Please join us for the next film in our Beyond Boundaries: Dare to Be Diverse screening and discussion series, Alone in the Game, on Thursday, April 11, at 7:00 p.m. in the Burchfield Penney Art Center's Tower Auditorium. A panel discussion will follow the film.

Alone in the Game (2018) is a powerful documentary, directed by Natalie Metzger and Michael Rohrbaugh, that explores LGBTQ experiences in the world of sports, which remains an unsettling environment for many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans on and off the field.

Homophobia, transphobia, and a culture of secrecy strongly persist in American sports, often seen as the final frontier for LGBTQ equality. In the five major North American professional leagues—NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, and MLS—where statistically one would expect to find hundreds of gay athletes, no openly gay male professional athletes currently compete. Alone in the Game enters into the old boys' club world of sport and examines this major dilemma at the professional, Olympic, collegiate, and high school levels, capturing rarely seen stories of struggle, perseverance, and triumph.

Beyond Boundaries is sponsored by the Communication Department, the Equity and Campus Diversity Office, the Burchfield Penney Art Center, and the Women and Gender Studies Interdisciplinary Unit. The event is free and open to the public.

Do you or your students conduct research with human subjects? If so, please join us for this introductory workshop to learn more about the Institutional Review Board process at Buffalo State on Thursday, April 18, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Chase Hall 109. This workshop will discuss the kinds of work with human subjects that must be reviewed, the levels of review, the online submission and review process through SUNY PACS IRB, and recent changes to the federal regulations that govern IRBs. Please register through the Workshop Registration System.

Please join us for the Teaching and Learning Center workshop "Structured Reflection: Case Studies from the Field" on Thursday, April 11, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Chase Hall 109.

This workshop will present models of structured reflection across a variety of disciplines (anthropology, fashion and textile technology, interior design) that engage students in monitoring their achievement of applied course learning objectives. Participants will consider methods for designing student reflection activities that enhance learning processes with real-world application to future professional goals.

The session will be facilitated by Alexandra Eagen and Margaret Keef, lecturers in the Fashion and Textile Technology Department; Susan Maguire, associate professor of anthropology; and Bhakti Sharma, associate professor of interior design. Please register through the Workshop Registration System.

Please join us for the Teaching and Learning Center Workshop "Introducing the Fundamentals of Approved Applied Learning" on Wednesday, April 3, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. in Chase Hall 109. What is all the buzz on campus and throughout SUNY about applied learning (AL) and approved applied learning (AAL)? This workshop will introduce participants to the fundamentals of both, including the various forms of AL and the benefits for students and instructors. We will also discuss the SUNY AAL initiative and what is happening on our campus. The session will be facilitated by Ann Emo, chair and associate professor of theater; Pamela Schuetze-Pizarro, professor of psychology; and Stephanie Zuckerman-Aviles, director of the Career Development Center. Please register through the Workshop Registration System.

Please join us for the Teaching and Learning Center workshop "Life After #MeToo: The Impact of Trauma on Adult Learning," on Monday, April 8, from noon to 2:00 p.m. in Chase Hall 109. This session will explore the impact of trauma on adult learning, with specific attention paid to sexual abuse, sexual assault, and domestic violence. Best practices for identifying and responding to trauma in adult learning settings will be shared. The session will facilitated by Andrea Nikischer, associate professor of adult education. Please register through the Workshop Registration System.

Please join the Chemistry and Physics departments for the seminar "Hippuric Acid as a Potential Biomarker to Detect Substance Abuse in Urine," presented by Dominique Boscarino, forensic science master's degree student at Buffalo State, on Thursday, April 4, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Science and Mathematics Complex 173.

Abstract
Hippuric acid (HA), the glycine conjugate of benzoic acid, is one of the urine metabolites. In a healthy person, HA concentrations in urine normally remain low but vary slightly depending on food intake and medications. In humans, toluene exposure is known to elevate urine HA levels, hence it used as a biomarker. In our context, we aimed to develop analytical methods that can measure urine HA concentrations, both quantitatively as well as qualitatively. For quantitative analysis, we developed a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. Using our protocol, we successfully calculated LOD and LOQ. Likewise, a presumptive test was developed that can unambiguously discern the presence of HA in a test sample from control. For this, a fluorophore was treated with a sample under investigation and the presence of HA was marked by the appearance of a pink color, while a control sample color remains yellow. 

In the United States, cocaine is the second most popular illegal recreational drug. Cocaine is metabolized by serum and liver esterase into ecgonine methyl ester and benzoyl ecgonine. During this process, the resultant side-product, benzoic acid, couples with glycine before it is excreted through urine as HA. Considering this fundamental metabolic mechanism, we hypothesized that HA concentration should elevate in the urine samples of illicit drug users. To simulate this, we created HA-spiked artificial urine samples and successfully quantified HA concentrations by instrumental analytical approach and confirmed by presumptive test. Using our newly developed protocols, we successful deconvoluted the presence of HA in urine samples both qualitatively and quantitatively. However, the validation of these methods in the context of urine HA concentrations in illicit drug users is our future research goal.

The Health and Fitness Organization will host a live webinar, "Find Out What Your Future Career in Public Health and Wellness Will Look Like" on Thursday, April 4, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. in Technology Building 160 in honor of National Public Health Week. Please join us.

Mathematics lecturer Nirmala Nutakki, the final participant in the Fostering Innovation in Teaching with Technology (FITT) Academy, will share the outcomes of her project, "Digital E-learning Modules to Support the Learning of Elementary Mathematics Content by Preservice Teacher," on Tuesday, April 23, from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. in Science and Mathematics Complex 263. The FITT Academy Spring Symposium, a signature event of the FITT Academy, is a series of final presentations by the academy's group of faculty participants. Presentations are open to faculty, staff, students, and guests. Please see the Daily Bulletin for a complete list of FITT Academy presentations.

Ms. Nutakki's project integrated online learning modules in Adobe Captivate. Modules consisted of a sequence of problems that built concrete and intuitive understandings and gradually increased in difficulty and culminated in abstract perspectives.

The Internet offers a plethora of math videos. Unfortunately, most of them focus on teaching the steps in a mathematical procedure instead of developing conceptual understanding or providing opportunities to develop mathematical reasoning. Students often memorize a process to find an answer and can rarely explain the rationale behind their work. Like any complex activity, mathematics is best learned when students are actively engaged in the learning process instead of passively watching and re-watching videos. One of the difficulties in teaching math is bridging the various gaps that students bring to the classroom. Adobe Captivate provides an integrated e-learning environment that provides customized content and feedback to students instead of a one-size-fits-all approach to learning.

Participants of the Fostering Innovation in Teaching with Technology (FITT) Academy will share their project outcomes during the second session of the FITT Academy Spring Symposium on Wednesday, April 17, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. in Bulger Communication Center 215. The FITT Spring Symposium, a signature event of the FITT Academy, is a series of final presentations by the academy's group of faculty participants. Presentations are open to faculty, staff, students, and guests. Please see the Daily Bulletin for a complete list of FITT Academy presentations.

Lisa Rafferty, associate professor of exceptional education, will discuss her project, "Increasing Student Engagement and Individualized Feedback in an E-learning Environment." This project investigated and incorporated adaptive learning technologies into an online EXE 501 course for real-time feedback. The feedback ensured that candidates weren't practicing errors, and it provided immediate feedback that was individualized. In terms of using the adaptive assessment tools, the scaffolding was beneficial to students. Gearing questions toward their individual levels of learning proficiency also helped individualize instruction and also created learning momentum.

Andrea Nikischer, assistant professor of adult education, will discuss her project, "Increasing Engagement and Retention by Adding Gamification to an Online Graduate Course." Incorporating gamification into ADE 500 provided additional tools to engage students in their learning. Adding badges and the unlocking of content helped to reassure and motivate students by allowing them to see concrete evidence of their successes early and often. It also provided Dr. Nikischer with a mechanism to ensure that students were mastering each of the specific content and skill areas required for success in the larger adult education graduate program and in the adult education field.

Individual links to faculty annual reports for 2018–2019 have been e-mailed to all faculty members. Reports must be submitted online by Sunday, June 30. Faculty members can save their progress and return to the form at any time from any device. Once the form is submitted, faculty members have the option to print or download (“print to PDF”) the completed report as a PDF. For an editable version of the submitted report, faculty members can either copy their responses to a Microsoft Word document or contact Tiffany Fuzak, research analyst, for an Excel Workbook version of their responses.

Faculty members may prefer to prepare a draft of their report using this Word-formatted version (DOC, 34 KB) of the report before completing the online form. The Word document may not be submitted in lieu of the online form.

Please contact Luke Krieg, interim associate vice president for institutional effectiveness, 878-3838, with questions.