Daily Brief

Chi Sigma Iota Induction Ceremony

The Department of Counselor Education and Student Affairs and the Chi Omega Upsilon (COU) Chapter of Chi Sigma Iota (CSI) held their eighth annual induction ceremony Friday, April 11. Chi Sigma Iota is an international academic and professional honor society for counselors. In addition to celebrating our new inductees, we'd like to congratulate Ann Lemon, Katie Purner, Katrina Krause and Emily Brettell for receiving outstanding student awards in their program of study. We also recognized Christopher Bard for his accomplishments and work as an alumnus of the program. Jacob Barringer and Kurtis Haynesworth received the Past-President's Award for their work leading the COU chapter during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 academic years.

Deborah Duenyas, Counselor Education and Student Affairs

KU Hosted Author Eric M. Garcia for Autism Awareness

National political journalist and author Eric M. Garcia visited campus Thursday, April 10, to share his professional expertise and personal stories as part of the Title III grant's initiative to reduce barriers for students with disabilities by providing expanded and targeted training for faculty and staff who work with neurodiverse students to better understand and accommodate their learning needs and support their strengths. We were honored by Garcia's willingness to talk with a variety of audiences, including our Student Diversity Council, a Journalism I class, at a reception with our Committee for Human Diversity and then an evening lecture titled "Autism, Accommodation and Academia: An Unrequited Love Triangle." His visit was a culminating experience after the Faculty and Staff Neurodiversity Book Group (as well as Dr. Leonard's Disabilities and Literature class) featured his book "We're Not Broken" this term: "with a reporter’s eye and an insider’s perspective, Eric Garcia shows what it’s like to be autistic across America." Garcia shared that his visit to KU "was legitimately one of my favorite speaking engagements specifically because the students, staff and faculty were so engaged."

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Brandy Leininger, Academic Affairs

AFSCME Local 2234 Membership Meeting

Please join AFSCME 2234 members for our monthly meeting at 5 p.m. tonight, Monday, April 21, 202 Academic Forum. Stay informed. Light refreshments will be provided.

Christina Ferris, AFSCME/Biology

Are You Eating Lead? How Would You Know? Free Testing Available.

Most lead (Pb) used in the U.S. today is in the cores of car batteries. Because most people swap old car batteries for new ones at auto shops, those shops serve as lead recycling centers, so lead is one of the most efficiently recycled metals (99% of battery lead and 75% from all uses), even though it's one of the cheapest metals. However, people also once used lead to make paint white or colorful and make glass sparkly. Human ingestion of tiny amounts of lead has long been known to cause neurological damage and developmental irregularities, making lead an invisible toxin when presented in bioavailable forms. There are scientific ways to detect invisible lead. Home test kits involve dabbing the sample surface with a chemical, then observing how the chemical reaction changes the solution’s color. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) found that home chemical test kits failed to detect lead more than half of the time, but analyses using an XRF spectrometer were 92% effective and 100% safe. We have an opportunity for you: Kutztown University has an XRF spectrometer and Geology Club students who know how to use the instrument. If you have antique dishes, paint chips or other objects that you’d like tested for lead (or for other heavy elements like gold, silver, etc.) with the XRF, please bring them 11 a.m. to noon, Tuesday, April 22, 100 Boehm (near the main entrance). Each analysis takes about two minutes and does not harm your sample. LGLO (Let’s Get the Lead Out).

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Kurt Friehauf, Geology Club

Kutztown University Council of Trustees Meeting

The Kutztown University Council of Trustees will meet Thursday, April 24, McFarland Student Union Building. Committee meetings will begin at 1:30 p.m.:
- Academic and Student Affairs Committee, 323 MSU.
- Finance, Property, and Audit Committee, 322 MSU.
- Human Diversity Committee, 325 MSU.
- University Relations and Athletics and Advancement Committee, 324 MSU.
The Plenary Session will begin at 3 p.m., 250 MSU.

Office of the President,

University Curriculum Committee

The University Curriculum Committee will meet at 11 a.m. Thursday, April 24, via Zoom. The meeting agenda can be found on the UCC Document Submissions SharePoint page.

Brian Meares, University Curriculum Committee