Internal Communications
All members of the Lawrence community are encouraged to celebrate the Lunar New Year on Jan. 28 in the Warch Campus Center’s Somerset Room.
Cultural dance and music performances will begin at 6 p.m., with a cultural expo to follow. The event is free and open to the public.
The following colleagues have been hired, rehired or have a new position within the last two weeks. If you see them on campus, please welcome them to Lawrence or congratulate them on their new position!
Are you interested in making some changes in 2017 to lose weight and get healthier? We would like to determine the level of interest in holding a “Weight Watchers at Work” program here at Lawrence. Weight Watchers’ new “Beyond the Scale” offers the following:
In order to get a program started here at Lawrence, we need a minimum of 15 participants. Participants typically are required to sign up for a 12–15-week session, and payment is made at the start of the program. If you’re interested and would like to attend an open house session here on campus to learn more, please email Laurie Ehlers, RN educator, at laurie.ehlers@lawrence.edu.
Thanks to collaboration with alumni and friends of the university, Career Services has a variety of events coming up next week. These events range from conservation/land and water resource management to business/consulting to government.
Students, attend info sessions and/or 1:1 chats with Northwest Youth Corps, The Boldt Company, U.S. Department of State and Optum to explore current internship and job openings.
Registration and details for these events can be found on LUworks.
Thanks to collaboration with alumni and friends of the university, Career Services has a variety of events coming up next week. These events range from conservation/land and water resource management to business/consulting to government.
Please encourage students to use these events with Northwest Youth Corps, The Boldt Company, U.S. Department of State and Optum to explore current internship and job openings by attending info sessions and/or 1:1 chats.
Registration and details for these events can be found on LUworks.
For those faculty and staff on campus who approve invoices and expense reimbursements and are responsible for forwarding on these items to accounts payable for payment, PLEASE be aware of the following:
In addition to the time it takes on your end to get invoices approved, coded and sent to accounts payable, it still takes an additional ONE to TWO weeks processing time before the final check or ACH payment gets in the hands of our vendors, staff, students or faculty. The additional processing time includes the following steps:
ACTION STEP FOR 2017: It would be very much appreciated if approvers around campus can make it a New Year’s goal to review invoices for approval and forward to accounts payable on a WEEKLY basis to ensure timely payments are being made to our vendors. Most vendors require payment within 30 days, while some require it within 15 days.
The Staff Connections Committee would like to invite you to wear your LU gear and/or blue and white and join us at the Viking Room happy hour, Wednesday, Jan. 25 from 4:30 to 6 p.m.
If you attend while wearing your blue and white, your name will be entered into a drawing for some sweet prizes. Plus, you get to enjoy FREE pretzels and buy one, get one free drink specials!
Check in at the Staff Connections table for your chance to win!
Help save lives by donating blood next Thursday, Jan. 26, from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center’s Esch Hurvis Room.
To schedule an appointment, email Erin Buenzli, director of wellness and recreation, or visit communityblood.org and enter sponsor code A041.
Dear faculty, students, and staff,
Welcome back to campus! It is a pleasure to have you return; you enliven what becomes a very quiet place during the break. I hope all of you have come back refreshed and ready to learn. We begin this year steadfast in our commitment to provide insight into the pressing issues that face the world and to create opportunities for learning how to foster communities that include people of different backgrounds and different perspectives. As societies around the world become more polarized, we must rededicate our efforts to come together and learn as one community. Here at Lawrence, even as we have made positive progress, there remains work to be done.
To those ends, Kimberly Barrett, Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion and Associate Dean of the Faculty has already sent a message, and Linda Morgan-Clement, the Julie Esch Hurvis Dean of Spiritual and Religious Life, will be in contact very soon with schedules of events planned for this winter and spring. These events will provide opportunities for us to learn new skills in order to discuss the issues that face our communities and others around the globe. You can also find a schedule of events on the Diversity and Inclusion page and on a new page for Spiritual and Religious Life at Lawrence.
At the end of fall term many of you asked about our policies and procedures regarding Lawrentians who are not citizens of the United States. Our policy has been, and will continue to be, to create a welcoming and supportive community for all, without regard for citizenship status.
For many years our policy and practice have been to protect the information of all members of our community to the fullest extent the law allows, and to establish mechanisms to attract the most talented students, faculty, and staff from around the globe. We take seriously our obligation to uphold the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which sets forth strict conditions for releasing student information to any party, including government authorities. While faculty and staff information is not governed by FERPA, we also respect and protect the privacy of our employees to the extent permitted by law. We will not release any non-directory information, including citizenship or immigration status information, about any member of the Lawrence community without that person’s consent unless we are required to do so by lawful subpoena or other legal directive.
As a learning institution, two of our most central and enduring values are to support all community members and to foster an environment in which all can thrive. We value a learning environment that includes difference in all forms. We remain committed to considering any applicant for admission, regardless of their immigration or citizenship status. We will also continue to consider institutional financial aid for students who may not hold a U.S. passport. We will continue to recruit faculty and staff from around the world and to provide support and resources to non-U.S. citizens. Support and resources can be found here.
During the coming weeks, we will continue to review our policies and procedures that relate to citizenship and immigration to identify opportunities for improvement. All employees will also receive a refresher on FERPA and information security. Please do not hesitate to contact me, Kimberly Barrett, or Julia Messitte our general counsel, if you have specific questions.
I look forward to seeing each of you on campus. Again, welcome back.
Yours,
Mark Burstein
President, Lawrence University
Dear Lawrence students, faculty and staff,
Welcome to a new term, a new year and a new opportunity to make our community an even more ideal place in which to work and learn. It is the perfect time to remember the unique opportunity we have in education to influence the world in which we live. By now you know I am a fan of bell hooks’ writing, and this time of year brings to mind a quote from her book Teaching to Transgress:
“The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created. The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom.” (p. 207)
And helping people gain the knowledge and skills needed to practice freedom (or liber, Latin for freedom) is what liberal education is all about. Some of these skills include the ability to think critically but with compassion and to speak assertively but with civility and respect for those who hold a different point of view. The Office of Diversity and Inclusion, in collaboration with many of you, will be offering a number of opportunities to practice and model these skills this term.
One of these is our Community Conversations series. These are structured dialogues that facilitate authentic communication across critical areas of perceived difference. The purpose is to promote increased understanding, trust and collaboration. During Winter Term, we will begin two new dialogues. One will be a discussion to help find common ground across political ideologies. The first of three conversations in this Common Ground series will be held Friday, Jan. 13, 1–4 p.m., in the Esch Hurvis Room of the Warch Campus Center. The other new conversation series will invite students and faculty to come together to discuss activism and effective strategies for promoting social change. The first of this series will be held in February. Details will be available soon on our website.
We will also continue our Community Conversation on Safety. This is a dialogue between the Lawrence community and the Appleton Police Department. The next discussion will be held Thursday, Feb. 9, 8:30–noon, in the Nathan Marsh Pusey Room of the Warch Campus Center. To register to participate in these dialogues and to find additional ways to get involved with efforts to make Lawrence more inclusive, visit the “Get Involved” web page on the Diversity and Inclusion website. You can also sign up to participate in a Community Conversation by emailing div-inclusion@lawrence.edu.
Finally, I ask that you mark your calendars for our first regional diversity conference. It will focus on inclusive pedagogy. The theme is “Teaching All Students Well: Preparing an educated citizenry for wise participation in a diverse democracy.” Derald Wing Sue, professor of psychology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University will deliver the keynote. The conference will also feature several concurrent sessions to highlight the work being done locally to practice inclusive pedagogy. It will be held Aug. 17–18 at the Warch Campus Center.
In conclusion, as we consider the possibilities that the privilege of a Lawrence education provides in this new year, let’s not forget the responsibilities that accompany it. As one of the most famous founders of our nation, Thomas Jefferson, stated in 1779, “Those persons, whom nature has endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens.”
Best wishes for a happy new year!
Kimberly Barrett, Ph.D.
Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion and Associate Dean of the Faculty
