The Student Life Office participates in National Hazing Prevention Week (NHPW) during the last full week of September as part of our commitment to respect for diversity and individual differences. NHPW is an opportunity to educate our community not only to recognize hazing but also to learn ways to prevent it from occurring in the first place. For more information about what hazing is and how to report it, please direct students to the Student Life website.

This year's National Retirement Security Week (NRSW) is October 15–21. NRSW is the first congressionally endorsed national event to promote the benefits of saving for retirement and encourage everyone to do so though any or all of their available options. The focus of this featured week is long-term financial planning for retirement and the resources available to help employees do so—especially those available through employment.

NRSW is a great time to consider personal retirement goals and to develop or fine-tune a plan that will make those goals a retirement reality. The 2017 campaign theme is "Your Whole Story," which aims to educate people on the importance of saving for retirement, show how financial decisions made now affect retirement security later, and increase plan participation and savings rates. Below are some resources to assist in doing this:

The National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators Inc. (NAGDCA) offers interactive tools, videos, age-specific tips, and more to explain the importance of saving for retirement and help employees plot their financial journey.

The National Association of Retirement Plan Participants (NARPP) offers short clips to discuss common questions about savings strategies and life changes, as well as tools to help employees start saving.

The International City/County Management Association Retirement Corporation (ICMA-RC) provides webinars, calculators, and more.

SUNY's Financial Education and Planning web page offers a variety of financial education and planning tools and calculators to assist with both short-term and long-term financial planning, including SUNY Smart Track.

SUNY's Choosing Your Investments web page offers introductory information to help familiarize employees with investments so they can make more educated decisions on where to invest.

Make educated financial decisions today to create a stronger financial tomorrow!

Buffalo State will host CS4ALL in WNY, a free computer science conference sponsored by Google for in-service secondary school teachers in Western New York, on Friday, October 13, from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. With the goal of broadening participation in computing, the conference will introduce secondary school teachers to computer science in the areas of big data and data analytics, including a talk and demonstration of data analysis using drones. Participants will have the opportunity to attend a hands-on workshop on robotics or video game design. The state of computer science in secondary schools in the country and in Western New York in particular will be addressed. If you know of any high school mathematics, science, or technology teachers who might be interested in attending, please encourage them to visit the CS4HS website and register for conference.

We’ve received some back-to-school phishing e-mail. No doubt you’ve seen the e-mails that have asked you to click on a link to update Outlook or some other system. Some of you clicked on that link, and it took you to a page that asked you to enter your Buffalo State credentials. If you did, change your password now—and change it to a passphrase. Watch a video on how to create a passphrase (less than four minutes long).

The Phishing blog post on the RITE Information Security website has been updated to show you the most current phishing message. There are examples on the post and tips to avoid being phished. By the way, you can use information from the blog to educate your students as well.

Check out all the events happening at Buffalo State this week on Student Life's Tumblr.

We post a weekly newsletter of all campus events that invite students to participate. Please e-mail Sean P. Terry, Student Activities Assistant for Evening and Weekend Life, to submit an item to be advertised.

Keep up to date with events on campus by following us.
Website: studentlife.buffalostate.edu
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bscstudentlife
Twitter: @BSCStudentLife
Instagram: @BuffaloStateStudentLife

Buffalo State now offers tutoring in economics, statistics and research methods for social sciences, Italian (on-call basis), and starting September 18, BUS 312 Financial Accounting. Visit the Tutoring section of the Academic Commons website for a complete list of subjects as well as information regarding setting appointments (walk-ins are always welcome).

Several tutoring and mentoring opportunities are available at Buffalo State. Tutoring services are set up as follows:

• Tutoring and Learning Center (TLC) Main Office: (Arts, History, Humanities, Social Sciences, Study Skills, Presentations*): South Wing 320
• Mathematics: Buckham Hall A-203
• Modern and Classical Languages: Buckham Hall B-234
• Science and Technology: Science and Mathematics Complex 265
• Writing: Writing Center, Butler Library

*The TLC main office can handle almost anything that is not covered by the dedicated areas listed above.

Please join us for the watercolor workshop "Path of Light: Capturing Nature’s Light in Landscape" with instructor Jennifer Koury, on Saturday, September 30, from 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Burchfield Penney Art Center.

Have you ever found yourself metaphorically meandering through a painting? It might have been the path of light that drew you in. Design a watercolor painting where the light leads the viewer's eye through a landscape. The demonstration will encourage you to develop a path of light using values, forms, and contrasting sharper shapes. One-on-one encouragement will be provided for participants.

The cost of the workshop is $48 for Burchfield Penney members and Buffalo State faculty, staff, and students; and $58 for not-yet members.

For further information, please visit the Burchfield Penney website.

To register, please contact Kathy Gaye Shiroki, curatorial associate, 878-3549, or download the registration form (PDF, 351 KB) on the BPAC website.

Registration is still open for tomorrow's daylong workshop on campus focusing on the effective use of open educational resources (OER) in the classroom.

This workshop is free and open to everyone. To register, please visit the SUNY Center for Professional Development website.

SUNY has a strong history of openness and instructional innovation, including the use of OER to provide measurable impact on student success.

This year invites a large scale-up of OER thanks to the Excelsior Scholarship, which includes $8 million in its 2017–2018 funding to provide OER, including e-books, to students at SUNY and CUNY colleges to help "defray the prohibitive cost of textbooks.”

In response, SUNY OER Services is coordinating workshops to invite faculty, librarians, instructional designers, administrators, and other campus stakeholders to explore the possibilities of OER more deeply.

As a participant in these one-day, on site workshops, you will

• interact with faculty and librarians across SUNY who have firsthand experience with OER;
• understand the distinctions between traditional and Creative Commons copyright;
• discover OER materials in your subject area; and
• apply OER content to help meet your course outcomes.

All skill and comfort levels with both OER and campus technology are welcome. Participation is free for all SUNY affiliates.

You won’t want to miss out on this exciting opportunity to explore OER and work directly with faculty experts in various disciplines. We look forward to your participation.

Stay tuned for additional dates and locations of upcoming SUNY OER Services workshops.

Registration is now open for a daylong workshop focusing on the effective use of open educational resources (OER) in the classroom on Friday, September 22, on the Buffalo State campus.

This workshop is free and open to everyone. To register, please visit the SUNY Center for Professional Development website.

SUNY has a strong history of openness and instructional innovation, including the use of OER to provide measurable impact on student success.

This year invites a large scale-up of OER thanks to the Excelsior Scholarship, which includes $8 million in its 2017-2018 funding to provide OER, including e-books, to students at SUNY and CUNY colleges to help "defray the prohibitive cost of textbooks.”

In response, SUNY OER Services is coordinating workshops to invite faculty, librarians, instructional designers, administrators, and other campus stakeholders to explore the possibilities of OER more deeply.

As a participant in these one-day, on site workshops, you will

• interact with faculty and librarians across SUNY who have firsthand experience with OER;
• understand the distinctions between traditional and Creative Commons copyright;
• discover OER materials in your subject area; and
• apply OER content to help meet your course outcomes.

All skill and comfort levels with both OER and campus technology are welcome. Participation is free for all SUNY affiliates.

You won’t want to miss out on this exciting opportunity to explore OER and work directly with faculty experts in various disciplines. We look forward to your participation.

Stay tuned for additional dates and locations of upcoming SUNY OER Services workshops.

RITE and Student Accessibility Services are offering workshops to support efforts to promote the accessibility of materials on the web and within courses, including face-to-face, online, and hybrid courses.

As previously announced, Buffalo State is working to align its web content with the U.S. Department of Education’s heightened standards for compliance in accordance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Level AA.

Please register for the upcoming compliance workshops specific to Microsoft Word documents and PDFs through the Workshop Registration System.