All members of the campus community—faculty, staff, and students—are invited to a general meeting of the Friends of the Maud Gordon Holmes Arboretum on Thursday, April 5, at 4:15 p.m. at Campus House. The meeting will provide an update on the exciting work taking place on campus to rebuild our arboretum, including new trees being planted. An update on efforts to protect and enhance the Buffalo State landscape will also be provided. Upcoming programs will also be discussed. Everyone is welcome. For more information, please contact Susan McCartney, director of the Small Business Development Center, 878-4030.

Buffalo State and UUP’s Chapter Action Project invite the campus community to participate in our "Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day" on Thursday, April 26, from 8:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. This year’s theme, "Service Force Agents of Positive Change," will introduce participants to a vast range of potential job opportunities while asking children to consider how their future work will fit into their overall lives. The major goal for the activities is to encourage girls and boys to discover their interests and dream big.

The day will be structured with programs and include giveaways; fun-filled career-discovery programs (including learning through assistive technology); a visit to our Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium to see the stars from the vantage point of Earth, as well as travel to other planets and galaxies through a state-of-the-art digital projection system; story time at Barnes & Noble; a career talk with the CDC; and a "Let’s Move and Get Fit" activity.

All children between the ages of 5 and 12 are welcome to attend. A light breakfast and lunch will be included for all participating children. Registration is required for all participants. Please complete and submit all documents by Friday, April 6. Please contact Jude Jayatilleke, senior academic adviser in EOP and UUP steward for professionals, for more information.

Applications for the Robert J. Elmes Jr. Memorial Scholarship are now available for the fall 2018 semester. All CSEA Local 640 members and their dependent children registered at Buffalo State College for at least 3 credit hours for the fall 2018 semester may apply for the $250 scholarship. Applications must be completed in the Campus Application Portal for Scholarships (CAPS) system by Sunday, April 15. If you need assistance or instructions, please contact Mary Codick, secretary 1 in the Teacher Certification Office, 878-6121. Thank you and good luck.

Please join us for the Professional Science Master's seminar "Methods Development in Organic Chemistry Producing a More Versatile Organocopper Reagent (or 30 Years of Starting Fires and Stinking Up the Lab!" presented by Greg W. Ebert, professor of chemistry at Buffalo State College, on Thursday, April 5, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Science and Mathematics Complex 173.

Organocopper reagents are extremely useful in organic synthesis primarily because of their ability to couple with organic halides and undergo conjugate addition with ?, ?-unsaturated carbonyl compounds. While a wide variety of functionality can be tolerated in the substrate molecules by these reagents, very little functionality can be incorporated into the organocopper compounds themselves because of the organolithium and Grignard precursors commonly used in their production. This talk reviews the development of organocopper reagents produced by the direct oxidative addition of organic halides to an activated form of elemental copper. This approach bypasses the need for organolithium and Grignard precursors, thereby allowing a wide variety of functionality to be incorporated into the organocopper compounds themselves and greatly enhancing the utility of these reagents.

Also: a live demonstration of quantum entanglement and electron tunneling. A most unusual, almost magical, display.

Please join us for the professional development workshop "Facilitating Change for a Department, Committee, Program, Process, or Initiative" on Thursday, April 12, from 9:00 a.m. to noon in Butler Library 181B.

Colleges and universities throughout the country are experiencing rapid changes in student demographics, enrollment trends, compliance mandates, and academic offerings. These shifts in the higher education landscape inevitably require campus constituents to change processes, organizational structures, business practices, and student support initiatives to remain competitive. Participants will examine the complex change process at a college and develop strategies to effectively facilitate a change effort they are leading. This session is designed for any staff member, faculty member, or administrator who is leading a change effort for a committee, department, program, process, or initiative.

Light snacks will be provided. Please register through the Workshop Registration System.

The Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship Program (USRF) supports eight weeks of full-time research, scholarly, and creative activities. The USRF program is open to all Buffalo State undergraduates with a graduation date of December 2018 or later.

Each fellowship provides a student salary of $3,000, a faculty salary of $1,000, and $500 for travel, supplies, or equipment to support the project. 

To learn more about the program, please visit the Undergraduate Research website.

Application Deadlines
Student input: 10:00 p.m. Tuesday, April 10
Faculty input and approval: 10:00 p.m. Thursday, April 12

Information about current programs and resources about mentoring undergraduates conducting research can be found on the Undergraduate Research website.

Buffalo State College is home to one of the leading higher education sites for Buffalo’s Say Yes to Education program, which provides college tuition for graduates of the Buffalo Public Schools and the city’s charter schools.

The college’s Say Yes program was moved to the Academic Success area during the 2017 Academic Affairs reorganization and, as a result, the program has been evolving to better serve our Say Yes students. This year, the program has developed a relationship with our Admissions Office to combine recruitment efforts, has enhanced its data collection and reporting abilities to improve student support, and has developed a website for the Say Yes SUNY Buffalo State program.

Buffalo State’s Say Yes program goes far beyond a scholarship package. The core components of our Say Yes program are the Say Yes Summer Success Academy, one-to-one academic and transitional support from the Say Yes coordinator, SMART goal planning, individual academic action plans for students with cumulative GPAs under 2.4, advocacy in managing college processes (e.g., registration; navigating financial aid requirements; referrals as needed to college counseling, student accessibility services, health services), and assistance with postcollegiate employment planning and skill development.

A distinctive feature of the college’s program is the Say Yes Summer Academy, which is an optional summer bridge program for incoming Say Yes freshmen. Buffalo’s Say Yes to Education provides grant money to support up to 50 incoming Say Yes freshmen to attend the Summer Academy. The academy runs for five week and includes two 3-credit courses, daily seminars, team building, community service, and student mentoring.

Our Say Yes program currently supports over 500 students at Buffalo State, and we are looking forward to celebrating nearly 100 Say Yes students’ graduation this May.

To learn more about the Say Yes program or to become involved, please contact Stanley Simmons, Say Yes coordinator.

Reddy Bikeshare is back for another season at Buffalo State. Eleven bikes have returned to our two campus hubs—six at Rockwell Road near Elmwood, and five in front of Butler Library. Reddy bikes are located at 35 stations throughout Buffalo, including our two stations and hubs throughout Allentown, the Elmwood Village, the West Side, and downtown. For access to any of the 200 bikes in the system, sign up for a membership on the Reddy Bike website or download the Social Bicycles (SoBi) app. Bikes can be picked up from one location and dropped off at another and are available 24/7. They are a great way to explore the campus and surrounding neighborhoods.

The first 40 students, faculty, or staff members who sign up for an annual membership with the promo code BENGALS2018 will have their $55 membership fee waived. Happy riding!

Some faculty and staff parking spaces on the west side of Lot I-37 will be blocked off on Tuesday, April 3, as work on Science and Mathematics Complex Phase 3 continues.

Questions about this project may be e-mailed to vpfm@buffalostate.edu. For more information about construction projects on campus, please visit the Facilities Construction and Maintenance website.

Dianne Modestini, ’73, internationally renowned conservator of nineteenth-century Italian paintings, is well known for her research that uncovered a previously unknown Leonardo da Vinci painting in 2008, Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World). This painting was the first da Vinci discovered in more than 100 years and recently sold at auction for over $400 million.

Ms. Modestini will talk about discovering and restoring the lost masterpiece on Monday, April 9, at 1:30 p.m. in the Burchfield Penney Art Center on the Buffalo State campus. She also will discuss her new book Masterpieces (Cadmo, 2018), which provides a window into the world of conservators and supplements the memoirs of her late husband, the prominent restorer Mario Modestini.  

The faculty of Buffalo State’s Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Art Conservation Department invited Ms. Modestini to campus for this free event. RSVP to 878-5025 to attend.