The Graycliff Conservancy Inc. will present three of the foremost experts on garden and landscape design of the early twentieth century in a roundtable discussion on Wednesday, October 8, at 7:00 p.m. in the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Appearing will be Patricia O’Donnell, Pradnya Martz, and Laura Burchfield, introduced by moderator Terrence Robinson. This wide-ranging discussion will cover both the "big picture," such as trends during the early part of the century, and more specific topics, such as developments in design and layout, and the historical plant materials used to create certain effects—many of which are still in vogue today.

The roundtable will also touch on the variety of design and plant materials in early-twentieth-century gardens in the United States; the landscape designs of Frank Lloyd Wright during this period; and increased mobility in the United States during the early twentieth century, and its impact on gardens and landscapes.

Since 1987, Patricia M. O’Donnell has been the principal and founder of Heritage Landscapes: Preservation Landscape Architects & Planners. She has completed more than 450 cultural landscape preservation and sustainability projects with attention to historical character, community engagement, sustainability, environmental quality, accessibility, education, and interpretation. Her extensive résumé includes 66 professional awards, including the Virginia Historic Preservation Award and awards from the National Trust for Historic Preservation; the American Society of Landscape Architects and its separate chapters in Connecticut, Kentucky, Louisiana, Rhode Island, and Vermont; the Preservation League of New York State; and the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation. O’Donnell has a master of landscape architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Pradnya Martz has served as the curator for the Weltzheimer/Johnson House in Oberlin, Ohio, since 1998. The house, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as its landscape were the subject of an article by Martz that appeared in the spring 2013 issue of SaveWright, published by the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. She received her master's degree in architecture from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The coauthor of American Home Landscapes: A Design Guide to Creating Period Garden Styles, Laura L. Burchfield (no relation to Charles Burchfield) teaches residential design, plant selection, and landscape management at the Ohio State University. She has master's degrees in both landscape architecture and horticulture from the Ohio State University, and she lectures and writes on many aspects of horticulture and landscape design.

Admission is $10; $5 for Graycliff and Burchfield Penney members.

This event is made possible with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and the New York State Legislature; the County of Erie, County Executive Mark Polancarz, and the Erie County Legislature; and the Baird Foundation.

Please join us today for the presentation "Branding Yourself: How to Make Yourself More Competitive in Today’s Job Market" by Nicholas Bowe, store team leader at Target Corporation, at 12:30 p.m. (Bengal Pause) in Butler Library 210. His presentation will help students stand out when interviewing. Bowe is known for his energetic talks and invites active audience participation. This is not your standard lecture!

The Instructional Design Office has created a Blackboard Resource website for faculty and students. If further assistance is needed with Blackboard, please contact the Open SUNY Support Services at (800) 875-6269 or e-mail OpenSUNYHelp@suny.edu. Additional resources can be located on the Official Blackboard Help Site.

Please join the Biology Department for the seminar "Characterization and Evolution of Insect Transcriptional Regulatory Elements," presented by Marc S. Halfon, associate professor in the University at Buffalo's Department of Biochemistry and Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, on Monday, October 6, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Technology Building 160.

All faculty, staff, and students are welcome.

Seminar Abstract
Defining the DNA sequences that regulate gene expression is equally as important as characterizing genes themselves, but often much more difficult. We have constructed the REDfly database of all known transcriptional cis-regulatory modules in the model organism Drosophila melanogaster, and used these data to develop computational methods for regulatory element discovery. Our supervised machine learning approach is able to discover new Drosophila regulatory modules with success rates in the neighborhood of 90 percent true-positive predictions. Moreover, we have found that the Drosophila data contained within REDfly can also be used for regulatory element discovery in insect species with as much as 350 My divergence, including those with medical (e.g., mosquito) and agricultural (e.g., honeybee) importance. Our methods, therefore, allow for regulatory element discovery in a broad range of insects, even in the absence of significant experimental data for each sequenced species. Comparing the sequence and function of distantly related regulatory modules will provide insight into how transcriptional regulatory sequences and the regulatory networks in which they participate have evolved.

The McNair Scholars Program will host an information and recruitment session on Thursday, November 6, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Science Building 250. The program helps prepare first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented Buffalo State students for graduate study. Students who participate in this program are provided with research opportunities and faculty mentors. Please inform any student you feel qualifies for this program. For more information, please call the McNair Office at ext. 3411 or e-mail Jennifer Johnson, program coordinator.

The fall 2014 series Artists on the Road: Travel as a Source of Inspiration opens today, October 2, with Brent Patterson's presentation "The Death Road: There's No Going Back" at 12:15 p.m. in Upton Hall 230. Patterson's lecture features his service trip to the Andes of Bolivia with students teaching English and staying with Aymaran natives in a location that was a three-hour boat ride from the nearest hospital. His talk addresses how his travels influence not only his work but also his life.

Patterson said, "Travel inspires works but more importantly becomes part of my makeup as a creative individual." His talk is free and open to the public.

The Artists on the Road series is co-sponsored by the Design Department and the International and Exchange Programs Office.

A service-learning designation helps students identify courses that give hands-on learning experiences that meet community need. Students can register for your course knowing it has a community-based component and can choose to be engaged in active learning. Participation in a service-learning-designated course also appears on student transcripts, and your course can be recognized as including a community-based-learning requirement.

Details and information to request service-learning designation for your courses that meet the College Senate–approved criteria are available on the VSLC website. The deadline to request designation is Friday, October 3.

Jeffrey Otterstein from VALIC Financial Advisors will be on campus for individual consultations with Buffalo State faculty and staff members on the following days:

Wednesday, October 8
Tuesday, November 4
Tuesday, December 2

Sessions are by appointment only, between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. in Butler Library 210B. To schedule an appointment, please register online.

When a student receives a notification that a waitlisted seat has become available, he or she must complete the following steps:

1. Log in to Banner (SSB) within the 24-hour time frame.
2. Find the waitlisted class on his or her schedule (in the Add or Drop Classes worksheet).
3. Select "**Web Registered**" from the drop-down menu.
4. Click the SUBMIT CHANGES button to register for the open seat.

Additional information about waitlisting can be found on the Registrar's Office website.

All overrides can be granted directly in Self-Service Banner by the instructor assigned to the course.

Helpful tips and information:

Camtasia Video/Tutorial: How to Address Overrides in Banner for Faculty

Banner Student Registration Guide (PDF)

How to Address Registration Restrictions and Overrides

How to Grant Special Approval (Instructor Permission) in Self-Service Banner

After a student receives special approval in Banner, does the student still have to go back and register? Yes: FAQ No. 22. More FAQs.

Request for Registration Override: Automatic E-mail to Students Gmail Accounts: When students attempt to register in Banner and receive a registration add error, an e-mail message is automatically sent to their Gmail accounts. This e-mail provides detailed information including the actual error message the student received and the instructor's Buffalo State e-mail address. The student can then forward this e-mail to the instructor to request an override. The e-mail will contain all relevant information related to the student, the registration add error, and the course number and CRN. The instructor can then grant the override if the student meets the necessary criteria to be registered in the course.

Forwarding Gmail Messages to Cell Phone: Students can forward important Gmail messages (for example:  waitlist notifications) to their cell phones. Detailed information is available online on the Computing and Technology Services website.

Registrar's Office Tutorial Web Page