The Yellow Sheet for January 22January 22, 2009 | Volume 41, Number 18

Volume 41, Number 18

• News & Announcements
• Campus Happenings
• Off-Campus Events
• Extraordinary People
• Congregational Outreach
• Funding Opps
• In the Media
• Hours
• Telecommunications Updates
• Calendar of Events
• Submit an Item Online

News & Announcements

'RecycleMania' Begins... Gustavus Adolphus College is joining more than 400 colleges and universities for "RecycleMania," a national recycling competition scheduled for Jan. 18-March 28. RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste-reduction activities with their campus communities. Participating schools will report recycling and trash data, which will be converted into rankings of who collects the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, and the least amount of trash.
     If you are already an avid recycler, think of ways to do even better or to reduce the amount of trash you generate in the first place. If you have been an on-again, off-again recycler, now is the time to step it up and make it a goal to get your recyclables in the proper bin every time. One campus recycling effort that we hope to improve upon is recycling at large campus events. Besides making sure we use recyclable materials (i.e., programs and food containers), we need to make sure we have enough recycling containers where campus guests can find them. If you are planning an event, include recycling in your event planning.
     Items that can be recycled on campus include paper, all glass and metal containers, cardboard (includes cereal boxes and other hardboard such as toothpaste boxes), and plastics with the recycling codes one and two (including soft drink bottles).
     Participation in RecycleMania has grown dramatically in recent years. After 93 colleges and universities participated in 2006, the number grew to 201 in 2007. This year, 414 schools are registered to participate, including seven from Minnesota. For questions or more information about RecycleMania, contact the team of students and staff who are leading Gustavus’s RecycleMania efforts at recyclemania09@gustavus.edu. Also, stay tuned for details of this year's College Energy Wars competition, scheduled again to begin in February.

Free Health Screening... All employees, retirees, and spouses are invited to participate in the 2009 Health Screening free of charge. The health screening will be done at the River’s Edge Hospital and Clinic Lab in St. Peter on Feb. 2-6 and Feb. 9-13. Five-minute time increment appointments will be available during these dates between 6:30 and 9 a.m. on a first-call, first-serve basis. Thirty minutes of release time will be allowed for employees to participate in the screening. To sign up for a time, call the Human Resource Office at x7304 Monday-Friday between 8:30 and 11:30 a.m. or between 1:30 and 4:45 p.m.

Telecommunications Maintenance Work... The Telecommunications Department will be conducting updates and maintenance work on the telephone system on Saturday, Feb. 7. You may notice interruptions of service throughout the day. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Telecommunications, x6261 or x7025, or e-mail lmccabe@gustavus.edu. Please mark your calendars.

St. Peter Volunteer Center Opens... Gustavus alumna Gretchen Taylor '08 was hired in early October 2008 as the volunteer coordinator for the community of St. Peter and has spent the last few months organizing the start-up of the St. Peter Volunteer Center. The main responsibility of the volunteer coordinator is to act as a liaison between the organizations in St. Peter that utilize volunteers and the volunteers who wish to offer their time and talents. The St. Peter Volunteer Center is a clearing house of information, offering an ever-growing list of volunteer opportunities. Many opportunities are available, from one-time events to ongoing commitments. The St. Peter Volunteer Center is located in the St. Peter Community Center, Suite 200. Visit Gretchen at the Community Center (between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., or call 507-934-0810 or e-mail gretchent@saintpetermn.gov) to pick up a volunteer application and inquire about available volunteer opportunities.

Flu Shots Still Encouraged for Students and Staff... The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has advised that yearly flu vaccination should continue throughout the influenza season—through January and beyond. This is because the timing and duration of influenza seasons vary. While influenza outbreaks can happen as early as October, most of the time influenza activity peaks in January or later. In 80 percent of influenza seasons since 1976, peak influenza activity has not occurred until January or later, and in 60 percent of the seasons, the peak was in February or later. With this information, the Gustavus Student Health Service is encouraging both students and employees who have not gotten their flu shots to get the vaccine. Call x7630 to schedule an appointment. The cost for the shot is $20. Staff must pay with check or cash, but a receipt will be given to be turned in to your flex spending account for medical reimbursement. Students can bill insurance, their student account, or pay with check or cash. If you have any questions, contact the Health Service.

Campus Happenings

Chapel Schedule... All are invited to the worship services at 10 a.m. weekdays and 10:30 a.m. Sundays in Christ Chapel. The upcoming schedule is as follows:

• Friday, Jan. 23 - Steve Boots, Union Presbyterian Church
  
• Sunday, Jan. 25 - Chaplain Brian Johnson
• Monday, Jan. 26 - Karl Larson (HES)
• Tuesday, Jan. 27 - Richard Leitch (political science)
• Wednesday, Jan. 28 - Morning Praise
• Thursday, Jan. 29 - Dick Karstad (retired staff)
• Friday, Jan. 30 - Peter Shea (philosophy)

Employee Enhancement Days Slated for Feb. 3 and 4... The 2009 Employee Enhancement Days will be held Tuesday, Feb. 3, and Wednesday, Feb. 4. The annual event is open to all employees of the College. All sessions will be held in Alumni Hall.

• Tuesday, Feb. 3, 8:15 a.m. - Keynote presentation: "Self-Destructive Habits of Otherwise Brilliant People: Pulling Together in a World of Change," Anna Maravelas, corporate seminar leader and founder of TheraRising Inc., St. Paul
• Tuesday, Feb. 3, 10 a.m. - Presentation: "Lines of Reasoning: Perspectives on Harassment in Higher Education," Kirk Beyer (human resources)
• Tuesday, Feb. 3, 11 a.m. - Presentation: "Environmental Health and Safety at Gustavus: What You Should Know," Jason Stratman (safety & security)
• Tuesday, Feb. 3, 1:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. - Workshop: "Pulling Together in a World of Change," led by Anna Maravelas (participants should have attended morning keynote)
• Wednesday, Feb. 4, 8:15 a.m. - Presentation: "When You Finally Start Paying Attention, Life Takes On New Meaning," Mike Lane, former vice president at Cargill, Inc.
• Wednesday, Feb. 4, 10 a.m. - "Lines of Reasoning," Kirk Beyer
• Wednesday, Feb. 4, 11 a.m. - "Environmental Health and Safety," Jason Stratman
• Wednesday, Feb. 4, 12:30 p.m. - "When You Finally Start Paying Attention," Mike Lane
• Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2:15 p.m. - "Lines of Reasoning," Kirk Beyer

Physician/Activist to Speak about Darfur Genocide... On Thursday, Feb. 12, 7-9 p.m., Dr. Ashis Brahma, doctor to Darfur refugees, will speak in Wallenberg Auditorium, Nobel Hall of Science, on the continuing genocide in Darfur, focusing on public policy, health, and the refugee crisis. The talk, “Darfur: Taking a Stand against Genocide,” is sponsored by the University of Minnesota's Center for Holocaust Studies and Gustavus's Community Service Center.
     Dr. Brahma is a Dutch physician who has worked as the sole doctor at the Oure Cassoni camp in Chad caring for 27,000 Darfur refugees forced from their homes in Sudan. More than 400,000 people in the Darfur region of Sudan have died due to the violence that began in 2003. Another 2 million have been forced into primitive refugee camps, like the one at Oure Cassoni, where starvation, malnutrition, and disease are now creating "genocide by attrition" and where deprivation and physical attacks, especially against women, are common. For more information, contact the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at 612-624-0256 or e-mail chgs@umn.edu or dnewell@gustavus.edu.

Off-Campus Events of Interest

Baked Goods for the United Way... A bake sale will be held on Friday, Feb. 13, beginning at 8 a.m. in the St. Peter High School gym lobby, with all proceeds going to the United Way of St. Peter. Bring your baked items for the sale or buy for your family and co-workers. Support the United Way!

Extraordinary People

Tom Emmert (history) is celebrating the completion of more than seven years of collaborative research with the publication last week of Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies (Purdue University Press and the United States Institute of Peace), which he co-edited with Charles Ingrao, professor of history at Purdue University. As associate director of the Scholars' Initiative, Emmert has helped direct an international consortium of historians, social scientists, and jurists to examine the salient controversies that still divide the peoples of the former Yugoslavia. The findings of its 11 research teams represent a direct assault on the proprietary narratives and interpretations that nationalist politicians and media have impressed on mass culture in each of the successor states. Hopefully, this broadly conceived synthesis will assist scholars, public officials, and the people they represent both in acknowledging inconvenient facts and in discrediting widely held myths that inform popular attitudes and the electoral success of nationalist politicians who profit from them. Starting next week the project begins a media blitz in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Kosovo to begin a discussion in the region of the project's main conclusions. During the course of 2009 it is hoped that the book will be translated and published in BCS (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian) and Albanian.

Congregational Outreach

Retreats... The Office of Church Relations will host a confirmation retreat for students from Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Mankato on Jan. 23-24.

Music in Worship... Any Gustavus music ensemble or soloist is welcome to perform in congregations. For more information, contact Marilyn Beyer (x7001).

Funding Opps

The Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations' weekly program or funding opportunity highlight:

• National Science Foundation Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement Program... The National Science Foundation’s Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program seeks to improve the quality of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education for all undergraduate students. The program supports efforts to create new learning materials and teaching strategies, develop faculty expertise, implement educational innovations, assess learning and evaluate innovations, and conduct research on STEM teaching and learning. The program supports three types of projects representing three different phases of development, ranging from small exploratory investigations to large comprehensive projects. Phase 1 projects typically address one of the five program components noted in the guidelines, and involve a limited number of students and faculty members at one academic institution. Grant awards are for two to three years and can be up to $200,000. The next deadline for Phase 1 proposals is May 21. For the newly released guidelines, please see http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf09529&org=NSF.

For more information on grants or proposal preparation, contact Bob Weisenfeld in the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations (x7049 or bweis@gustavus.edu).

In the Media

Here are some noteworthy Gustavus-related stories that recently appeared in print or broadcast media locally, regionally, or around the nation:

• The Shoreview Press printed a Q & A with sophomore (and Shoreview resident) Christian DeMarais in its Tuesday, Jan. 13, edition.
• The Mankato Free Press printed a story about 2003 graduate and professional tennis player Eric Butorac in its Thursday, Jan. 15, Sports section. Butorac was quoted in the story.
• The St. Peter Herald printed a story about alumnus Eric Butorac in its Thursday, Jan. 15, edition.
• The St. Peter Herald printed a story about Gustavus hosting the MSHSL State Speech Tournament in its Thursday, Jan. 15, edition. Kris Kracht (communication studies) was quoted in the story.
• The St. Peter Herald printed a story about the forensics team in its Thursday, Jan. 15 edition.
• The St. Peter Herald printed a story about CVR artist-in-residence Carrie Newcomer's concert in its Thursday, Jan. 15 edition.
• The St. Peter Herald printed a story about 2003 alumna Semonti Mustaphi being named Michelle Obama’s deputy press secretary in its Thursday, Jan. 15, edition.
• KEYC-TV ran a story about Gustavus’s participation in RecycleMania on its Sunday, Jan. 18, newscasts. Jim Dontje (Johnson Center) was interviewed for the story.
• The Mankato Free Press printed a front-page story and two color photos about the Gustavus January Term course taught by Kate Knutson (political science), which traveled to Washington, D.C., for the presidential inauguration. Knutson and students Kristy Proctor, Abby Norlin-Weaver, and Andrew Manley were quoted in the story.

Anyone who has suggested additions for this list, suggestions for potential future media stories, or interest in being a media source should contact Marketing and Communication (x7520 or ga_news@gustavus.edu).

Hours

Library Hours for Touring Week... Friday, Jan. 30 - 8 a.m.-4:45 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday, Jan. 31, & Feb. 1 - CLOSED; Monday-Friday, Feb. 2-6 - 8 a.m.-4:45 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday, Feb. 7 & 8 - CLOSED.

Limited Student Health Service Hours during Touring Week... The Gustavus Student Health Service will be open limited hours during Touring Week. Hours will be: Monday-Friday, Feb. 2-6 - 1-4 p.m.

Telecommunications Updates

The following are changes and additions for the "Personnel Phone Directory 2008-09"

• Ryan Galindo, athletics, phone: x8449, e-mail: rgalindo (addition)
• Jeanette Heilman, custodial, phone: x6696 (deletion)

For further information or corrections, contact Laura McCabe in telecommunications (x6261 or lmccabe@gustavus.edu).



To add or change items on the calendar, please fill out and submit a College Calendar event form. View the entire College Calendar online.

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The Yellow Sheet is a newsletter for Gustavus Adolphus College employees produced by the Office of Marketing and Communication. It is published weekly during the academic year (except during the week of Thanksgiving, the Christmas break, Touring Week, and the Spring and Easter breaks). Anyone may submit items by filling out an online submission form. While online submissions are preferred, items may also be submitted typewritten on a letter-sized sheet of paper. Send "snail mail" items to: The Yellow Sheet, Office of Marketing and Communication. Items must reach the office no later than 4:30 p.m. on the Tuesday before publication. The week of Nobel Conference the deadline is 4:30 p.m. Monday. For more information, contact Steve Waldhauser (waldo@gustavus.edu or x6413).

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