Terry Todoroff, graphics specialist III in the Institute for Community Health Promotion, will present the second Artists on the Road: Travel As a Source of Inspiration lecture for fall 2019, “Transylvania through History and Media: Photos and Video from the Land Beyond the Forest” today, November 5, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Upton Hall 230.

Mr. Todoroff, a graphic design graduate of Villa Maria and a 27-year member of the Research Foundation at Buffalo State, will present Transylvanian photos and videos he captured while exploring Romania’s history.  Perfect for post-Halloween viewing!

“Travel and curiosity is a lifestyle for learning,” Mr Todoroff said. “The only way to really understand something is to experience it.

“As a boy, my father was an usher at some of Buffalo’s greatest downtown theaters. His love for motion pictures passed on to me. Growing up, I’ve seen many of Hollywood’s best. My favorite films took me far away from the comforts of home. Some stories took place at actual historical places like Egypt’s Pyramids or France’s Notre Dame Cathedral. Other stories took place at fictional settings like King Kong’s Skull Mountain, or Oz’s Emerald City. And other stories combined both fictional and historical elements. . . like the story of Dracula in Transylvania.

“I’ve been fortunate to trade-in my movie tickets . . . for plane tickets. So Instead of only viewing the two-dimensional places I see on the silver screen, I now visit and experience them. Anywhere from the heat of the tropical rain forest in Borneo to the cold peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro.”

Please mark your calendars for the third and final event in this series when James Goodrich, lecturer in the Art and Design Department, presents “From Tex Randall to Angkor Wat,” highlighting his diverse meccas from the American West to Southeast Asia, on Tuesday, November 19.

The Artists on the Road series is co-sponsored by the Art and Design Department and the Global Engagement Office.

Terry Todoroff, graphics specialist III in the Institute for Community Health Promotion, will present the second Artists on the Road: Travel As a Source of Inspiration lecture for fall 2019, “Transylvania through History and Media: Photos and Video from the Land Beyond the Forest” on Tuesday, November 5, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Upton Hall 230.

Mr. Todoroff, a 27-year member of the Research Foundation at Buffalo State, will present Transylvanian photos and videos he captured while exploring Romania’s history. Perfect for post-Halloween viewing!

“Travel and curiosity is a lifestyle for learning,” Mr Todoroff said. “The only way to really understand something is to experience it.

“As a boy, my father was an usher at some of Buffalo’s greatest downtown theaters. His love for motion pictures passed on to me. Growing up, I’ve seen many of Hollywood’s best. My favorite films took me far away from the comforts of home. Some stories took place at actual historical places like Egypt’s Pyramids or France’s Notre Dame Cathedral. Other stories took place at fictional settings like King Kong’s Skull Mountain, or Oz’s Emerald City. And other stories combined both fictional and historical elements...like the story of Dracula in Transylvania.

“I’ve been fortunate to trade-in my movie tickets...for plane tickets. So Instead of only viewing the two-dimensional places I see on the silver screen, I now visit and experience them. Anywhere from the heat of the tropical rain forest in Borneo to the cold peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro.”

Please mark your calendars for the third and final event in this series when James Goodrich, lecturer in the Art and Design Department, presents “From Tex Randall to Angkor Wat,” highlighting his diverse meccas from the American West to Southeast Asia, on Tuesday, November 19.

The Artists on the Road series is co-sponsored by the Art and Design Department and the Center for Global Engagement.

Buffalo State’s Rotaract Club will host a fall bake sale on Thursday, November 7, with traveling sellers making the rounds from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. All baked goods are made fresh on campus in the Caudell Hall kitchen and will be sold for $1 each. All proceeds will be donated to Grassroots Gardens of Western New York, which has over 100 community gardens throughout the city, and focuses on growing community, environmental awareness, and overall public health. If you would like us to stop by your office, please e-mail the Rotaract Club with your building, floor, and room number to be sure our goodies reach you. Your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Please join the Equity and Campus Diversity Office as we host our final Diversity Dialogue of the semester, a panel discussion in recognition of November as Native American Indian/Alaska Native Heritage Month, on Tuesday, November 12, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. in the Campbell Student Union Assembly Hall. Everyone is welcome to come, listen, learn, and participate.

Panelists include Lisa Marie Anselmi, associate professor and chair of Buffalo State's Anthropology Department; Carey Seneca, assistant manager of human resources and personnel operations at Buffalo State; and Michael Martin, executive director of Native American Community Services of Erie and Niagara Counties Inc. Additional panelists may be added.

This information is also posted on our Facebook and Instagram accounts; search "bsc.equityanddiversity." For more information, please contact Equity and Campus Diversity, 878-6210.

Open training sessions for Slate, the college’s new enterprise customer relationship management (CRM) system, will be offered for graduate faculty members at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday, November 5, and at 9:00 a.m. Thursday, November 7, in Bulger Communication Center 122. Space is limited to 10 attendees; therefore, please register in advance. To set up Slate training for a department, or if you have other Slate-related questions, please contact Lee Coletti, interim admissions coordinator. Please register for either training session through the Workshop Registration System or use the links below.

Register for the November 5 workshop.
Register for the November 7 workshop.

Submitted by: Lee F Coletti

The call for presentations for the SUNY Conference on Instruction and Technology (CIT) 2020, held May 26–29 at SUNY Oswego, is now open. CIT is SUNY’s largest and most prominent event on instruction and technology, providing a forum for faculty, instructional support professionals, and policymakers to present, discuss, and explore innovative avenues for integrating technology into the teaching and learning environment.

This year’s theme, The Shared University: Working Together to Prepare all Students for a Lifetime of Learning, is supported by the following tracks (PDF, 102 KB):

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Emerging Technologies and Digital Strategies
• Measuring Effectiveness
• Open Education
• Pedagogically Speaking

 Please submit abstracts by Tuesday, December 31.

Please join us for the webinar "Using OER for Student Success" today, November 4, from noon to 1:00 p.m. The webinar offers an overview of open educational resources (OER), an introduction to “ready to adopt” general education OER courses available in SUNY, and the pedagogical benefits of using OER with a focus on personalized learning and continuous improvement.

Bring your lunch to Bulger Communication Center 120, where we can watch together, or watch online via Zoom (Meeting ID: 746 300 581).  

The webinar is sponsored through a collaboration between the Teaching and Learning Center, Instructional Design and Training, and Butler Library as well as SUNY OER Services and Lumen Learning.

The Great Lakes Center is pleased to release the fall issue of its newsletter (PDF, 2 MB). This issue focuses on visiting scholars from Poland, summer research and monitoring throughout the Great Lakes, the CSMI 2018 Lake Ontario Data Synthesis Workshop, and habitat enhancements at the Field Station.

If you'd like to be on the mailing list for future editions of the newsletter, please send an e-mail to the GLC with the subject "Newsletter mailing list add."

The enrollment period for the 2020 Productivity Enhancement Program (PEP) has been extended to Tuesday, November 19. PEP allows eligible CSEA, UUP, PEF, and M/C employees to exchange previously accrued vacation or personal leave for a credit toward their biweekly New York State health insurance costs. Sick leave credits cannot be exchanged under this program.

To participate, eligible employees must file an election form with the Employee Benefits Office, Cleveland Hall 410, by November 19. Eligible employees should have received information and enrollment forms via campus mail. Details and enrollment forms can also be found on the Human Resource Management website.

Employees who participated in PEP for 2019 must file a new election form to enroll in the 2020 program.

Please call the Employee Benefits Office at 878-4821 with questions regarding the program or enrollment.

The open enrollment period for the 2020 NYS Flex Spending Account (FSA) closes at 10:00 p.m. Friday, November 8. The account offers three benefits: the Health Care Spending Account (HCSAccount), the Dependent Care Advantage Account (DCAAccount), and the Adoption Advantage Account.

The HCSAccount allows employees to set aside from $100 to $2,700 annually in pretax salary to pay for health-care expenses not reimbursed by health insurance.

The DCAAccount allows employees to set aside up to $5,000 annually in pretax salary for eligible child care, elder care, or disabled dependent care expenses. The DCAAccount employer contribution will be available to M/C employees and those represented by CSEA, PEF, UUP, NYSCOPBA, and GSEU for the 2020 plan year.

The Adoption Advantage Account allows employees to set aside up to $14,080 in pretax salary to pay for expenses related to the adoption of an eligible child.

Employees who do not work for 26 pay periods should consider electing a shorter time frame for their deductions so they do not lose coverage while off the payroll. For example, faculty members who are not paid through the summer should elect to have all deductions taken in the spring semester in order to have coverage for all of 2020.

Participants currently enrolled in the HCSAccount or DCAAccount must re-enroll to continue benefits in 2020.

Paperless enrollment is quick, easy, and secure. Program details and enrollment information are available on the Flexible Spending Account website or by phone through the FSA hotline at (800) 358-7202.

The November 8 deadline for 2020 enrollment will be strictly enforced.