12:30 – 3:30 p.m. Oct. 1
Dengerink Administration building, rooms 129/130

Faculty and staff are encouraged to participate in the launch of a new academic strategic planning process. Chancellor Mel Netzhammer and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Renny Christopher will kick off the Town Hall by explaining the process. An opening presentation will be followed by small group discussions. You are encouraged to attend, even if you can’t commit to the entire three-hour block.

The year-long academic strategic planning process will be open, collaborative and transparent, and will involve stakeholders throughout the campus community and beyond. The final report will be presented in spring 2014.

“In Our Family,” a traveling photo and text exhibit that focuses on 20 families representing a breadth of diversity and family configurations, is on display in the Dengerink Administration building gallery through Oct. 4. The positive and realistic photographs, along with the candid interviews with family members of all ages, affirm an inclusive and expansive vision of family life today.

WSU Vancouver has been recognized with a Fresh Air Gold Award by the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice for taking part in its Fresh Air Campus Challenge and becoming a 100 percent smoke- and tobacco-free campus.

The Fresh Air Campus Challenge is an effort to bring college campuses and local, state and federal tobacco-control programs together to help ensure all institutions of higher education in the Northwest begin the process of becoming smoke or tobacco free by the end of 2013 and complete the transition by 2016.

The NWCPHP is an extension of the University of Washington’s school of public health.

As of Jan 2013, at least 1,130 campuses in the U.S. have 100 percent smoke- or tobacco-free policies. That’s a sharp increase from 420 campuses with such a policy in place in 2010.

The August/September edition (PDF) of IT Happens offers tips for getting fall term off to a great start, a warning about a new virus attack and an article from guest columnist Michael Caulfield, director of blended and networked learning.