll summarize where we’ve been and share where we’ll be going.  I recognize that this email is lengthy, but I thank you for reading it in its entirety. First, to recap, in the past few weeks:

  • We’ve maintained our strong commitment to students.  Most students have returned home, and we continue to support approximately 140 students who remain on campus.
  • We’ve transitioned to online education.  This required a considerable amount of adjustment.  However, students and faculty are becoming increasingly familiar with the instructional technology we’re now using, and UP’s approach to personalized education will continue notwithstanding this change in how it’s delivered.
  • Most staff have transitioned to teleworking, and they’ve done so with trademark expertise, adaptability, and ingenuity.
  • We’ve made the exceptionally difficult decision to cancel in-person Commencement.  As I write this note to you, a cross-divisional effort is underway to plan an online Commencement that makes the best use of available technology.
  • We’ve donated personal protective equipment to the health care providers at Providence Health & Services.  As many of you know, Providence operates some of the busiest emergency departments in the Portland area and its doctors, nurses, and other health-care professionals are on the front lines of this pandemic in our community.  Providence is a longstanding partner to UP and our School of Nursing, and I’m glad that we’ve taken steps to help keep its providers and patients safe.

Having shared this summary, I’d like to provide an overview of where we intend to go.  As I do so, I note that the University’s financial standing is sound.  We conduct scenario planning and we practice strict budget adherence to prepare ourselves for business disruptions.  Nevertheless, the economic ramifications of COVID-19 have been unprecedented.  We’re still unsure as to how this pandemic will impact enrollment, endowment performance, and the overall health of the global economy.  We don’t know when we’ll be able to return to normal.  These variables are subject to rapid change, and many of the factors contributing to the uncertainty of present times are simply beyond our control.

What remains within our control, however, are steps we can take now to protect our faculty and staff while safeguarding our ability to advance our institutional mission.  While we hope for the best, we’re preparing for difficult times ahead and we’re taking necessary action now to put UP in the best possible position.  As noted, summer enrollment, first-year enrollment in the fall, student retention, endowment performance, and the overall health of the economy may impact University finances.  For a smaller, tuition-dependent institution like ours, we must all work with a spirit of camaraderie and collaboration to weather the present challenges.

The goal I have established for UP is to maintain the employment of all University employees.  This is our top priority.  We know that livelihoods and families depend on this, and our people are critical to our success as an institution.  I understand that layoffs are currently a part of the national conversation.  I recognize the stress and anxiety that many are facing when it comes to this issue.  Before even considering options like layoffs, UP will evaluate all other available strategies, such as a freeze on salary increases, reductions in work hours, and other budget measures.

In an effort to be as transparent as possible, the points below detail the belt-tightening strategies we’ll employ in order to achieve our goals and limit discretionary spending:

  • The University will impose a freeze on hiring until at least September 30, 2020.  Exceptions will be granted on a case-by-case basis by the Budget Working Group, the group that is normally tasked with position approval.
  • No business travel, conference attendance, or expenditure of professional development funds will be allowed during the summer months.  This includes faculty travel to academic conferences.  Some rare exceptions to this rule may occur.
  • New capital expenditures will be limited to those required for the safe operation of campus or subject to a legal mandate.
  • No overtime will be permitted for hourly staff, with exceptions evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
  • All divisions and offices across campus will maintain their ongoing strict adherence to budgets.
  • UP will continue to work with higher education trade associations and elected officials to seek support for higher ed institutions and their employees.
  • In the future, staff hours may vary or be reduced due to specific job needs.  However, if changes in work hours occur, this will happen no sooner than May 15.  Staff hours are not changing at this time.

No final determinations have been made with respect to faculty and staff salary increases for the coming year.  I emphasize that these belt-tightening strategies are intended to put our University in the best-possible position moving forward.

When I reflect on the history of UP, I am struck by numerous occasions in which the institution faced threats to its continued operations.  On each occasion, faculty and staff displayed creativity, unity, resilience, and devotion to our community on The Bluff.  The present times call upon all of us, collectively as faculty and staff, to do the same.  With collaboration, discipline, and concern for one another, UP will endeavor to succeed in the present turbulence.  Together, we’ll strive to pursue the same things we’ve pursued for the past 119 years: teaching and learning, faith and formation, service and leadership.

Be assured that the Holy Cross Community and I are praying for you and your loved ones.  Please also know of my deep gratitude for all that you do on behalf of our University and its mission.

Sincerely,

Father Mark

For more information or questions contact the president’s office at x7101 or simek@up.edu.

Moodle Updates from ATSI

The following tips and updates are offered by academic technology services and innovation, according to Ben Kahn:

Assignment feedback annotation: Moodle has an ability for teachers to grade and annotate student papers from right in your web browser. With the large increase in assignment submissions in Moodle, the Annotate PDF feedback feature in Moodle assignments will now be opt-in instead of turned on by default. This will help ATSI manage our compute resources and make the grading process smoother for everyone, whether you are grading essays in your browser or using assignments to collect other types of files (like images, computer coding files, etc…). If you want to use the in-browser annotation feature, just enable it when setting up your assignment by checking “Annotate PDF” under the Feedback Types heading. See step 4 of the Moodle guide for adding assignments for detailed instructions.

Timezone settings: With many students now logging in to our courses from across the country or even the world, did you know anyone can change their timezone settings so that Moodle shows due dates, etc. in the correct time for them? It’s easy. Please share this Moodle Guide with any students who are learning at distance in other time zones. 

 As always, please reach out to atsi@up.edu with any questions.

Five Months in 1945: New Museum Blog Post

In the century plus since our founding, the University has seen a lot, and been through a lot of ups and downs.  Triumphs (yeah, like this year’s women’s basketball WCC championship!!!) as well as times of scarcity and disruption have marked our journey from then to now. Working from the archives in the deep basements of The Bluff, we have had a chance to look back and perchance reflect. Today’s offering from the University Archives and Museum uses the pages of The Beacon to look at a five-month period in 1945. Follow this link to our blog post and, as Dr. Jim Covert liked to say, “Keep your chins up!”

For more information, contact Carolyn Connolly, museum coordinator, at piatz@up.edu.

“How to be Happy in Unhappy Times” with Abbot Jeremy Driscoll

Need a little pick-me-up in these uncertain times? Here’s one of our most popular podcasts from the Garaventa Center vault: How to be Happy in these Unhappy Times with Abbot Jeremy Driscoll, presenting the 2017 Red Mass lecture.

For other uplifting and stimulating presentations, we invite you to check out some of our greatest hits from the last 5 years, or browse our complete archive of podcasts. The Garaventa Center will be featuring some of our favorite podcasts here weekly through the end of the term; contact Karen Eifler (eifler@up.edu) with questions or requests.

Signing Documents Online with Adobe “Fill and Sign”

Staff and faculty can use Adobe Acrobat to “Fill and Sign” online documents (pdf files). The Fill and Sign feature is available to all users via Adobe Acrobat site licensing. To learn how to use the fill and sign feature, please see the Adobe helpsheet by using this link . If you have any questions or need assistance accessing Adobe Acrobat, please contact the Help Desk (x7000 or help@up.edu).