Daily Brief

Registration is still open for the President’s Opening Day Gathering and Convocation! Responses will be taken until noon on Friday, August 27.

The Opening Day Gathering will take place in Schaeffer Auditorium on August 30. A continental buffet at 7:30 a.m. will precede the annual address by President Cevallos and presentations by our union and senate leaders at 8 a.m.

Convocation will take place on Sunday, August 29 at 4:15-5 p.m. in Keystone Arena.

KU’s Off Campus Student Life and Commuter Services Offices will once again be organizing a “KU Community Blitz" on Saturday, September 11, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. With the assistance of volunteers from the university as well as the town, our goal is to welcome back students living in the Kutztown community and wish them a great year.

The plan is to canvas Kutztown in teams of three to four and distribute welcome bags to identified student housing. We will form at the Trinity Church (357 W. Main Street) at 10:30 a.m. where assignments, instructions, maps and bags will be distributed. I am anticipating that with enough volunteers, we can canvas the Kutztown area in an hour or so. When you have completed your rounds, lunch will be provided at Trinity Church for all volunteers.

In order for this event to happen, we are in the need your help. If you are able to give a little bit of your time toward the success of this venture, please e-mail me at nolan@kutztown.edu. Friends and family are welcome to join us. Please feel free to share this request with other members of your staff and student organizations that you oversee.

Thank you in advance for helping to make Kutztown Community Blitz another success!

Work Schedule - Effective Monday, August 30, offices and functions that are currently working on the modified summer schedule will be returning to the normal academic year schedule of 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with a one hour lunch. These hours will be in effect through Friday, May 6, 2011.

Please join the Kutztown University Foundation on Tuesday, August 31 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in McFarland Student Union 223, to thank Ron Lewis for the many years of outstanding service to KUF and Kutztown University and to wish him the best in retirement. To RSVP, please call ext. 3-1394 or e-mail lkeller@kutztown.edu.

The Student Union and Involvement Services is holding student staff training this week. Since part of training is a community service project, we have chosen Hope Lodge, a facility run by the American Cancer Society that houses cancer patients and their families while they receive outpatient treatment to be the recipient.

We are asking the KU community to donate the following items for our student staff to collect and deliver:

If you are interested in participating, please drop your items off at the McFarland Student Union info desk anytime Wednesday, August 25-Friday August 27. For more information, please e-mail Jen Topp: jtopp516@live.kutztown.edu.

Desire2Learn Faculty Update: Please remember that KU is no longer using Blackboard as its learning management system, instead, we have fully transitioned to Desire2Learn (D2L). As you work on updating and editing your courses please feel free to contact Professor Will Jefferson in the Department of Learning Technologies for questions about D2L training.

Other helpful resources for D2L can be found by clicking on the following links and e-mail addresses:

Updates on workshop opportunities and new resources will be sent to you on a regular basis between now and the beginning of the Fall 2010 semester.

** Students will be given access to courses on August 25 and 26. If you need them to have access to your course earlier than that please contact Jim Brenneck.

Important Turnitin® Announcement/Outage: There will be a special maintenance window and outage for the Turnitin service on Saturday, September 4 from 1 - 9 p.m. All Turnitin services may be unavailable for all users during these times. For assignments due during this window, we recommend that instructors change the due date and alert their students.

To submit items for the Daily Brief, please e-mail dbrief@kutztown.edu (no attachments) to the University Relations Office by 2 p.m. on the day prior to publication.

Persons with a disability and who require accommodation should notify the KU Disability Services Office two weeks prior to the event at 610-683-4108 (TDD: 610-683-4499) or e-mail accommodation@kutztown.edu in order to discuss accommodations. Every effort will be made to provide reasonable accommodations.