Joe Cates

Prayers, Please: Peng “Mona” Wang

May 3, 2019

A note to the UP community from interim physical plant director Joe Cates:

“I am very sorry to inform everyone that Peng (Mona) Wang recently passed away while she was on leave. Mona was respected and appreciated by all who knew her. She held herself to the highest standard, and had a way of winning over even the most challenging of people.

“I reflect back to just over a year ago when Mona was walking across the stage at the Christmas luncheon to accept the Deiss/Dodson award. Her excitement and enthusiasm lit up the room as her friends in Physical Plant all cheered her on. I am grateful for this memory, and for the opportunity to know Mona, and share in her light.

“Mona was a wonderful member of our community, a beloved wife and mother, and we are fortunate to have had her in our lives. Please keep Mona and her loved ones in your thoughts and prayers.”

See A Problem? Submit a Request to iService Desk

February 9, 2018

The physical plant would like to remind faculty and staff that if they encounter maintenance issues in campus buildings, they should please submit a request via iService desk on the physical plant website. According to assistant director Joe Cates, only emergencies like active leaks or security issues merit a call to the main physical plant line.

For more information contact the physical plant at physicalplant@up.edu.

Jacquie Van Hoomissen has been selected by the steering committee of the NSF ADVANCE Partnership project (Advancing STEM Careers by Empowering Network Development) to join the inter-institutional peer mentoring network of Administrators in the Northwest region. As a member of an Administrator Alliance, she will work with teams to evaluate how campus policies and practices impact professional advancement and leadership development of a diverse faculty in STEM fields. The goal of the program is to reduce institutional obstacles to advancement for women in STEM fields, create more equitable communities, and foster the retention and advancement of a diverse STEM faculty population.

Hannah Highlander, mathematics, edited An Introduction to Undergraduate Research in Computational and Mathematical Biology: From Disease Dynamics to Big Data (with Carrie Diaz Eaton, Alex Capaldi), New York, NY: Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-33645-5, February 2020.

Simon Aihiokhai, theology, was cited in The Tablet, December 9, 2019: “Africans Warn Numerical Growth Has To Be Matched By ‘Tools of Liberation.'” See the article here. He was also elected as a member of the Board of Directors for a three years term at the College Theology Society in March 2020.

Elizabeth Lee, institutional research, has been elected to the Association for Institutional Research’s Board of Directors as a member-at-large. AIR is an organization that seeks to empower higher education professionals to utilize data, analytics, and evidence to make decisions and take actions that benefit students. Elizabeth has cycled off as treasurer for the Pacific Northwest regional organization for institutional researchers in time to serve at the national level. Full election results are available at this link.

Cara Poor, Shiley School of Engineering, contributed “Evaluation of agricultural byproducts as amendments in bioretention systems for metal and nutrient removal” (with Ben Guidice, Jacob Bib, and student coauthor Camille Morgan) to Journal of Environmental Engineering, 146: 04020029, March 2020.

Hillary Merk, Jacqueline Waggoner, James Carroll, Heidi Parrett, and Claire Tooley, education, presented one paper at the annual conference of the Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) in Atlanta, GA, February 28-29, 2020. The paper was titled “From High School to Teaching: Developing a ‘Grow Your Own’: Pathway for A More Diverse Teaching Profession.”

Jacqueline Waggoner, Hillary Merk, Randy Hetherington, James Carroll, and Bruce Weitzel, education, presented at the annual conference of the Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) in Atlanta, GA, February 28-29, 2020. The paper was titled “Trauma Informed Practices and Teacher Preparation.”

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