All UP employees, both faculty and staff, are welcome to take part in the first annual Employee Kickball Extravaganza on Wednesday, August 14, at 4 p.m., on the Shipstad Quad, according to organizers Mary Beebe and Joe Kuffner, marketing and communications. Kick off the new school year by playing everyone’s favorite schoolyard game (no, not dodgeball) with your UP coworkers. All skill levels welcome; the only requirement is a desire to have some fun in the sun before students show up and take over the campus. Please RSVP to Kuffner at kuffnerj@up.edu or Beebe at beebe@up.edu.
07-15-2013
Special Deal For “The Music Man”
Journey Theater Arts Group is presenting Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man, an affectionate tribute to Smalltown, USA, which follows fast-talking traveling salesman Harold Hill as he cons the people of River City, Iowa into buying instruments and uniforms for a boys’ band he vows to organize, despite the fact he doesn’t know a trombone from a treble clef. Performances will take place at Mago Hunt Center Theater, August 9 through 18, Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. Pre-sale adult tickets are $18; student and military tickets are $15 (with ID); youth and senior tickets are $12. In a special deal for University of Portland faculty and staff, all tickets for the 2 p.m. performance on Saturday, August 10 are $12. Use coupon code “UPMM” for $1 off each ticket. The coupon code is not valid on at the door sales. All tickets are $2 more at the door. Tickets are on sale now at www.journeytheater.org or 360.750.8550. For more information contact Bethany Larson, Journey Theater Arts, at blarson611@gmail.com or 360-921-2944.
Denise Breyley Speaking July 18
Denise Breyley of Whole Foods Markets will be speaking to Howard Feldman’s BUS 513 (Social Issues in Business) class at 6:10 p.m. on Thursday, July 18, in Franz Hall 206. Any interested faculty, staff, or students are welcome to attend. Breyley serves as Local Forager for Whole Foods, working with and providing support to local farms and vendors to get their products into local Whole Foods stores. Breyley will speak about Whole Foods’ perspectives on organic and genetically modified foods and their connection to the company’s philosophy of “conscious capitalism.” For more information contact Feldman at 7270 or feldman@up.edu.
$960,000 RISE Nursing Grant
The School of Nursing has been awarded $960,000 by the Helene Fuld Health Trust to establish scholarships for bachelor of science in nursing (B.S.N.) students who have a prior bachelor’s degree in another field. The University of Portland is one of six schools nationwide to receive funding for second degree baccalaureate students in nursing from The Helene Fuld Health Trust Scholarship Fund. The grant will be paid in three installments over a four-year period, with half of the funds for annual scholarships, the first to be awarded fall 2013. The other half will create an endowment, with the first scholarships awarded in the 2016-17 academic year.
The award and the partnership with the Helene Fuld Health Trust encourages students with a prior degree, and often more life experience than the traditional student out of high school, to enter nursing. Financial issues are often the biggest barrier for students transferring to the University of Portland to complete an additional bachelor’s degree, according to UP nursing dean Joanne Warner. “This partnership supports the School of Nursing’s priority on increasing the diversity of the nursing work force, including gender, ethnicity and non-traditional students” says Warner.
The Helene Fuld Health Trust’s mission is to support and promote the health, welfare, and education of student nurses and is the nation’s largest private funder devoted exclusively to nursing students and nursing education. The School of Nursing received a previous grant from the Helene Fuld Health Trust in 2006, a $550,000 grant to establish scholarships for undergraduate nursing students.
The $960,000 grant is part of the University’s RISE Campaign, which was announced in December 2010 and seeks to raise $175 million by 2014. The RISE Campaign, which has raised more than $161 million to date, is one of the largest development campaigns ever for a Pacific Northwest private college or university. For more information contact the School of Nursing at 7211 or development at 7395.
New AACN Post For Pate
Mary Frances Pate, nursing, has been elected to a one-year term as chair of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) Certification Corporation national board. Pate was named when the AACN announced its new board of directors for fiscal year 2014. Her term became effective on July 1, 2013.
AACN Certification Corporation, the credentialing arm of the AACN, promotes and enhances consumer health and safety through certification and certification renewal. It has certified more than 72,000 nurses and provides comprehensive credentialing for establishing and maintaining standards of excellence in acute and critical care nursing.
Founded in 1969 and based in Aliso Viejo, Calif., the AACN is the largest specialty nursing organization in the world. AACN joins together the interests of more than 500,000 acute and critical care nurses and claims more than 235 chapters worldwide. For more information contact the School of Nursing at 7211 or nursing@up.edu, or see http://www.aacn.org.
A Big Thank You To All
The Department of Biology would like to thank everyone who took time out of their schedules this summer to write letters of recommendation for students applying for graduate programs in medicine, dentistry, optometry, physical therapy, occupational therapy, physician assistant programs, pharmacy, and more. The biology program had a record application year with over 50 applications to schools throughout the country, according to Jacquie VanHoomissen, biology. The application cycle opened on June 1 and files are continually being updated and processed through the science office in Swindells Hall. If you or your students have questions about careers in medicine or other health professions, please contact the new health professions advisor, Kyle Flann, at healthprofesions@up.edu.
Tom Ank: Be The Match
University of Portland information services staff member Tom Ank recently completed a medical procedure that started last fall on a whim. Several months later, he may have saved the life of a complete stranger.
Last fall, Ank convinced several students to sign up for tests to determine whether they would be a match to donate marrow to be used to treat life-threatening cancers like leukemia and lymphoma. Ank, a network engineer at UP, says he doesn’t like to ask anyone to do anything he wouldn’t do. So he also did the cheek swab in the lobby of the University’s Buckley Center, where UP nursing students had set up a testing operation. Three months after the swab, he received an e-mail telling him he had a very rare HLA type and was asked to complete a survey on his family history.
A month later he received a call from Be the Match, an agency which connects patients with their donor match for a life-saving marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant. It was March 25, 2013. “The nice lady on the phone directed me to a lab in my area and a bunch of blood was drawn. The folks at the lab told me they do this all the time and rarely does anything come of it,” Ank recalls. On March 29, Good Friday, he was told he was a match. Within a couple of weeks, he flew to California where he would spend five days away from family and friends “to try and save the life of someone with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Someone I have never met.”
During his stay at a cancer center, he received a number shots and his health was monitored. He then was hooked to a machine for six to eight hours to collect his stem cells. “Two days later, on my birthday, this person I’ve never met before received the cells.” It all happens very fast, Ank notes. His nurse told him that it isn’t always finding the match that is a problem, but “finding a willing match.”
“Sometimes you have to travel,” says Ank. “Sometimes you will be hundreds of miles away. But you still have to step forward. No matter what I may have to deal with, the recipient is dealing with worse. That is what made me press forward. I was putting aside work, fun, holidays, and everything else. I was pausing my life to hopefully save another. All I can think at this time is ‘Good luck, man. I hope you make it.’”
Science & Engineering Symposium
Sr. Angela Hoffman, chemistry, is conducting research with two high school seniors full time this summer. Theodore (Nguyen) Truong from Gresham High School is sponsored by Saturday Academy’s Apprenticeships in Science and Engineering (ASE) program, and Vy Le from Madison High School is sponsored by The American Chemical Society’s Project SEED and ASE. There are many more students in the ASE program scattered through Oregon and SW Washington. They will all be coming to campus on Friday, August 16 for a day-long symposium at which they will present their summer project as a poster and as a 15-minute talk. All faculty, staff, and students are welcome to come for some or all of the symposium from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. “You will be surprised at the high quality of their research and presentations,” promises Sr. Angela. “Saturday Academy is always looking for more mentors, so if anyone is inspired to do so, contact the Saturday Academy office here on campus at 503-200-5858 or www.saturdayacademy.org/ase, or contact me for more information at hoffman@up.edu.” More information is available at this link: http://conta.cc/1dfHc3x.
Stop, Thief!
The University has purchased a new security software protection plan, FrontDoorSoftware, for the entire campus, according to Janice Lundborg, information services. If a device is stolen, the software enables users to lock it down remotely, blast a message to the device that says “This computer is reported stolen,” send text messages to the thief, use Google maps to track the device, and more. It will work on MacBooks, tablets, and laptops, and will soon be usable on Androids and iPads. There is no charge to users; click on http://www.frontdoorsoftware.com/up/ to set it up.
Money Matters
Happy new fiscal year from the controller’s office! Mileage reimbursement rates have increased to $0.565/mile for any travel incurred after June 30, 2013, according to Eric Barger, controller. Please use this new rate for mileage reimbursement in fiscal year 2013-14. For more information contact Barger at barger@up.edu.