UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

12-02-2019

Clark Library: Call for Spring Course Reserves

Get some of your spring semester prep out of the way! Library staff are ready to tackle spring course reserves. This is a popular library service that faculty can use to provide students with access to course readings. Library staff handle copyright screening and scan materials to meet accessibility standards. Students then use our course reserves system to see what is available for their courses. Faculty also have access and can get usage data for reserve items.

If you plan to reuse items that were previously on reserve, let us know and we can find that list in our archive. For new items, email a list of citations to library@up.edu or use the online form. Please include the course name, course number, instructor, and number of students enrolled in each section. Questions? Stop by the Service Desk, call x7111, or email library@up.edu.

Bells in the Ballroom Concert, Dec. 6

Bells In the Ballroom 2019Come enjoy the festive sounds of the Chapel Handbell Choir, Chapel Choir, and ‘Bluff Boys’ Barbershop Quartet at the annual Bells in the Ballroom concert on Friday, December 6, at 7 p.m., in the Mehling Ballroom. The Hallelujah Chorus will also be sung, and if you’ve ever sung it, you will be invited to join the choir. Christmas cookies, cocoa, prize drawings, and lots of holiday cheer come together in one joyous (and free) event.

For more information contact Maureen Briare, Campus Ministry, at x7335 or briare@up.edu.

Undergraduate Research Awards: Nominate Now

The provost’s office and the Office of Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement are requesting nominations for two awards to be given on Founders’ Day: the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentor Award and Outstanding Graduating Senior in Undergraduate Research Award. Faculty members can be nominated by other faculty members, administrators, students, or by self-nomination. Students can be nominated by faculty members or by self-nomination. Both nominations are due by December 15; send your nomination to ur@up.edu. For more information about the criteria for the awards click on these links:

Did You Know? The Meaning of the Advent Season

Many people may know that the Advent season focuses on expectation and think that it serves as an anticipation of Christ’s birth in the season leading up to Christmas. This is part of the story, but there’s more to Advent.

The word “Advent” is derived from the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming,” which is a translation of the Greek word parousia. Scholars believe that during the 4th and 5th centuries in Spain and Gaul, Advent was a season of preparation for the baptism of new Christians at the January feast of Epiphany, the celebration of God’s incarnation represented by the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus, his baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, and his first miracle at Cana. During this season of preparation, early Christians would spend 40 days in penance, prayer, and fasting to prepare for this celebration; originally, there was little connection between Advent and Christmas.

By the 6th century, however, Roman Christians had tied Advent to the coming of Christ. But the “coming” they had in mind was not Christ’s first coming in the manger in Bethlehem, but his second coming in the clouds as the judge of the world. It was not until the Middle Ages that the Advent season was explicitly linked to Christ’s first coming at Christmas. More on the “anticipation” part of modern Advent practices in a future Did You Know segment.

“Did You Know?” is a mostly regular feature in upbeat in which dimensions of Catholic practices of faith are unpacked. If you have a question, please contact Fr. Jim Gallagher (gallaghe@up.edu) or Karen Eifler (eifler@up.edu).

Advent Vespers Concert, Dec. 7

Advent Vespers ConcertThe annual  Advent Vespers Concert, presented by the University Singers and Bel Canto, will be held on Saturday, December 7, at 7:30 p.m., in the Chapel of Christ the Teacher. Admission is free but you need to have a ticket. Please contact the performing and fine arts department to reserve your ticket at x7228 or pfa@up.edu.

Barnes & Noble Faculty, Staff Appreciation Day: Dec. 4

The Barnes & Noble bookstore’s annual Faculty and Staff Appreciation Day will take place on Wednesday, December 4, according to bookstore manager Erin Cave. Faculty and staff will receive an extra 10 percent off their regular discount, bringing the total to 30 percent. There will also be an additional sale for an extra half off clearance item, but the two discounts cannot be combined.

For more information contact Cave at cave@up.edu.

TLC Teaching Tip of the Week: Feeling Any Finals Stress?

Nervous man trying to give a speech --- Image by © ImageZoo/Corbis

How much of the stress students (and faculty and staff) feel during finals is rational? How much might it help our collective mental health to identify the points where our stress is irrational? This encore essay on Cognitive Distortions and Irrational Beliefs: Students, Faculty and Finals offers some ideas from the types of cognitive-behavioral techniques used in self-help programs to suggest ways we can all get a little perspective on the stress of final exams.

School of Nursing Offering Reiki/Healing Touch Clinic

Need a little relaxation? Try 15 minutes of Reiki/Healing Touch this next week before finals. Open to faculty, staff, and students. Reiki/Healing Touch clinics will be held in BC 375 on December 3 from 2:30-4 p.m. and December 4 from 12:45-1:45 p.m. Sign up outside the door. Clinics will continue monthly in 2020.

Reiki and Healing Touch are relaxing modalities offered to clients by practitioners across the country in both outpatient and inpatient settings. For more information contact Cynthia Backer, nursing, at backer@up.edu and see the University of Minnesota links on Reiki and Healing Touch.

2019 Flex Spending Account Information

Human resources would like to remind employees who elected a 2019 medical or childcare Flexible Spending Account offered by UP that services must be incurred in 2019 to be eligible for reimbursement. You will have until March 30, 2020 to submit reimbursement requests for elgible expenses incurred in 2019 to Allegiance. In April 2020, any unused Medical FSA balances between $20 and $500 will rollover into a 2020 flexible spending account. Dependent care balances are not eligible for rollover.

For more information, such as a listing of eligible expenses or plan forms, please visit the plan’s page at the UP website: Flexible Spending Accounts. If you have any questions about your benefits, please contact human resources at benefits@up.edu or call x8484.

Moodle Drop-in Hours, Dec. 2: Your Way To Stress-Free Holidays

Need some help with your Moodle life? Drop by Franz 33 any time between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Monday, December 2 through Thursday December 5 and academic technology services and innovation staff will be there to help with issues big and small, from gradebook set-up to getting your spring courses into tip-top shape. This is a great way to go into the Thanksgiving holiday free of care with Moodle issues squared away by December.

For more information contact Ben Kahn, ATSI, at kahn@up.edu.