UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

04-19-2021

PilotsGive A Big Success – Thank You!

On PilotsGive (April 7-8), more than 2,500 donors gave $835,000 in support of scholarships, academic programs, Pilot athletics and more. Pilots across the country and around the world participated throughout the 24-hour period including students, alumni, parents, regents, faculty, staff, and friends of the University.
Several donors offered generous challenge gifts in support of specific programs or as competitions. Their leadership motivated the Pilot community to give generously to the causes they care most about.
 
The winners of the competitions are:
Academic Challenge
1st Place ($8,000): College of Arts & Sciences, 144 donors
2nd Place ($5,000): School of Nursing, 118 donors
3rd Place ($2,000): Shiley School of Engineering, 109 donors
Beyond the Bluff Challenge
1st Place ($8,000): Campus Ministry, 78 donors
2nd Place ($5,000): Moreau Center, 70 donors

3rd Place ($2,000): Clark Library, 39 donors

Student Club Challenge
1st Place ($100): Society of Women Engineers, 18 donors
2nd Place ($75): Womxn of Color Club, 15 donors
3rd Place ($50): Black Student Union, 9 donors
View all challenge results by using this link.
 
Thank you to everyone who participated by giving and spreading the word for this year’s PilotsGive! Your efforts made an impact during a challenging year, resulting in crucial funding that will provide UP students with the support and resources they need to thrive. Together we all add UP!

2021 Retiring Faculty: Thank You for Decades of Service!

The following long-serving faculty members have announced their retirement at the conclusion of the spring 2021 semester, according to Kathleen Staten, provost’s office:

  • Ellyn Arwood, Professor of Education
  • Ronda Bard, Lecturer of Chemistry
  • Elena Bernard, Associate Professor of Business
  • Barbara Braband, Associate Professor of Nursing
  • Todd Easton, Associate Professor of Business
  • Gary Malecha, Interim Dean of Business, Professor of Political Science
  • Dann Pierce, Associate Professor of Communication Studies
  • Peter Osterberg, Associate Professor of Engineering

This year’s retirees will be formally celebrated in the online Faculty Gala Ceremony to take place the afternoon of Tuesday, May 11. A Zoom link and more information will be coming soon from the Provost’s Office.

For further information contact Staten, staten@up.edu.

Welcome Ryan Ingersoll, New Director of ATSI

Information services is pleased to welcome Ryan Ingersoll as director of academic technology and innovation. In this position he will oversee development of classroom and on-line academic technology, with an eye on innovation and digital literacy among our faculty. In addition, post COVID he will have the opportunity to re-imagine the student-run On The Bluff Studio.

Ryan comes to us from George Fox University where he led several Ed Tech projects. He holds a master in education from Seattle Pacific in digital education leadership. Please join the information services team in congratulating and welcoming Ryan to our community.

Celebrating QTBIPOC (LGBTQIA and/or BIPOC) Seniors, May 5: Sign Up Now!

Diversity and inclusion programs (DIP) would appreciate your support as we celebrate seniors who identify as QTBIPOC (LGBTQIA+ and/or BIPOC) on Wednesday, May 5, from 6:00 to 7 p.m.

Soon it will be possible to RSVP on Engage, and in the meantime please help us spread the word by sharing the form below with classes and student networks. We are using this form so we can feature seniors’ accomplishments and time at UP. We’re gathering graduating students, as well as staff and faculty to celebrate our accomplishments over our time at UP. The deadline to submit responses is Monday, April 19.

Here is the link to the form: QTBIPOC Graduation Celebration.

We recognize that there may be some concerns as to why DIP is not hosting individualized graduation ceremonies for different identities on our campus. We know that QTBIPOC experiences are not the same for everyone, and while we one day hope to host graduation celebrations for all affinity groups, we do want to highlight the intersectionality of identities on our campus. We also want to recognize the collective power many graduating seniors and other students and supporters used to fight for change amidst the Black Lives Matter movement over this past year. We also recognize that some communities have larger numbers than others, and some more individualized celebrations would be very small. The last issue is DIP’s capacity and numbers; we simply do not have the numbers in our staff to host multiple graduation ceremonies. However, we hope to one day celebrate everyone’s accomplishments with separate ceremonies.

For more information reach out to Rebecca Seibert at seibert@up.edu or Yuri at hernandy@up.edu.

Please Load Scholarly Activity On The Portal

Faculty members are reminded to load their scholarly activity on the portal in PilotsUP by May 31, 2021. Data obtained through the portal will be used to populate A Community of Scholars, published by the provost’s office. Faculty members use their school’s report on the home tab of the Scholarly Activity Portal to send the data to their respective deans as a part of annual self-evaluation.

You can find the link to the Scholarly Activity Portal in the Academic menu of PilotsUP or you can go directly to this link.

For any questions about uses of the portal, please contact John Orr (orr@up.edu); for questions about how to use the tool, please contact Michele Leasor (leasor@up.edu).

Four Top Spots in Mark of Excellence Competition: “Beacon” Shines Again

The Beacon has won four First Place awards in the 2021 regional Mark of Excellence competition sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). The contest involved college media outlets from five states: Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. The following now advance to the national SPJ Mark of Excellence competition.

Find about about all awards at this link.

 

 

 

Amazing Tech is Everywhere – Let’s Keep IT Secure! April 29 via Zoom

Travis Luckey, CIO for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, will lead this Learning Labs session where IT security concepts and terminology will be covered. Learn about security implications of emerging technologies and wrap up with an exploration of some great low- and no-cost IT security resources that businesses and individuals can begin using right away. Register at – https://bit.ly/2OGVTvF

For more information contact Lillia Grundy, Pamplin School, at grundy@up.edu.

Open Wide the Doors to “The Saint John’s Bible”

This week’s glimpse into the wonders of The Saint John’s Bible is so much more than a glimpse: the Garaventa Center has created three portals for you to explore these lustrous volumes: one takes you into the process of making the first hand-calligraphed and illuminated Bible manuscript since Gutenberg; another offers short (1-2 minute) videos of specific illuminations with instrumental music; the final is a door into several stand-alone experiences of Visio Divina contemplative prayer focused on these sacred images and Scriptural text (about 15 minutes each).

TLC From The TLC: Future Teaching, Super Courses, and Core Exploration

For this week’s Teaching & Learning tip, Andrew Guest, psychology and core director, offers possible prompts for summer teaching dreams – with a specific invitation to start imagining courses for the new Exploration Level of the University Core.

With the end in sight of this most challenging and odd academic year, it can be fun to start thinking about a near future of (maybe) having just a bit of time to read, dream, and do the kind of imagining that makes good teachers life-long learners. I’m particularly excited to dive further into a new book on Super Courses: The Future of Teaching and Learning – thinking more about how we at UP can merge the current impetus for evolving our curriculum with best practices in creating great courses.

Dreaming of ‘super courses’ may also be worth some time for us at UP because of core revitalization opportunities to re-develop and create courses for the new Exploration Level – a set of course offerings to be phased in starting Fall of 2022 that aspires to interdisciplinarity, addressing timely issues, and broadening opportunities for students to learn and faculty to teach. For a brief overview of and invitation to Exploration Level opportunities and possibilities, see a new Teaching and Learning Community blog post on “The Once and Future Core Course: Imagining (and Designing) the Exploration Level.”

Finally, as one additional suggestion for the fast approaching summer possibility of having actual time to read, Heather McGhee’s recent book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together is excellent. While not specifically about teaching or higher education, it offers a robust and deeply evidenced take on what she calls the “solidarity dividend” – ways of working toward a better future by attending more carefully to the interests we almost all share (appropriate, perhaps, to the idea of the Core as UP’s shared academic experience).

Title IX Advisory Meeting, April 26, 11 a.m.

All members of the UP community are invited to join the Title IX Advisory Committee and attend our meetings on Mondays at 11 a.m. this spring. Title IX Advisory Committee Meetings for Spring will take place at the following times on Zoom (https://uportland.zoom.us/j/97562343235). Our remaining meeting takes place on Monday, April 26, at 11 a.m.

If you aren’t able to make the Monday morning meetings you can stay in the loop about meeting discussion topics by checking out the meeting minutes available on the Title IX website, https://www.up.edu/titleix/titleixupdates.html.

Regardless of your ability to attend the Monday morning meetings, you’re invited to join a subcommittee to work toward positive change. Subcommittees focus on a particular need identified for our community and work towards their goals and meet outside of the main Title IX Advisory Committee meeting.

  • Cultural Change and Education Committee
  • Student Advocacy Program Committee
  • Non-UP Confidential Resource Program Committee

Please email titleix@up.edu if you are interested in joining a subcommittee. Contact Sarah Meiser, human resources, at 8484 or meiser@up.edu for more information.