The Anne Frank Project’s annual social justice festival is an experiential exchange of ideas with a focus on processing theory into practice. We share diverse performances, workshops, and exhibits that actively engage participants in kinesthetic learning opportunities that connect to the festival's theme, AFP's mission, and the story of Anne Frank.

AFP 2020: Transformation through Innovation will be held October 7 and 8.

The global health crisis of 2020 is requiring us to think, act, and educate in new ways to improve our world. “Social distancing” and “flatten the curve” are hashtags dominating our culture. People are re-learning how to tell stories in new physical and digital spaces. Transforming through innovation is how we create, connect, and communicate to serve the needs of our communities. AFP 2020 celebrates the positive innovations in the face of adversity. We seek multidisciplinary workshops and artworks that teach the tools and vocabulary to tell stories in challenging times to inspire hope and build strong, safe communities. Proposals are due July 1.

Call for proposals

Call for artwork

For more information about Buffalo State College’s Anne Frank Project, please visit the AFP website.

Questions? Please e-mail Eve Everette, assistant director.

The Civic and Community Engagement Office is providing information about ways faculty, staff, and students can be active citizens and support our community during the coronavirus pandemic.

Please lend your time to our shared SUNY efforts. Join the Reimagining Laboratory Learning via Remote Instruction Workshop today, May 5, at 3:00 p.m.

Assistance is needed from faculty and staff members in planning for future semesters. Discussion will include laboratory learning in a remote format. This workshop will focus on ways in which academic leadership can continue to support faculty to design laboratory courses that provide effective means to meet student learning outcomes.

Important resources and examples will be shared by staff at SUNY System Administration and faculty members from a cross-section of campuses, with attention given to multiple levels of laboratory learning.

Join the Zoom Meeting.
Meeting ID: 979 5620 4693

One tap mobile: +16465588656,,97956204693#
Dial: 646-558-8656

Please consider joining us; your feedback is welcome and appreciated!

Keep your financial goals on track with TIAA live webinars. Reserve your spot today at TIAA.org/webinars

Thursday, May 7

• Noon: Marketproof Your Retirement

Tuesday, May 12

• Noon: Estate-Planning Basics
• 3:00 p.m.: Start to Finish: The Early Career Woman’s Guide to Financial Wisdom

Wednesday, May 13

• Noon: Marketproof Your Retirement
• 3:00 p.m.: Paying Yourself: Income Options at Retirement

Thursday, May 14

• Noon: The 411 on 529 College Savings Plans
• 3:00 p.m.: The SECURE Act Revealed

The Civic and Community Engagement Office is pleased to announce this year's Celebration of Community Engagement Award recipients and to recognize the service-learning and volunteer partnerships that occurred throughout the academic year. Today we honor the students, faculty, staff, and community partners who make a difference locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally through civic and community engagement initiatives.

The campus community is invited to view a special video message for the Celebration of Community Engagement Award recipients and to read more details about their achievements.

Please extend your congratulations to our 2019–2020 Celebration of Community Engagement Award recipients for their commitment to partnerships and active citizenship.

Outstanding Undergraduate Service-Learning Student: Conrad Burgos Jr.
Presented to a student who provided exceptional achievement in a service-learning course through his or her contribution to the community and ability to connect the experience to course curriculum.

Outstanding Graduate Service-Learning Student: Jeremy Brewster
Presented to a student who provided exceptional achievement in a service-learning course through his or her contribution to the community and ability to connect the experience to course curriculum.

Outstanding Student Volunteers: Emma Connaire and Rakia Akter
Presented to the student who provided exceptional service to a community agency as a volunteer, not through a course.

Outstanding Community Service by a Student Organization: Future Teachers Club
Presented to the student organization that provided valuable service to the community, extending its mission and influence beyond the Buffalo State campus.

Outstanding Community Partner: Jeremy Morlock
Presented to a community agency, group, or institution that demonstrated excellence in collaborative work with Buffalo State, resulting in a partnership that produced positive differences in the community and enhanced student learning this year. 

Reciprocal Partnership Award: Lecturer Mary C. Cummings and Andrea Todoro
Presented to the faculty member and community partner who best demonstrated the principles of reciprocal, collaborative, and mutually beneficial partnerships. This may include the identification and recognition of each partner’s needs, issues, and challenges or assessment and reflection around the partnership with the goal of improving and sustaining the collaboration for long-term success.

Early-Career Faculty Award for Community Engagement: Lecturer Drew Hemler
Presented to a pre-tenure or adjunct faculty member with fewer than seven years’ experience for innovative and outstanding service-learning, civic, or community engagement work. The engagement can include research, teaching, or service that is in partnership with the community and tied to the faculty member’s academic expertise. 

Mid-Career Faculty Award for Community Engagement: Jonathan Lindner
Presented to a post-tenure or adjunct faculty member with 7-15 years’ experience who has demonstrated ongoing integration of civic and community engagement in teaching, research, or service as well as demonstrated commitment and capacity to develop and sustain high-quality reciprocal community partnerships to further Buffalo State's role as an urban-engaged institution. 

Leadership in Community Engagement: Associate Professor Hibajene Shandomo
Awarded to a member of the campus or community who has built and strengthened institutional commitments to service learning, civic engagement, and community engagement by demonstrating efforts to deepen and expand Buffalo State’s role as an urban-engaged institution, conducting meaningful community-based research, or working to foster long-lasting impacts on students and community.

President’s Certificate of Recognition
A presidential recognition presented to students who demonstrated extended involvement in community service, service-learning, and other community-based work during their college career.

Community Supporter – 200 Hours of Service:
Jasmin Anderson, Presley Bryant, Kim Buelhmann, Misty Garrett, Camden Gradwell, Georgia Shaw, Jheon Webb

Neighborhood Advocate – 400 Hours of Service:
Tessa Adamec, Munirah Ali, Alexander Bianchi

Active Citizens – 1,000 Hours of Service:
Fran DiFrancesco, Janete Ingram, Amiyah King, Cheryl Moehrle, Jordain Moore, Chelsea Simmeth

Campus Compact Newman Civic Fellow: Hannah Kalmeyer

Special Thank-You
The Civic and Community Engagement Office extends its heartfelt gratitude to the members of this year’s Celebration of Community Engagement Awards Review Committee: Lisa Marie Anselmi, Joy Guarino, Jamersin Redfern, Debbie Renzi, and Andrea Wahl (Child and Family Services). 

The Civic and Community Engagement Office is providing information about ways faculty, staff, and students can be active citizens and support our community during the coronavirus pandemic.

ConnectLife is Western New York’s only community blood center and federally designated organ, eye, and tissue procurement agency. ConnectLife saves and enhances lives through the support and compassion of donors who choose to give the gift of life.

Interested in helping the effort? Please make an appointment to give the gift of blood.

The Association for Talent Development's Buffalo Niagara Chapter will host a free webinar, "Navigating Chaos to Complexity: Everything Is Not an Emergency," presented by Mike Cardus, organizational development consultant and coach, on Thursday, May 7, from noon to 1:00 p.m. via Zoom videoconference. 

The rate of change and complexity is not slowing down. We constantly have to organize the information available to us and determine how to use it best to make choices. Register to learn how this skill can be developed and implemented in your organization. 

For more information or to register, please visit the event registration page. 

From the Chair of the Institutional Innovation Advisory Council
The Institutional Innovation Advisory Council (IIAC) is excited to report that more than 50 percent of the campus community (928 out of 1,844 employees) responded to the Campus Culture and Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Survey earlier this semester. Buffalo State College conducted this survey to better understand our collective workplace, campus culture, and employee engagement and satisfaction, and how these factors affect institutional performance. This high response rate will enhance the college’s ability to better understand the complexity of our lived workplace experiences and priorities, and the needs of our campus community. This, in turn, will help us identify strengths to leverage and areas for improvement that can be addressed through immediate short-term cross-divisional initiatives and long-term strategies to be embedded in the college’s next strategic plan.

In order to ensure these beneficial outcomes and to accurately represent the narratives of the many faculty, staff, and administrators who took the time to write comments, it is essential that the results of the survey be carefully analyzed. The high volume of qualitative data generated, specifically, 2,070 total comments, which equates to 169 pages of text and 98,631 words, combined with the current COVID-19 crisis, mean that the IIAC does not have the capacity to perform this kind of analysis before fall 2020. To address this, the council will explore working with an outside partner—within the college’s current budget constraints—to assist in the analysis and interpretation of the data.

Given these considerations, the IIAC unanimously voted on Tuesday, April 14, to move the sharing of the report to the fall 2020 semester, while also acknowledging flexibility may be needed in this process as the campus continues to respond to COVID-19. The report will be shared through a series of town hall meetings (either in person or virtual), providing an opportunity for the campus to ask questions about the data and survey results, while also initiating discussions and focus groups that begin to address areas for improvements and how to better leverage our strengths. The IIAC will issue a written report to the campus community summarizing the survey results, campus feedback, short-term strategies to immediately implement, and long-term strategies to include in the next strategic plan to ensure that Buffalo State thrives in the future. We will continue to provide regular updates to the campus community about the survey process.

The Civic and Community Engagement Office is providing information about ways faculty, staff, and students can be active citizens and support our community during the coronavirus pandemic.

In response to COVID-19, communities across our state are setting up mutual aid networks where residents can post what they need or ways that they can help others in need (e.g., grocery delivery, pet walking). The Buffalo Mutual Aid Network website is a great site for finding resources and networks right here in the Buffalo area. To get involved in this project, please reach out to NYPIRG.

The Buffalo State Archives and Special Collections is thrilled to announce that full-text editions of the Buffalo Courier-Express newspaper from 1977 to 1982 are now freely available online through our collaboration with New York State Historic Newspapers. This grant-funded preservation and access project was initiated in 2019 by Special Collections archivist Hope Dunbar and is the first step in a multiyear effort to make all editions of the Courier-Express newspaper openly available to the public.

Buffalo State is in a unique position to work toward open access of this incredible resource, according to Ms. Dunbar. Any student, faculty, or community member has been welcome to come to campus and access the microfilm, photographs, or article clippings from the paper. Completion of this project will allow global and immediate access to over 1.5 million pages of historical content unique to Western New York.

Heavily used by students, faculty, staff, authors, and publishers, this now remotely accessible resource will provide an easily available scholarly and entertaining asset for patrons around the world.

Please see the Archives and Special Collections’ Buffalo Courier-Express website for similar resources.

Roof and skylight replacement will begin on Cleveland Hall on or about Monday, May 4, and continue through mid-August. This project may cause a brief disruption in Lot R-4 while the contractor lifts equipment and materials to the roof. The Cleveland Hall east stairway will be restricted to contractor use for the duration of this work, though the stairs will remain accessible for emergency exit.

Roof and skylight replacement on Buckham Hall's D Wing and E Wing is scheduled to begin in mid-July and continue through mid-October.

Questions about this work may be addressed to Mike Bonfante, facilities construction project manager, at (716) 570-4034.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation during this critical infrastructure repair.