UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

2024-09-30

Be UP’s Collegium Participant in June 2025! (Apply by Oct. 20)

Faculty of all disciplines are invited to be part of Collegium, an annual colloquy that integrates faith and intellectual life. Collegium will be held at St. John’s University (home of The Saint John’s Bible) June 6-13, 2025. All travel, accommodations, and fees are covered by UP’s annual dues.

The week combines plenaries on Catholic Social Teaching and imagination, readings, viewings and robust small group discussions on navigating one’s academic vocation in these fraught times, as well as spirituality sessions that reflect the breadth of Catholic expression. Recent UP Collegium alums are happy to share their experiences: Joane Moceri, Kala Mayer, Tshombé Brown, Anne Santiago, Rachel Hutcheson, just to name a few.

If you’d like to be included in this year’s cohort, please contact David Mengel (provost@up.edu) by October 20.

For a comprehensive look at Collegium activities, check out www.collegium.org or contact Director Karen Eifler (eifler@collegium.org).

Campus Community Brand and Web Refresh Workshops (Oct. 22-23)

The Division of Enrollment Management, Marketing, and Web Services is pleased to announce an exciting new project underway at University of Portland: as of this month, we have officially broken ground on our highly anticipated Brand Refresh and Web Redesign!   

University of Portland has retained Carnegie Higher Education to partner with us on this important research and consensus-building project to clarify and define who we are, as well as provide opportunities for growth in enrollment, awareness, and reputation for the institution.  

Carnegie is an industry leader in reputation research and strategy, specializing in crowd-sourced and consensus-driven processes to achieve authentic results. This project will take several months to complete, and ultimately culminate in a new reputation strategy and communication platform for University of Portland.  

This project will only succeed with YOUR involvement. Carnegie’s method is entirely built around the input of the people who know University of Portland the best—and that means you!  

On October 22 and 23, the team from Carnegie will be on campus to conduct a series of in-person workshops. There will be a total of six sessions held throughout the two days. 

Please register by October 16 at the link below. 

REGISTER HERE

Workshops are limited to 50 participants per session, so be sure to register ASAP to secure a seat.

The central question across all of the workshops is: Who is University of Portland at its best? As you will learn, the “who” is a very important variable to understand, and Carnegie’s proprietary philosophy will help us crystalize this. The results will unify the communication—and thus the reputation—of the institution for years to come.  

The first workshops will be Brand Personality Workshops. These workshops will work to define the authentic human personality of University of Portland, both today and tomorrow. The following day, we will be holding Brand Messaging Workshops. These workshops will take the insights gained from the Brand Personality Workshops and cascade these insights into messaging outcomes for the University. 

Participation in both workshops over the two days is highly encouraged to maximize your experience and input. However, if you can only make it to one day, we still want your participation.  

Your voice is essential to the success of this important work. Please register today and encourage other colleagues and stakeholders to attend as well.  

 Questions? Contact mktg@up.edu

2025-26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) Delayed Until December 1, 2024

The U.S. Department of Education announced that the 2025-26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) will be available to all students starting December 1, 2024, which is approximately two months later than the standard date of October 1.

Please share this information with students and colleagues that may be impacted by the delay. Contact the Office of Financial Aid (finaid@up.edu) with questions.

OUTober Celebration and the NEW Center for Gender and Sexuality 

LGBTQ+ October History Month is a time to recognize and celebrate the rich history, contributions, and struggles of the LGBTQ+ community. It provides an opportunity to learn about the significant events, individuals, and movements that have shaped LGBTQ+ history and culture, and to honor the resilience and activism of LGBTQ+ people throughout time. For University of Portland’s Center for Gender and Sexuality (CGS) the observance and celebration is uniquely known as OUTober, a programming series presented by the Center and a variety of campus partners and organizations during LGBTQ+ History Month.  

ALL Students, Faculty and Staff are welcome at ALL programing! 

Schedule of Programming:

  • CGS Grand Opening and National Coming Out Day Celebration! All Welcome! – October 9, 3-5 p.m. – CGS (Orrico Hall, ground floor). Please join us for a celebration of our new space. Light refreshments will be served.
  • Transgender Day of Remembrance Candlelight Vigil – October 9, 7:30 p.m. at the Bell Tower 
  • Healthy Relationships – October 10, 2-3:15 p.m. – Orrico Hall 
  • International Pronouns Day & UP Celebration – October 23, 2-4 p.m. – Library Courtyard 
  • Sexual Health and Wellness  – October 24, 5-6 p.m. – Orrico Hall 
  • Meditation with Mylea (Held in Orrico Hall) 
    • October 4 – 10-10:30 a.m.
    • October 25 – 3-3:30 p.m. 
    • October 30 – 9-9:30 a.m. 
  • Fiction, Faith and Sexuality  – October 29, 4-5 p.m.

Orrico Hall Film Screening Series:

  • Pride – Thursday October 10, 7 p.m. 

Gay and lesbian activists in the UK work to help miners during their lengthy strike of the National Union of Mineworkers in the summer of 1984.  

  • Hocus Pocus – Thursday October 24, 7 p.m. 

After moving to Salem, Mass., teenager Max Dennison (Omri Katz) explores an abandoned house with his sister Dani (Thora Birch) and their new friend, Allison (Vinessa Shaw). After dismissing a story Allison tells as superstitious, Max accidentally frees a coven of evil witches (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy) who used to live in the house. Now, with the help of a magical cat, the kids must steal the witches’ book of spells to stop them from becoming immortal.  

Questions? Email the Center for Gender and Sexuality (centergs@up.edu).

Introducing: Pilot Family Portal

We are excited to introduce the Pilot Family Portal, an online platform launching this month. This portal will replace the monthly UP Parent & Family Newsletter and will continue to provide valuable resources including campus updates, information on upcoming events, and other timely information to enhance the Pilot Family experience.

Faculty or staff members who wish to join the Pilot Family Portal are welcome to set up an account. 

Visit Pilot Family Portal

PortLog: Yesterday’s New Faculty, 2024

UPBeat introduces our new staff and faculty colleagues in the New to the Bluff feature and with the new academic year underway, our campus community continues to welcome both new students AND new faculty and staff colleagues. 

Since we all were once “New to The Bluff,” our newest edition of PortLog shines the spotlight on some of our longest-serving colleagues. These individuals are trailblazers who have shaped our campus and established traditions of excellence in this community since arriving at UP twenty years ago—or more!  Curious to learn who they are?  Hop in our time-machine and check out photos from our archives that highlight our community cornerstones throughout the years.  

PortLog – University Museum & Archives

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

Lunch Discussion: Civil Discourse in our Classrooms (Oct. 1)

Engaged Humanities @UP and the NEH-funded Civic Humanities Working Group invite all interested UP faculty to join a discussion (and lunch on us) on cultivating genuine conversation, and even disagreements, in our classrooms. We’ll invite attendees to read a brief recent Washington Post article on how other campuses are encouraging spaces for open discussion prior to the event. Then we’ll talk over lunch about what conversation at UP looks like right now, our approaches to creating good conversation, and how we might import new ideas for fostering civil discourse on our campus from the article and elsewhere. We’ll also consider the limits of these approaches and the thorny question of how to determine the boundaries of what we talk about in our classrooms. 

Event Details: Tuesday, October 1, 12:30-1:45 p.m. – Location TBA

This lunch is sponsored by UP’s 3-year NEH Humanities Connections Grant, by the Civic Humanities Working Group (CHWG—convening this year), and by UP’s College of Arts and Sciences. We’ll share more about the grant and what the working group is up to at the lunch as well. 

Faculty from all disciplines are welcome to join, but limited seating is available. Please email Molly Hiro (hiro@up.edu) to reserve your spot by September 20. Location TBA and will be shared after you RSVP.