The Department of Athletics and Office of Alumni and Parent Relations invites Aces alumni and fans to a watch party today at 6:00 p.m., as the Men's Basketball team plays game two's winner (No. 7 Missouri State or No.10 Drake) in the second round of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament. The watch party will be at Chido Mexican Bar and Grill, located at 701 NW Riverside Drive in Evansville. No RSVP is required. It will be dutch treat with a full menu available. 

Thirteen high schools from Vanderburgh and Warrick Counties will compete in the Changemaker Challenge social innovation contest on Thursday, March 17 from 9:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. in Eykamp Hall, Room 251, Ridgway University Center. Come watch as these teams present their ideas for making the world a better place and compete for UE scholarships!

Thanks to Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Indiana for sponsoring this event. The event is free and open to the public. For more details, visit www.evansville.edu/cc-hs. 

Questions? Contact Erin Lewis at el131@evansville.edu.

Come to Jazzman's every Wednesday from 4:30-5:00 p.m., and meet the Newman Club's seminarians! Ambrose and Tam, our international seminarians, are currently studying at St. Meinrad Archabbey in St. Meinrad, Indiana, and they would love to meet you! Please feel free to come by, say hi, and ask them anything you want!

Please call/text Kristel at 812-760-8610 for more information!
 

The TIAA-CREF representative will be on the UE campus on Tuesday, March 22, for individual counseling sessions.  To schedule an appointment, call TIAA-CREF at 1-800-732-8353 or 317-706-6200.  The sessions are held in the Clifford Rare Books Room of the University Libraries (room 158).

If you have any questions, call Carol McCraney at 812-488-2943.

Each staff employee and their guest are invited to attend the Staff Appreciation Dinner at the Log Inn on Wednesday, April 20.  The social hour (cash bar and appetizers) begins at 6:00 p.m., and the dinner will begin at 7:00 p.m. Please join President Kazee in the presentation of staff service awards and for the presentation of the Staff Employee of the Year Award.

Invitations will be sent to staff employees via UE campus mail during the first week of April. Please contact Human Resources at ext. 2943 if you have any questions.
 

The NSLS Speaker 3 broadcast will be today from 6:00-7:00 p.m., in Eykamp Hall, Room 252, Ridgway University Center. Remember all members must attend three speaker broadcasts as part of the requirements to be officially inducted in April. 

The University’s housekeeping service, WFF, will have a job fair today until noon, in Eykamp Hall, Room 253, Ridgway University Center. Light refreshments will be served. This event is open to UE students and to the public. Anyone interested in a job with WFF is welcome to attend! WFF offers part-time work and flexible hours that are ideal for a college student's busy schedule.

For more information, please call 812-488-2045.

Calvin Wertman, residential coordinator and student life specialist, has received the March 2016 Employee Excellence Award. Since coming to UE in 2009, he has dedicated countless hours to the students and staff that he works with, as well as many others that he lives and interacts with on a daily basis.  When Calvin leaves the office each day, he doesn’t leave his work behind. Instead, he spends his evenings helping students deal with the challenges of daily life.  Calvin is known as someone who serves others in his daily interactions by being a role model to students, a support system for other staff members, and a resource of amazing wisdom and leadership for those he oversees.

Happy Spring Break! The libraries will observe the following hours during this time:

Friday, March 4: 7:45 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Saturday-Sunday, March 5-6: CLOSED
Monday-Friday, March 7-11: 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Saturday, March 12: CLOSED
Sunday, March 13: 3:00 p.m. – midnight

There will be no after-hours while the library is closed for holidays or semester breaks. After-hours resume on Sunday, March 13.
 

There will be no Sunday Mass at Neu Chapel on March 6 or March 13, due to Spring Break. We hope everyone will join us for our next Sunday Mass on March 20 at 1:00 p.m. as we celebrate Palm Sunday. And we hope that everyone has a safe and wonderful Spring Break!

Please call/text Kristel at 812-760-8610 for more information!
 

The Fitness Center will close at 7:00 p.m., Friday, March 4. There will be no open swim that evening.

The Fitness Center Spring Break hours are:

• Open Friday, March 4, from 6:30 a.m.-7:00 p.m.
• Closed Saturday and Sunday, March 5 and March 6
• Open Monday through Friday, March 7-11, from 8:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m.
• Closed Saturday and Sunday, March 12 and March 1
• Open swim will depend on guard availability.

The Department of Art is looking for child models for its life drawing class. The children should be in elementary school (kindergarten through fifth grade.) The class meets on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6:00 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. in Room 213, Krannert Hall of Fine Arts. You child will earn $10 an hour and the parents of each child will receive the drawings from the session. You are encouraged to bring a portable DVD player, iPad, or book to help you child stay occupied while they sit.

The dates models are needed are:

• Tuesday, March 15
• Thursday, March 17
• Tuesday, March 22

For more information – or to register your child - please contact the art department at 812-488-2043 or ca5@evansville. 

Planning on studying abroad at Harlaxton in Spring 2017? The priority deadline is Monday, March 7. Please complete your application and bring it to Room 263, Schroeder School of Business Building. Applications can be found at www.evansville.edu/studyabroad/harlaxton.cfm.

Joe Atkinson discusses From the Ashes, the documentary he edited about the 1977 UE plane crash, in an article now available on the Sporting News website. The crash killed 29 people, including the entire UE men’s basketball team. Atkinson is a UE alumnus and digital multimedia specialist at the University.

The documentary has been submitted to six festivals, and Atkinson has released a trailer of the film.

To read the article and watch the trailer, go here.

Members of UE’s Black Student Union (BSU) will attend the first Collegiate Black Student Summit from March 4-6. The summit is a national forum where solutions to problems facing the black campus community are discussed and developed. The members of BSU will be inspired and empowered to critically think about their role as agents of change for the University of Evansville. Over 100 students will be in attendance from the University of Rochester (the host university), Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Connecticut, Ithaca College, Cornell, SUNY Albany, SUNY Buffalo, Syracuse University, and Columbia.

Sophomore Sarah Pfleiderer, a creative writing major, has had her poem "Selkie Weather" accepted for publication by Mangrove, the University of Miami's literary journal. The poem is based on Sarah's interest in Celtic myth and legend and is forthcoming in Mangrove's next issue. 

University of Evansville and ProRehab sports physical therapy residents had the opportunity to participate in the preseason screening of the Milwaukee Brewers Major League Baseball team in Arizona. The team was led by Phil Plisky and Bethany Heubner, assistant professors of physical therapy, and included UE alumni and residents Kyle Matsel '11, Frances Matsel '10, Paul Gorman '99, and Allison Weaver '15, as well as current sports residents Sam Callahan and Danielle Honnette.

This is the third year the UE/ProRehab residents have participated in the injury prevention system utilized by the Brewers, who have become the least injured team in Major League Baseball since implementing the program. The screening involves specific tests and an injury risk algorithm developed and researched by Plisky and Kyle Kiesel, professor of physical therapy and department chair. This injury prevention model is used by a wide variety of high school, college, and professional sports teams as well as the US Military.

UE alumnus Jack DuArte's new novel, Kidnap the Pope, is now No. 1 in the bestseller lists and categorized as a Hot Release by Amazon. Kidnap the Pope is DuArte's sixth novel.

The plot of Kidnap the Pope involves Adolf Hitler’s attempts to avenge the overthrow of his close friend Il Duce, Benito Mussolini. It follows the world’s actions leading up to the events that fixed this remarkable story in the classic annals of WWII.

DuArte is a historical fiction writer and lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with this wife, Susan. His previous novels are The Resistance, Singapore, Spitfire, Malta, and The White Mouse.

Reviews of his work can be found on Amazon, Kindle, and Goodreads.

Junior Blake Simmons and Mislav Brzoja received Scholar-Athlete honors as the University of Evansville Men’s Basketball team continues preparations for Arch Madness.

The Purple Aces will play their first game of the event on Friday at 6:00 p.m. against either Missouri State or Drake. Fox Sports Midwest will have live coverage of the UE game along with the other three Arch Madness contests on Friday.

Simmons was named to the MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team with a stellar GPA of 3.847. Simmons, a sport management major, has started all 31 games this season for the Aces. He averaged 5.8 points per game this season and has been on a roll as of late, scoring nine points or more in four of his last five games.

Brzoja grabbed a spot on the Scholar-Athlete Second Team with a 3.366 GPA as a global business major. The 2016 6th Man of the Year has played in all 31 games this season while posting a career-high of 25 points in the road win at Southern Illinois.

Everyone is ready for tomorrow’s contest as the Aces await their opponent in tonight’s game. The Aces enter the tournament as the No. 2 seed, their highest effort since 1999. Evansville went 23-8 in the regular season and were a strong 12-6 in league play.

Pacing the squad were All-MVC First Team players D.J. Balentine and Egidijus Mockevicius. Balentine is a 3-time member of the first Team. He led the conference in scoring in each of the last three seasons and will finish his career as the No. 4 scorer in league history. He is the first player in Evansville history to record 2,400 points in his illustrious career.

Mockevicius is wrapping up a stellar career of his own. Just a week after breaking the program rebounding mark, he has pushed his season rebounding average back up to 14.0 per game, which remains the best in the country. He begins March with a streak of nine double-doubles in a row. His latest streak in that category has vaulted him to the top of the NCAA with a total of 26 this season.

Picking up a spot on the Most Improved Team was junior Jaylon Brown. Starting all 31 games, Brown posted an average of 10.5 PPG while registering his career high of 19 points on three occasions. He had a streak in December that saw him register double figures in seven out of eight games.

Action in the tournament commences on Thursday evening as Loyola and Bradley open up with a game at 6:00 p.m. and will be followed by Missouri State and Drake at 8:30 p.m.

Wichita State begins the action on Friday with a noon contest against either Loyola or Bradley. The second game of the day will see No. 4 UNI take on #5 Southern Illinois at 2:30 p.m. Evansville takes to the floor at 6:00 p.m. on Friday before No. 3 Illinois State and No. 6 Indiana State wrap up the day at 8:30 p.m.