Georgia Southern University This Week

Vol. 16 No. 12

March 31, 2008

TOP STORIES

‘Expedition Georgia’ exhibit will open at Georgia Southern Museum on April 1
A new interactive exhibit at the Georgia Southern Museum will give visitors the opportunity to negotiate a maze that celebrates the state’s ecological diversity.
“Expedition Georgia” will open on Tuesday, April 1. The exhibit will focus on the Atlantic Ocean, the Coastal Plain, the Piedmont and the Mountains, which are the four major habitats found in Georgia.
“Visitors will find their way through the maze while discovering activities, graphics and information about each unique habitat,” said Brent Tharp, the director of the Museum. “Themed mazes are good interactive learning tools that combine the tasks of physically exploring the maze with the mental interaction of learning the curriculum.
“The result is an exhibit that will educate and entertain visitors of all ages.”
“Expedition Georgia” is presented in cooperation with Georgia Southern’s Botanical Garden. Visitors to the exhibit will receive an information packet and explorers kit for the Garden.
“We encourage everyone who visits ‘Expedition Georgia’ to further enhance their experience by taking the time to explore the Botanical Garden, where they will encounter many elements of the exhibit,” Tharp said.
The admission fee for “Expedition Georgia” is $4.50 per person for adults and $3 per person for children. Groups of 10 or more people that make reservations will be admitted for $2 per person. There is no admission fee for members of the Museum.
Located in the Rosenwald Building on Southern Drive, the Museum is open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
For more information, visit http://ceps.georgiasouthern.edu/museum or call ext. 5444.

Telephone system update
Telecommunications staff has been working on Phase 2B of the telephone system cutover, and by Friday, March 28, expects the following campus buildings to have numbers that begin with the 478 (GSU) prefix:
Forest Drive Building
Hendricks Hall
Scene Shop
Ceramics and Sculpture Studio
Carroll Building
Fine Arts Building
Newton Building
Henderson Library
Their four-digit extension number will remain the same.
Internal (intra-campus) calls require special attention:
• If you have an old number and are calling someone with a 478 prefix, you will need to dial 9 and the complete number, just as if you were making an outside call.
• If you have a 478 prefix and are dialing someone with an old number, you will have to dial 9 and the complete number, just as if you were making an outside call.
• If you have a 478 prefix and are dialing someone with a 478 prefix, you will only need to dial “8” and their four-digit extension.
As the entire campus moves to the new system, previous telephone numbers will have an automated message that provides callers with the new campus number (e.g. “This number has been changed. The new number is 478-XXXX”). Even after the new system is completed, messages will be available for a year.
Telephone numbers in the University’s Web directory http://directory.georgiasouthern.edu will be updated as the cutovers occur. Individual Human Resources information will be updated with new numbers, at the same time updating information for the Eagle Alert system.
As each building moves to the new telephone system, training sessions will be offered. Please check with your administrative secretary for the time and place of training.
Telecommunications will also provide tutorials on how to reconfigure voice mail in the new system.
Once your department has been moved to the new telephone system, please review all your department’s Web pages and update the telephone numbers that have changed.
For questions, call the Telecommunications Office at ext. 5000.

Jessica Orvis receives First-Year Experience honor
Jessica Orvis, assistant professor of chemistry and director of the General Chemistry program, is the 2008 recipient of the Outstanding First-Year Advocate (Faculty) Award. The award is presented by the First-Year Experience (FYE) Program to a faculty member who has made significant contributions to the academic and/or personal lives of first-year students.
Orvis was nominated for the award by Sara Workman, a student in her CHEM 1145 and 1146 classes. In her nomination, Workman wrote, “Professor Orvis showed me that I can be passionate about chemistry and that I can actually do it. She is my reason for deciding my major and making my first-year experience so much better.”
“In addition to her exemplary teaching, Jess Orvis has contributed to the First-Year Experience Program on many levels,” said Chris Caplinger, director of FYE. “Jess played a leading role in developing ‘Conversations with Professors,’ the academic welcome faculty members provide to students the Sunday before classes begin. She was also instrumental in piloting the new first-year seminar that becomes part of the curriculum for all first-year students this fall.”
In addition to teaching General Chemistry and a chemistry core class taken by pre-nursing students, Orvis developed the Environmental Chemistry core class. She has also developed a section of CHEM 1145 and CHEM 1145 for chemistry majors in the new Chemistry ELEmentS Residential Interest Group (RIG).
“Jess is a teacher’s teacher and has dedicated herself to her work with first-year students,” writes Mary Boyd, chair of the Department of Chemistry. “Her contributions to teaching in the chemistry department are extraordinary, both in her devotion to her own students and through her role as Director of General Chemistry for all freshman students.”

Novotny’s research results in ‘This Georgia Rising’
Patrick Novotny researched political, social and educational trends in Georgia during the WWII and postwar years of the 1940s to create his new book, “This Georgia Rising: Education, Civil Rights and the Politics of Change in Georgia in the 1940s.”
Published earlier this year by Mercer University Press, the volume provides a rich and detailed history of that time.
“This Georgia Rising is filled with stories rather than statistics,” said Novotny, who is an associate professor of political science at Georgia Southern University. “There are so many untold stories (from this time period), so many unsung women and men who were committed to change.”
To research the time period, Novotny focused primarily on small-town daily and weekly newspapers and prominent African American newspapers of the time. The rich and detailed view of small-town Georgia Novotny provides is important because, as Novotny points out, “it was the small towns where veterans returned and wanted to make change, and could make a change.”
In his research Novotny found the University of Georgia and Georgia Southern University itself, then called Georgia Teachers College, embroiled in controversy surrounding access to education and racial equality.
“Here in Georgia, we saw the beginnings of an equality movement that the rest of the Southern United States wouldn’t experience until decades later. This was at a time when Martin Luther King Sr. was the influential figure,” said Novotny.
Much of the social controversy chronicled in “This Georgia Rising” involved the firing and dismissing of several faculty and administrators of Georgia colleges who were advocating progressive reforms in education. Progressive platforms were also a major part of political campaigns in local and state elections.
Georgia Teachers College, which eventually became Georgia Southern University, is often mentioned in “This Georgia Rising.”
“Georgia Southern has a legacy of a determination to move forward, take progressive steps, and look toward the future. That commitment to positive change is part of our institutional DNA,” says Novotny.

New software will streamline hiring at Georgia Southern
New software will streamline hiring at Georgia Southern
Georgia Southern will automate its hiring processes with PeopleAdmin, a software tool that will move the University from a paper hiring process to computerized hiring methods. Both internal and external candidates will be required to apply for positions using PeopleAdmin.
The new system is set to begin operation April 28, and hiring managers have been invited to participate in training sessions that will prepare them for the change. To allow the University to finalize the change to PeopleAdmin software, advertising of new vacancies will stop April 14-25, the two weeks prior to implementation.
“With this software, hiring managers will assume more ownership of the employment process,” said Demetrius Bynes, employment manager in the Department of Human Resources, who has been using a test site to learn the new system. “This system will allow hiring managers to decrease the amount of time spent in the employment process.”
In addition to hiring new employees, PeopleAdmin will be available to create new positions and modify existing position descriptions. From initial position requests to new job postings, and from application screening to final hiring, this new tool is expected to improve the flow of information.
“We’ll be able to collect and review employment application materials online, and at the same time provide automated feedback to applicants regarding the status of their search,” said Bynes.
According to information posted on its Web site, www.peopleadmin.com/index.html,
PeopleAdmin is now being used by more than 335 college and universities and public sector agencies all across the nation.

OTHER EVENTS
March
29	Softball - College of Charleston at Georgia Southern, 1 p.m. & 3 p.m.
	Women’s Tennis - Davidson at Georgia Southern, 2 p.m.
30	Softball - College of Charleston at Georgia Southern, 1 p.m.
31	Cinema Arts presents “After the Wedding,” Russell Union Theater, $2, 7:15 p.m.
	Georgia Southern Symphony, Performing Arts Center, 7:30 p.m.
April
1	Expedition Georgia exhibit opens, Museum.
	Emanuel County Eagle Club, Cadle’s Barn, 6:30 p.m. For more information or tickets, contact Alumni Relations at ext. 5691.
2	Baseball - Kennesaw State at Georgia Southern, 4 p.m.
3	Evans County Eagle Club, Massey Pond House, 6:30 p.m. For more information or tickets, contact Alumni Relations at ext. 5691.
3-6	Opera Performance, Averitt Center for the Arts, 7:30 p.m., 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 6.
4	International Conversation Hour, Russell Union Ballroom, 11:30 a.m.
5	Softball - Elon at Georgia Southern, 1 p.m. & 3 p.m.
	Alumni Awards Banquet, Nessmith-Lane Ballroom, 5 p.m. Tickets $15 per person. Alumni Relations, ext 5691.
	Dallas Brass, Performing Arts Center, 7:30 p.m.
6	Men’s Tennis - Chattanooga at Georgia Southern, noon.
	Softball - Elon at Georgia Southern, 1 p.m.
7	Cinema Arts presents “Divorce Italian Style,” Russell Union Theater, $2, 7:15 p.m.
8	Baseball - Jacksonville at Georgia Southern, 6 p.m.
	Endowed Honors Recital, First Presbyterian Church, 7:30 p.m.
	Laurens County Eagle Club, Dublin Country Club, 6:30 p.m. For more information or tickets, contact Alumni Relations at ext. 5691.
9	Softball - Florida A&M at Georgia Southern, 2 p.m. & 4 p.m.
	Women’s Tennis - College of Charleston at Georgia Southern, 2 p.m.
10	Glynn County Eagle Club, Home of Joan Harris, 6:30 p.m. For more information or tickets, contact Alumni Relations at ext. 5691.
	Theatre & Performance presents “On Dragonfly Wings,” Black Box Theatre in the Center for Art & Theater, 7:30 p.m.

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