Maya Hall

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Kudos to these faculty and staff

Do you have a spotlight item to share with the NAU community?

E-mail your announcements to Inside@nau.edu, or use our online submission form.

  • NAU’s online program was ranked No. 1 in the state by onlinecolleges.com, noting the large number of bachelor’s and master’s degree programs offered, and the Personalized Learning program that allows students to complete classes at their own pace. Grand Canyon University was ranked No. 2, and the University of Arizona ranked third.
  • Several members of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice represented NAU at the 2018 annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems Aug. 10-12 in Philadelphia. Department chair Luis Fernandez served as the 2018 president of the association, while Regents professor Raymond Michalowski received the Lee Founders Award in recognition of his distinguished career contributions. Professor Nancy Wonders, senior lecturer Stephanie Williams and graduate students Meredith Brown, Julie Cheney and Illse Ortiz presented papers.
  • Robert Kellar, an associate professor of practice in the Center for Bioengineering Innovation, was recognized as a top medical professional in the Health Care Heroes program by the Phoenix Business Journal. He was a finalist in the Innovator category for his work in advancing the field of regenerative medicine.
  • NAU has been ranked as the best master’s degree program in accounting in the state of Arizona by AccountingEDU.org. AccountingEDU selects schools based on rates of those who pass the CPA exam the first time. 
  • NAU is listed as one of the best online schools for Bachelor of Hospitality and Tourism degree programs. The methodology behind the school rankings is 50 percent program criteria, 30 percent ancillary services and 20 percent school criteria.
  • Lori Poloni-Staudinger interviewed by C-Span on her recent book.
    Lori Poloni-Staudinger poses in front of the C-Span van before her interview.

    Lori Poloni-Staudinger, associate dean of research, faculty affairs and graduate programs, was interviewed by C-Span about her book “Gender and Political Violence: Women Changing the Politics of Terrorism.” The interview will air on Sept. 1 and 2 on C-SPAN2, channel 27.

  • Special collections librarian emeritus Richard Quartaroli has edited the Proceedings of the third Grand Canyon History Symposium, “Celebrating 100 Years of the National Park Service.” Quartoli also contributed a chapter named “The Grand Canyon Rose: Grand Canyon National Park’s First Botanist, Rose Collom.”
  • Bruce Hungate of the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss) co-authored a new study that suggests biodiversity can help or hurt in forest carbon storage, but is a smaller factor than previously thought. The study, led by Carol Adair of the University of Vermont and David Hooper of Western Washington University, is published in Ecology Letters this week.

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Northern Arizona University’s faculty, staff and students have the opportunity to share their ideas about the future of science with the Flagstaff community at NAU Science and Engineering Day on Sept. 29.  The event is part of the annual Flagstaff Festival of Science, which has the theme of Accelerating into the Future.

In past years, booths for the event have included Cline Library’s Maker Lab where visitors can experience 3-D printing; the scanning electron microscope, where visitors can view bugs and other objects up close; and a booth for parents to help teach children vocabulary.

NAU Science and Engineering Day will be held from noon to 3 p.m Sept. 29 at the Science and Health building. People who are interested in sharing their hands-on science projects can still register.

Individuals or groups interested in participating can fill out the online participation form by Sept. 8. For questions, call (928) 523-4998. For more information on the 10-day Flagstaff Festival of Science, including a schedule of events, visit the festival’s website.

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NAU is looking to bring the green this year! Five glass-only recycling bins have been added to campus for access by all students, faculty and staff. The bins are placed near the campus bookstore, Health and Learning Center, Applied Research and Development building, W. A. Franke College of Business and the South Village.

“NAU is known for strong place-based connections, from our vast ponderosa pine forests to our unique location on the Colorado Plateau,” environmental caucus manager Amanda Kapp said. “It is important to make a connection between this beautiful landscape and our everyday actions such as recycling.”

NAU is no stranger to recycling. Through efforts such as O2GO, NAU Green Jacks, Sodexo’s organic version of reprocessing and more than 100 recycling bins already placed throughout campus, some may wonder—why more? And why glass?

The push for glass-only bins comes from Flagstaff’s regulations about what can be recycled and how. Cities have rules based on its local recycling facilities, and in Flagstaff, glass cannot be commingled with other recyclable materials. This is due to the risk of glass breaking and becoming embedded into other materials, making them incapable of being recycled. In addition, there poses a risk of injury to workers at Flagstaff’s Materials Recovery Center, who separate items by hand.

The United States only recycles about 20 percent of its glass despite there being a strong market for it—glass is one of the fastest materials to be recycled and reappear on store shelves.

“With China no longer accepting many plastics intended for recycling, the market for recyclable plastics is dramatically decreasing,” Kapp said. “This could mean that the market for glass may have room to grow.”

For more information on NAU Green and a detailed map of where the new glass bins are located, visit www.nau.edu/glassrecycling.

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Good things come to those who wait. As of Aug. 16, Blackboard (Bb) Learn is offline for an expected five days. The outage is due to Bb Learn transitioning to a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) environment. If all goes according to plan, the system will be back online Aug. 20.

Though the conversion calls for a significant amount of down time, it’s for a good reason. SaaS will allow updates, bug fixes and new features to be added to Bb Learn with little to no down time. Due to the more frequent, less intrusive updates, new features also will be seen throughout August. Features include attendance tracking, editing course content from the item’s menu, creating feedback recordings of audio or video and easier management of grade books.  

The ultimate migration will lay groundwork for future upgrades of Bb Learn, but aside from the features and better performance, students and faculty should see little difference in the look of the system.

Complete information on BbLearns’ transition to SaaS can be found online.

Users can always check the status of outages at NAU’s System Status site, nau.edu/outage.

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Kick off this semester with some food and fun! 

Northern Arizona University’s Office of Alumni Engagement will hold a barbecue for faculty and staff who are alumni of NAU.

The complimentary cookout will be from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 22, on the North Quad. Attendees are encouraged to wear their name tag and bring business cards to be entered into the raffle.

For those who plan to attend, please RSVP at nau.edu/AlumniBBQ.

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Get where you need to be, when you need to be there. The popular transportation module in the NAU mobile app is getting an upgrade.

The TRANSIT modules give commuters the tools they need to take the guesswork out of catching a bus. Real-time GPS shows commuters exact whereabouts of routes, thus providing an accurate estimated time of bus arrival to the various bus stops. Additionally, up-to-minute announcements regarding all shuttles are viewable to users.

Access to the real-time GPS bus tracker will begin this fall. It will be available through the NAU Mobile app or by visiting naubus.com.

More information on the Louie, Jacks and AXElite routes can be found at nau.edu/shuttle.