The University of Evansville wants you to be recognized for your achievements such as making the dean’s list, studying at Harlaxton, winning an award, or attaining an internship. The University publicizes these accomplishments through Merit, an online platform.

Merit allows UE to send news items about your achievements back to your hometown newspapers, notifies your local government representative, and publishes them on the Web. In addition, you can sync your Merit page with popular social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn so that updates to your page will reach your contacts in those networks, too.

The first time UE adds one of your achievements to Merit, you'll receive a Welcome to Merit email with instructions on how to sign into your page and customize it. You can add a profile photo and list on-campus activities and work experience.

As the University issues news stories about your accomplishments, you'll receive e-mails with links to view your story online.

Your online reputation is important – most employers Google an applicant's name during the hiring process for jobs and internships. By using Merit, UE helps you create a positive online profile.

If you have questions about Merit and how it can work for you, contact University Relations at ext. 2236 or uerelations@evansville.edu. 

The Office of Admission needs current UE students who live in the residence halls to host prospective high school seniors for Road Trip on February 15-17. If you are available, you can apply to host through Acelink, by emailing Ashley Ross (aj53@evansville.edu) or Jordan Hall (jh590@evansville.edu), or stopping by the Office of Admission, located in Room 104, Olmsted Administration Hall. The deadline to sign up has been extended to February 6.

Submitted by Ashley Ross aj53@evansville.edu

The Neu Chapel community is excited to resume its mindfulness service on Sunday evenings at 9:00 p.m. This brief, 25-minute service is filled with beautiful music, candle lighting, prayers, reflection, and guided meditation. It is a wonderful way pause and care for ourselves as we begin a new week together. All are welcome! We hope to see you there!

Submitted by Keith Turner kt160@evansville.edu 

All are invited to join the Neu Chapel community this Sunday morning at 9:00 as we begin a new semester of University Worship services. We will begin a new sermon series entitled "The Awakened Life" in which we will consider how we can be awakened to the presence of God in our lives and world. This week, we will consider "Awakening to God's Dream" as we also intentionally remember the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. All are welcome! We hope to see you there!

Submitted by Keith Turner kt160@evansville.edu 

We are meeting at 2:00 pm Saturday, January 19, in the middle of the oval at the University of Evansville for the Evansville Women's March 2019. Feel free to bring posters! We'll be walking the block around the UE campus (approximately 1 mile). Family friendly event. All orientations and identities welcome. We will be marching rain or shine.

Submitted by Lisa Marie Kretz lk102@evansville.edu

Attention, all engineering majors. On Wednesday, January 23, Career Services and SWE will be hosting the 14th annual Engineering Career Forum in Eykamp Hall in Ridgway University Center from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Dress code is business professional and all attending students are asked to sign up ahead of time in Kim's office. The night will include job-search strategy sessions and a networking reception to meet employers and present resumes. All engineering majors are encouraged to attend.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Amanda Aders at aa415@evansville.edu.

Submitted by Amanda Aders aa415@evansville.edu

Habitat for Humanity Evansville provides an 8x8 yard barn for every house they build in Evansville and Posey County. Last year, University of Evansville faculty, staff, and students took the challenge to build all of the yard barns needed for the entire year of Habitat construction in just one morning.

Holly Carter, UE director of education abroad and Harlaxton College programs, noted that the event "was a first of its kind for a university in the US, and we did it! We built 30 yard barns in just three hours! With student teams, alumni teams, faculty teams, and staff teams, the barns came together in record time. Some teams broke records for the fastest barn, while others broke records for the most inventive T-shirts and the most spirit. We worked with future homeowners, Habitat volunteers, and the UE community to make this amazing event a huge success!"

With overwhelming demand from our student body, Barn Blitz II has been scheduled for April 6, and Carter would like to invite you to become involved.

There are many options to be involved. Components for the barns will be built from January 26-March 30. The event will be staged on the 5th of April, and the barns will be built on the 6th of April.

Every kind of help and support is needed. We are looking for volunteers to help with the following:

• Being part of a team that builds a barn. (You can create a team for your department or organization or join a team)
• Building components on our build days at UE. (February 9, 16, and 23, and March 2, 23, and 30)
• Supervising at one of the build days at UE. (Faculty and staff)
• Providing snacks for our build days or Barn Blitz morning.
• Helping set up the event on the evening of the 5th of April at the Habitat office.

If you are a faculty or staff member and interested in getting involved, please send an email to Carter at hc110@evansville.edu.

"I would be happy to chat with you more about the event," said Carter, "or get you lined up to work with us as a supervisor or builder on our component days, or register your team to build a barn. If you are a student, more information will be coming from student engagement soon. Barn Blitz II is going to be an amazing event! You don’t want to miss this opportunity to help the entire community and spread some purple power to our friends realizing the dream of home ownership!"

Submitted by Holly Carter hc110@evansville.edu 

The University of Evansville’s Institute for Banking and Finance’s partnership with the Promise Zone to support small businesses has had some nice news coverage.

UE associate professor of finance Yasser Alhenawi was recently interviewed by 14 WFIE (NBC) about the partnership. You can watch that interview on the WFIE website.

WTVW also did a story on the partnership. You can watch that story here.

Ever wonder how you can get involved with changemaking at UE? Join the Change team! Administrators, faculty, and staff are invited to join us at the next Change Team meeting on Friday, January 18 from 11:00 a.m.-noon in the Bower-Suhrheinrich Board (Room 203) in the library. To be added to the Change Team mailing list, contact Cindy at ck116@evansville.edu or call ext. 2455.

Submitted by Cindy Kelley ck116@evansville.edu

As we continue to place student satisfaction and service as a top priority, the Vice President of Enrollment and Marketing and the Vice President of Fiscal Affairs and Administration have collaborated to examine various models of providing financial services to our students. The two primary areas providing these services are the Office of Financial Aid and the Office of Student Accounts. Over the past several years, many institutions have combined these offices into one division of Student Financial Services. This model was also highlighted recently from our consulting firm, Enrollment X Design, in regard to their review of enrollment support functions. 

In November, Cathleen Wright, our former Director of Financial Aid, announced she had accepted a new position with her previous institution and would be leaving UE in January. With her departure, the consideration of and timeline for this consolidation was expedited. As a result, effective immediately, the University is consolidating the Office of Student Accounts and the Office of Financial Aid into a new Student Financial Services division. Becky Hamilton has been appointed director of this new division.

Becky will supervise financial aid and student accounts and report to the Vice President of Enrollment and Marketing, Shane Davidson, with a dotted reporting line on the organizational chart to the Vice President of Fiscal Affairs and Administration, Donna Teague, particularly with respect to internal control structure and processes affecting our compliance with financial accounting standards.

The goal is to improve cross training and customer service to our students. For an effective implementation, some reorganization of office space will occur on the first floor of Olmsted Hall to give the new student financial services division access and functionality to meet the needs of our students.  

The Writing Center will open Monday, January 28. Our hours are Monday through Thursday, 10:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m. and Friday, 10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

Here are instructions on how to use the writing center.

• Make an appointment! It’s really easy! Go to:  Acelink … Areas … Writing Center … Appointments … Create an Appointment.
• Register for an account - or sign in if you have used the Writing Center before - you can then access the center from any mobile device to schedule or cancel a session. This site manages your appointments, cancellations, and reports.
• You will receive an email reminder before your appointment and your professor will receive feedback from your tutor afterward.
• Next - bring the assignment (writing prompt) or draft of your paper.
• Prepare questions for your tutor to get the most out of a session. For example, “Can you help me to see if my thesis statement is clear?”
• Plan to visit the Writing Center well in advance of an assignment due date. If you come in the day an assignment is due, you may not have enough time to make the revisions discussed during a session. Seems obvious, but…
• Arrive a few minutes early for appointments and don’t be late. If another student is waiting, that student will be helped first if you are over five minutes late.

Professors - please encourage your students to utilize UE’s Writing Center for their papers. If you would like to have a representative of the Writing Center visit your class to give a brief presentation of our services, or if you would like to visit to the center with your class, please e-mail im30@evansville.edu to arrange it.

Submitted by Ian McDonald im30@evansville.edu

Assistant professors Sara Petrosillo (English) and Julie Merkle (Biology) will be leading a Vonnegut reading group this semester for students from all disciplines. The group will be reading Vonnegut’s 1962 novel Mother Night in preparation for the English department’s Chutney Literary Conference, featuring a Vonnegut scholar who will be discussing the novel. The reading group will meet for about an hour each month leading up to the conference on April 4-5. The first eight students to join will be given free copies of the book! Contact Petrosillo (sp220@evansville.edu) by January 20, to reserve your spot or for more information!

Submitted by Sara Petrosillo sp220@evansville.edu

Want to make an impact on environmental sustainability, but need funds to get your ideas off the ground? Submit a proposal for UE’s Environmental Sustainability Challenge to have your projects considered for funding from the Green Fund.

Submission Deadline: February 20.
The Green Fund began with a $25,000 environmental sustainability grant from Siemens, and additional funds may be generated through fundraising or savings gained through successful Environmental Sustainability Challenge projects.

Learn more about the challenge and submit a proposal online here.

Inaugural Challenge Winner:
The battery operated golf cart proposed as the winning submission to the inaugural Environmental Sustainability Challenge in Spring 2018 is now on campus and in use by UE Recycling. Learn more and see photos on the UE website.

Submitted by: UE's Environmental Sustainability Committee

Apply to be an International Orientation Leader for the 2019-20 school year! The IOLs are a dynamic group of students who work to welcome new international students to UE in August and throughout the year. Develop your leadership skills, share your UE experiences, and meet new UE students from all over the world! We encourage both international students and students from the United States to apply.

Applications are available in the Forms section of UEngage or by following this link https://uengage.evansville.edu/submitter/form/start/239510.

More information is available in the Office of Cultural Engagement and International Services on the second floor of Ridgway University Center in the Student Life Center. Questions can be directed to ms331@evansville.edu.

Submitted by Megan Sicard ms331@evansville.edu

The Office of Annual Giving is looking for student callers for the spring Phonathon campaign. This is a paid position with flexible hours, mostly evening. Hourly pay starts at $8.25. Freshman are encouraged to apply! If you are interested, please email Erika Johnson at ej51@evansville.edu.

Submitted by Erika Johnson ej51@evansville.edu

There are still spots in both the UE Mixed Choir and the UE Women's Chorus for the Spring 2019 semester. Contact professor of music and director of choral activities Dennis Malfatti at dm155@evansville.edu to join.

Submitted by Dennis Malfatti dm155@evansville.edu

The intramural department is hiring basketball officials. Pay is $8-$10/hour based on years of experience and certifications. Training for officials will take place Tuesday, January 15; Wednesday, January 16; and Thursday, January 17. Meet in Carson Center in Room 113 at 5:30 p.m. or contact the intramural director Drew Hawkins with any questions.

Submitted by Drew Hawkins ah519@evansville.edu 

Orientation Leader (OL) applications are now available! Visit our website at www.evansville.edu/orientation/welcomeweek.cfm to complete an electronic application before the deadline date of January 29.

Information on "What It Takes to be an Orientation Leader" and the "OL Code of Conduct" can be found on the website along with the application and reference form.

Current Orientation Leaders will be available in the Ridgway University Center Lobby on January 21-25, if you have any questions. You can also contact VPSA/Dean of Students office at 812-488-2500 or stop by Ridgway University Center, Room 230, during business hours.

Submitted by Carleen Barnes cb131@evansville.edu 

Students are able to adjust their meal plans for the spring semester until Friday, January 18, at 5:00 p.m. You can request to change your meal plan by clicking here: www.surveymonkey.com/r/changemealplan.

Submitted by Brian Conner bc32@evansville.edu

UE assistant professor of political science Richard Maass has helped to design a board game called Coral Islands. The project is now live on Kickstarter, and was almost fully funded in its first 24 hours.

Coral Islands includes two dice-stacking games in one beautiful box. Maass designed the first game, Coral, which is a very fun and “puzzly” game that involves stacking translucent dice to create a coral reef and trying to score points by completing specific tetris-style shapes. The second game, Islands, is also very fun, involving moving dice into stacks and drafting colors of dice to score points.

You can find more information on the game and its Kickstarter project here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/alleycatgames/coral-islands-2-interactive-dice-stacking-games-in?ref=e7izz6.

For anyone not familiar with Kickstarter, it is a website where people contribute money to projects they believe in, usually in exchange for a product or other reward once the project is completed. It has become something of a pre-order store for board game publishers, which use it to raise money before they pay to manufacture the game. So if you create a Kickstarter account and back Coral Islands for £25 ($31ish, the "Blue Coral Tier"), you'll receive a copy of the game shipped to you by next October (possibly earlier), in plenty of time for next Christmas! If you back for £31 ($40ish, the "Great Barrier Reef Tier"), you'll get both the game and its expansion (which provides extra cards offering more fun ways to play) Alley Cat Games is a British publishing company, which is why the prices are in British pounds.

Amy McBride, assistant professor of education, and Sharon Gieselmann, chair of the School of Education, published their article "The Ron Clark Academy's Impact on Preservice and First-year Teachers" in the 2018 Volume 85-2 issue of The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin. The Delta Kappa Gamma Society International is a professional honorary society of women educators. 

Harlaxton College has received a certificate of commendation from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Historic England’s Chief Executive Duncan Wilson in the ‘Best Rescue of an Historic Building or Place (under £5 million)’ category of Historic England’s Angel Awards 2018.

It was received in recognition of the ‘time, effort and determination’ of the College to repair and restore the South-West and North-East Gazebos and Retaining Wall which form part of the entrance forecourt group of structures which significantly contribute to the framed setting of Harlaxton Manor and is highly visible from the main approach to the Manor and contributes to its theatrical silhouette.

In receiving the award, Harlaxton College would like to acknowledge the dedication and skill of Skillingtons Workshop (main contractor), the generous financial support of our donors and Historic England, and the support of the University as a whole.

As has been the case for most of the season, the University of Evansville men’s basketball team took its opponent down to the wire. Last night, the hard work paid off as the Purple Aces earned their first road win of the season, defeating Missouri State by a 70-64 final on Wednesday evening inside JQH Arena

Leading the way for Evansville (9-9, 3-2 MVC) was K.J. Riley, who scored 16 points and hauled in a team-high eight rebounds. John Hall scored 11 points on a perfect 4-for-4 night that saw him connect on all three from outside. Shea Feehan scored 10 points while Marty Hill finished the evening with nine. 

“It feels great. We turned the ball over a lot in the first half and we did not want to do that,” UE head coach Walter McCarty said. “We did much better in the second half and were able to pull off the win. I am so happy for our guys, they worked really hard in practice and deserve this.”

Missouri State (8-10, 2-3 MVC) was led by Tulio Da Silva and Keandre Cook, who scored 14 points apiece.

UE scooted out to a 5-0 lead to begin the game while holding the Bears to an 0-for-4 start from the field. Shea Feehan got the Aces on the board before Noah Frederking drained a triple. After Missouri State posted a pair of buckets, John Hall nailed a three to push the advantage to 8-4 just over three minutes into the game.

Missouri State fought back as three ties led to a 13-13 score eight minutes into the contest. That is when K.J. Riley hit his first 3-pointer since the Murray State game on December 18. Riley missed 10 triples since that contest. The Bears continued to battle back and took their first lead at 17-16 before pushing the advantage to 27-18 with 6:47 remaining in the half. Evansville went 1-for-7 with four turnovers as the Bears took the lead.

Despite the adversity, the Aces never gave up and turned the tables over the final moment of the period. UE completed the half on a 12-2 run to retake a 30-29 lead going into the break. Two key moments bookended the stretch. MSU was called for a flagrant foul after pulling out to the 8-point lead and Dainius Chatkevicius connected on both free throws. Following a missed MSU shot, K.J. Riley knocked down a bucket, which cut the deficit to 27-22.

With two minutes remaining in the stanza, the Aces trailed by seven points before Marty Hill got on the board. His first triple of the night got UE within four. Riley followed with his fourth make of the night and after another Bears miss, Hill was true from outside at the buzzer to give Evansville the lead heading into the locker room. MSU was 1-for-7 with three turnovers over the final six minutes of the half.

Out of the break, the Aces continued the run, posting the first five points to take their largest lead of the game at 35-29. All five points were free throws by Riley and Hill on separate possessions. Once again, the Bears rallied, retaking the lead at 39-38 with 14:14 left in the game. With 9:18 remaining, Jared Ridder connected on a three that saw the Bears extend their lead to six points at 46-40.

Evansville made its way back once again with Shea Feehan having the hot hand. A triple got UE within one before two free throws with just over six minutes remaining tied the game at 49-49. Missouri State would score the next five points before the second triple from Hall got UE back within a pair. After another MSU basket, Hall drained his third trey of the night to make it a 1-point game. Chatkevicius was fouled on the play, which saw Hall’s triple count, and made both free throws to put UE in front, 57-56, with four minutes on the clock.

On the next trip down the floor, redshirt sophomore Devan Straub made his first bucket as a Purple Aces a huge one – drilling a triple to give UE a 60-56 lead. MSU cut the lead to a pair, but with exactly one minute left, Evan Kuhlman hit one of the biggest shots of his career, a triple with the shot clock expiring, to give UE a 63-58 advantage. Missouri State did not give up as a pair of free throws cut the Aces lead to three with 30 ticks left. Riley knocked down both free throws to push the lead back to five and the defense forced another miss with Riley hitting another from the line to make it a 66-60 game.

From there, Evansville was able to hold on for the 70-64 triumph. The Aces shot 44.4% for the night while holding MSU to 39.7%. 

On Saturday, the Aces are back home to face Illinois State in a 1:00 p.m. contest inside the Ford Center.

Faculty and staff can now pick up tickets for the Aces Men's Basketball game on Saturday, January 19 with a 1:00 p.m. start time. The Aces will take on the Redbirds of Illinois State. *Photo ID is required to claim tickets.

Submitted by Jake Hill jh690@evansville.edu 

Robert Dion, chair of the Department of Law, Politics, and Society, was interviewed yesterday by Channel 44 about Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb’s State of the State address. You can watch the interview on the station’s website.