Faculty/Staff Accomplishments and Departmental News 5/13/20

In this issue, we celebrate accomplishments of faculty and staff from career planning, communication, and religious and ethical studies. We also share an update from the Library’s Fun Things to Do round-up. 

Professor of Religious and Ethical Studies Steven Benko’s March interview with The Atlantic about the ethics of food delivery services was quoted in The New York Times on May 7.

A program proposal submitted by Jane K. Matthews and Dana F. Sumner, Office of Career Planning, was selected by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) for the NACE 2020 Conference & Expo in Minneapolis that was scheduled for June 2020. Their workshop proposal, “Career Counselors as Managers: Using Strengths to Develop an Engaged Team” focused on the value of ongoing training, development, conversation, and mentoring of supervisors as they lead teams in creating environments where members are clear about goals and desired outcomes of the center and the institution. As career counselors, many enter supervisory roles because they were successful in a non-managerial role or they had significant experience and longevity in their organization or in the field.  These two reasons don’t guarantee that managers are effective or that members of their team will be committed to their work and organization. As career counselors, we have these conversations with students as they are considering career opportunities and workplace environments that align with their values, interests, and strengths. Career counselors who serve as managers of teams need this ongoing coaching, development, and opportunity to use their strengths, too. Even though the national conference has since been canceled, this topic guides the work that OCP does on a daily basis and will be one that they will continue to research and discuss.

Associate Professor of Mass Communication Doug Spero served as a judge for the Broadcast Education Association (BEA) 2020 Festival of Media Arts. He was one of the judges for the categories of micro, short, and long form documentaries for the Student Documentary Division. The Festival of Media Arts is one of the feature units of the BEA Conference, which is held in Las Vegas every year along with the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). Although both events were cancelled this Spring, the BEA went ahead with “BEA Virtual Vegas 2020”.  It was designed to send as much content as possible from the actual convention through electronic distribution. The awards were announced to the winners through this process and the physical awards are being sent to their individual schools.

Library “Fun Things to Do” Update
As the Spring semester comes to a close and summer classes begin, the Library continues to add content to the Fun Things to Do guide including a link to six new digital puzzles from the Smithsonian on the “Free Stuff” tab. The Smithsonian Libraries have created six digital jigsaw puzzles through Jigsaw Explorer that feature a few favorite images from their collection. Each puzzle is set to contain about 100 pieces, but they are customizable for any skill set!