Voting runs through today (Monday, April 22) in Wake Forest’s annual Staff Advisory Council (SAC) election.

Candidates in the election are staff members in the following areas at the University: Finance/Administration, Provost, Student Life and University Advancement. Eligible voters will receive an email informing them that they may vote for candidates employed in the same University area as they are.

The candidates are seeking to fill SAC positions. The new terms will begin July 1. SAC members are elected to three-year terms.

Online voting is available here:
http://apps.sac.wfu.edu/secure/elections

Eligible voters also may go the OS1 Training Room at the Facilities and Campus Services building.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact one of the members of the SAC Elections Committee: Angela Hobbs (x4521), Travis Manning (x5478), Paul Sheff (x6071) or Ted Johnson (x4374).

The SAC is a University advisory group that strives to strengthen communication between the staff and the University administration. President Nathan Hatch formed the group in 2006. For additional SAC information, visit: http://sac.wfu.edu.

Congratulations to Rebecca Powell, postdoc research associate in the Center for Energy, Environment and Sustainability, whose proposal entitled “Collaborative Research: Thermal controls on ecosystem metabolism and function: scaling from leaves to canopies to regions” has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Oregon State University (WFU funding agency).

Congratulations to Mary Foskett, professor of religion, whose proposal entitled “Wake Forest University Humanities Institute” has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

Four students from a Managerial Accounting class taught by Cynthia Tessien have organized a sale of carmel popcorn with proceeds going to the Red Cross in Boston, the main charity organization taking donations for the Boston Marathon explosions. Popcorn will be $2 a bag, and pre-orders must be placed by Thursday at midnight. Place your order here »

Delivery will be from 1-3 p.m. on Friday. The students also will be selling the carmel popcorn on campus on Friday outside of the Benson Food Court. Cash and checks will be accepted, and all checks should be made out to the Red Cross and detail the Boston Marathon on the memo line.

The four students — Meghan Loose, Eric Roberts, Ashley Rogers and Patricia Fotos — are all sophomore accounting majors. In Tessien’s class, students were supposed to create a small business that would sell a product for one day, giving them an idea of all of the work that goes into running a business and producing a product.

“Given the attacks on Boston on Monday, it seemed like an obvious choice to our group to send our profits to the Red Cross in their efforts to help the Boston Marathon,” Fotos said. “Two of the students in our group are from Massachusetts, outside of Boston, so this cause is very important to our group.”

Congratulations to Gary D. Miller, associate professor of health and exercise science, whose proposal entitled “Dietary Nitrate to Augment Exercise Benefits” has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under subaward number 203-2819 and the Duke University (WFU funding agency).

Congratulations to Oana Jurchescu, assistant professor of physics, whose proposal entitled “Career: Fundamental Limits of Charge Transport in Organic Semiconductors” has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The following is a message from Provost Rogan Kersh: 

We are pleased to continue a Wake Forest tradition of deliberate innovation by introducing a new program, organized on Wake’s behalf by our colleagues Kline Harrison and Ann Cunningham, to prepare international high school students for success at U.S. colleges and universities. We are calling the program “Wake Forest Advantage” as it is designed to provide benefits both to the students who complete the program and the institutions (including ours) that enroll them. Continue reading »

The Office of Sustainability is looking for volunteers for its Earth Day 2013 celebration on Saturday, April 20. The event will run from noon-6 p.m. on Manchester Plaza (Mag Quad).

Food For Thought, this year’s Earth Day Fair will feature educational and activity booths centered around the themes of sustainability and food justice. There will be live music and dance, beer from City Beverage, and lots of fun and games for kids and adults alike.  The event is free and open to all WFU students, faculty and staff, and their families.

Volunteers are needed for a wide variety of fun and important jobs, including:

• Face painting
• Making bird feeders & coloring
• Helping with event passports and raffle tickets
• Recycling station management
• Merchandise sales
• Tent and booth setup

Volunteers are needed from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and Chipotle burritos will be provided for lunch for volunteers. Please sign up for your hour-long shift on this spreadsheet. Feel free to sign up for as many hours as you want.

Donations of half-gallon paper milk or juice cartons for kids crafts are also needed. Please bring your rinsed cartons to the Office of Sustainability, Reynolda Hall, Room 101, before Friday.

Spread the word, and email Tiffany White (whitetn@wfu.edu) or Austin Smith (smitad8@wfu.edu) with any questions about these opportunities.

The next Faculty Senate meeting will be at 4 p.m., Wednesday, April 17, in DeTamble Auditorium. Refreshments served starting at 3:30 p.m. 

Senate committee reports and discussions will include, among others:

• Resources Committee – Report on Faculty Leave
• Academic Freedom and Responsibility
• University Integration – Ad Hoc Committee on Integration and Collaboration
• Revision of sexual harassment policy
• Status of faculty elections

Dear Wake Forest Community,

In the aftermath of the tragedy in Boston yesterday, we are left with many questions and few answers. My heart goes out to all of the people injured in the blasts and all those who have loved ones affected by the bombings.

To the best of our knowledge, all of the current Reynolda Campus students, faculty and staff members participating in or attending the Boston Marathon are safe. For that, we are extremely grateful. Many in the Wake Forest community are from or have connections to the Boston area. We will continue to keep your friends and family in our hearts and prayers.

Events of this magnitude can affect people in several ways. Wake Forest offers support and counseling services for all students, faculty and staff. The Counseling Center may be reached at 758-5273, and Campus Ministry at 758-5210. For faculty and staff, there is also the Employee Assistance Program at 716-5493. Please do not hesitate to contact these offices.

In the spirit of Pro Humanitate, please continue to support one another in the coming days.

Sincerely,

Nathan O. Hatch
President

This message is sent on behalf of Provost Rogan Kersh and Senior Vice President Hof Milam:

We write to update you about one aspect of our ongoing Strategic Resource Initiative (SRI). This group of faculty and staff continues to work hard to identify spending practices and policies that enable us to repurpose funds for the announced SRI efforts: support merit compensation, student financial aid, and strategic initiatives. One item under consideration involves computers that are made available to staff. (Faculty and student computers are evaluated via a parallel process by our IT Executive Committee, or ITEC.)

Historically, all eligible staff have received laptop computers as part of the College’s “student laptop program.” With recent advances in technology, laptops are more reliable than they were just a few years ago. By increasing memory and switching to solid-state drives to boost performance, we expect laptops to serve us well for four years.

Laptops are easy targets for theft and they are neither as reliable nor as powerful as desktop workstations. Staff who do not have a regular need to work away from their desk would be better served by desktop computers.

Indeed, we can purchase higher-performing desktops at considerably lower cost than laptops, providing better equipment for job performance and saving university funds. Comparative analysis shows that such a higher-performing desktop can be expected to last for five years.

Thus we will be extending our rotation period for desktop and laptop computers. The standard will be to provide staff members with a desktop computer. Only staff whose roles require laptops will be provided these instead of desktops. For staff who have only occasional needs for a laptop, departments may choose to purchase or rent loaner laptops for that purpose.

All eligible staff members whose primary laptop is three or more years old will receive a replacement computer. Our Information Systems (IS) team will soon contact department heads with a list of those staff and with details on criteria for qualifying for laptops. IS will forward laptop requests to the appropriate Vice-President or the Provost for approval.

Thank you for your cooperation as we work together through this new process.

This message is sent on behalf of Dean of the College Jacque Fetrow, who also chairs the IT Executive Committee (ITEC):

I’m writing to let you know the outcome of the Next Steps Initiative. We will move forward with the plan and two year pilot that has been proposed and presented in ITEC’s preliminary report distributed in January. (I thank all of you who took the time to respond to that report.) The College will move to a two-year pilot, to explore the issues associated with laptop choice and with virtualization of some parts of the software load. The university will pay for the costs of the pilot programs for both choice and virtualization. Information Systems (IS) and the College will pay for the costs of updating the standard laptop to a higher-performing model which will last for four years (if necessary).

As recommended by CIT, the faculty laptops will be moving to a four-year rotation, and will include the upgrades to the higher-performing model.  More information will be coming from the IS department regarding opportunities for additional minor upgrades for faculty.

There will be no option for faculty who are not scheduled for laptop replacement this year, nor for rising sophomores or seniors, to replace their laptop with the new model.  As always, there is the option for anyone to purchase the standard laptop on the Library’s “Friends and Family” web page.  Any student or faculty member who does this with personal funds will not be able to access some of the standard load software, because of licensing issues.

Our next step is moving forward with “Vision 2020: A Technology Plan for Wake Forest University,” the goal of which is to consider the future of technology and computing in education at Wake Forest.  You will hear more about this initiative in coming months.

I thank all of you for your feedback and active participation over the past year, as we have worked together to identify the future of the laptop program at Wake Forest.