The call for nominations for the second annual SUNY Faculty Advisory Council on Teaching and Technology (FACT²) Excellence in Instruction and Excellence in Instructional Support Awards has been extended through Saturday, December 12. These awards are designed to recognize exceptional instructors, instructional support staff members, and teams who are using and facilitating the use of technology in teaching.

The FACT² Excellence in Instruction and Excellence in Instructional Support Awards are system-level honors conferred to acknowledge and provide systemwide recognition for consistently professional achievement and to encourage the ongoing pursuit of excellence. These awards underscore SUNY's commitment to the use of technology to support access to superior education, to advance the boundaries of knowledge, and to serve the public good. Through these awards, SUNY publicly proclaims its pride in the accomplishment and personal dedication of its instructional faculty and technology support professionals.

There are four awards:

FACT² Excellence in Instruction: Community Colleges
FACT² Excellence in Instruction: State-Operated and Statutory Campuses
FACT² Excellence in Instructional Support: Community Colleges
FACT² Excellence in Instructional Support: State-Operated and Statutory Campuses

FACT² Excellence in Instruction Awards
These awards recognize SUNY full- or part-time teaching faculty, working individually or in collaboration with others, engaging innovative uses of technology in the teaching and learning process. Recipients of this award have incorporated new or existing technology in ways that enhance the curriculum and engage students using methods and strategies that are scalable and transportable to other settings.

FACT² Excellence in Instructional Support Awards
These awards recognize full- or part-time instructional support staff involved in supporting innovative uses of educational technologies to meaningfully improve teaching and learning by working individually or in collaboration with teaching faculty in the strategic application of curriculum within SUNY. Recipients or teams receiving this award have demonstrated excellence through instructional support practice, and the ability to recognize pedagogical opportunities and to devise strategies for infusing the curriculum with innovative use of technology that aligns with learning outcomes.

You are encouraged to read through the award criteria and rubric (PDF) and nominate a deserving colleague for the Excellence in Instruction or the Excellence in Instructional Support award. Self-nominations are also welcome.

Begin your nomination process.

1. New users click on "Create New Account."
2. Enter the required information and click "Next Step."
3. Create a password and click "Finish."
4. Select "I have received an email" and click "Continue."
5. Click on the "FACT² Awards Nomination" link.
6. Complete the submission form.
7. Attach the required documents.
8. Click "Submit Application" when complete.

FACT² was established in 1986 to give SUNY faculty and staff access to professional development to sustain educational leadership in service to the citizens and institutions of the State of New York. FACT² is an advisory body to the SUNY provost, advocating and acting as a resource for university stakeholders in the use of technology for effective pedagogy and research.

The summer 2016 master schedule is now available online on the Registrar's Office Courses web page.

Improve your performance on your finals with these time-tested, practical tips during the Academic Skills Center's exam-prep workshop "Finals Fury: Top Five Final Exam Tips," today from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in South Wing 320. We’ll help you remember the right things in the right way so that you can keep calm and carry on. Together we’ll plan to succeed! No prior registration necessary.

Improve your performance on your finals with these time-tested, practical tips during the Academic Skills Center's exam-prep workshop "Finals Fury: Top Five Final Exam Tips," on Friday, December 11 (Study Day), from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in South Wing 320. We’ll help you remember the right things in the right way so that you can keep calm and carry on. Together we’ll plan to succeed! No prior registration necessary.

The Teacher Education Council will meet on Friday, December 11, at 1:00 p.m. in Cleveland Hall 418. Agenda items for this meeting include DASA issues, Future Teachers Recruitment, CEURE/Educational Pipeline Initiatives, and consideration of curriculum integration and innovation for all education majors.

Please join us at a special event designed and created by our Fashion and Textile Technology students and sponsored by Cotton Inc., "The Cotton Experience: Every Day Is a Cotton Day," on Thursday, December 10, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. in Butler Library 208.

Our students have worked over the course of three semesters, including the summer, to research the impacts of cotton on our daily life. Their focus has been on cotton as a fiber and fabric, and how we can resolve some of the waste of apparel goods. This research study course also included a trip to the Cotton Inc. headquarters, where the students learned about the uses of cotton outside the apparel industry. They will present all their findings in this showcase.

We hope you can attend this open house event for even a short visit. Everyone is welcome.

Please visit the Dining Services website for winter break dining hours.

Please visit the Dining Services website for winter break dining hours.

The Barnes & Noble at Buffalo State Bookstore will host its annual Holiday Sale on Thursday, December 10, from 8:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Take 25 percent off your purchase throughout the store, and enjoy live music and refreshments while you shop.

Kayleigh Bemisderfer, a graduate student in forensic science at Buffalo State, will present the literature seminar "Stimuli-Responsive Magnetic Nanoparticles for Targeted Drug Delivery" at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, December 10, in Classroom Building B119. Light refreshments will be served before the seminar. This seminar is supported by the Faculty-Student Association. The abstract of her talk appears as below.

Abstract
Magnetic nanoparticles are being used for various biomedical applications in which they facilitate laboratory diagnostics and therapeutics. The good biocompatibility and superparamagnetic nature of these molecules make them specifically useful for drug delivery purposes. Many different drug carriers have been developed for transporting anticancer drugs specifically to tumors in order to improve treatment efficacy while preventing undesired side effects. Among these, magnetic iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles have attracted much interest in drug delivery applications because they can be suitably modified to carry drug molecules and be magnetically guided to the targeted organs or tumor sites inside the body. This allows for the prevention of damage to normal tissues due to drug toxicity even before reaching the targeted location, thereby improving the therapeutic effect. Recently, many studies have been focused on the fabrication of stimuli-responsive core-shell magnetic polymer composites.

Synthesis of a magnetic and pH-responsive nanocarrier with a multilayer core-shell structure was reported. Preparation was based on silica-coated magnetite nanoparticles successively coated with poly(benzyl L-aspartate) (PBLA) and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG). The Fe3O4@SiO2 nanoparticle functions as a superparamagnetic core used to direct the drug loaded nanocarrier to the targeted site via an external magnetic field. The PEG chains are connected to the surface via pH-sensitive benzoic-imine bonds, serving as a pH-sheddable hydrophilic corona, while the PBLA segments serve as a hydrophobic middle layer used to load the anticancer drug (DOX) via hydrophobic interactions. Meanwhile, synthesis of temperature and pH-responsive core-shell nanoparticles was also reported. Theses nanocarriers were composed of dual responsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-block-poly(acrylic acid) copolymer coated on superparamagnetic magnetite core, tethered with folic acid to improve cancer cell specific targeting. The resultant nanocomposites could serve as a versatile biocompatible vehicle for selective loading, targeted delivery, and pH-responsive release of anticancer drug Doxorubicin (DOX).