TIAA-CREF will offer the following Financial Essentials Workshops at Buffalo State during the month of October:

Tuesday, October 7, Noon–1:00 p.m.
Charting Your Course: A Financial Guide for Women
Evaluate your financial health and set realistic goals.

Tuesday, October 14, Noon–1:00 p.m.
The Starting Line: Why and How Retirement Saving Should Begin Now
Learn the benefits of contributing to a retirement savings plan early in your career.

Tuesday, October 21, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Paying Yourself: Income Options in Retirement
Understand the basic rules that govern the most common retirement accounts.

Tuesday, October 28, Noon–1:00 p.m.
Online Tools: Connect to Financial Clarity
Learn how to use online tools to potentially create a better financial life, now and in retirement.

All workshops will be held in Butler Library 210. Lunch will be provided.

Gain a better understanding of your financial future. Reserve a seat today. Register online or call (800) 732-8353.

The fall 2014 Graduate Student Association vote is up and running. Voting is open to all matriculated graduate students until 11:59 p.m. Saturday, September 27. Responses are limited to one per student.

A list of senator and treasurer nominees can be found on the GSA website. In addition to the positions of treasurer and senators, students will also vote on the graduate student fee. To date, this nominal fee of $2.22 per credit hour has offered funding support of over $20,000 to graduate students across campus. Funding is available to any matriculated graduate student for professional development purposes, research, and scholarly activities.

Students can cast their votes by logging on to the Blackboard Group: Graduate Student Association and following the directions in the Announcements section.

On behalf of the Buffalo State Campus Intercultural Committee, the International Student Affairs Office is delighted to invite all internationally minded faculty, staff, and students to attend our well-known weekly International Social Hour, which allows all international students, scholars, and their friends to meet informally. This special get-together will take place Thursday, September 25, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Assembly Hall 1 of the Campbell Student Union. The guest speaker that day will be Laurie Buonanno, professor of political science, who will present "The New and Changing Transatlanticism: Politics and Policy Perspectives."

Coffee, tea, and other light refreshments will be graciously shared. Looking forward to seeing you on the 25th.

The Employee Assistance Program and Weigel Health Center are collaborating to bring an informative program of smoking cessation to interested faculty and staff members. The first meeting will be held Thursday, October 16, from noon to 1:00 p.m. in Weigel Health Center 203.

If you are a smoker who is struggling to quit, we urge you to join us, share your story, and get support. The program will include a casual discussion regarding the facts of smoking and how it affects your health as well as the options available to quit. We will provide resources for quitting and review the benefits of quitting. For those who qualify for and are interested in nicotine replacement therapy, nicotine patches will be provided free of charge as part of the program.

If you are interested in this program, please e-mail Julie Nichols, nurse practitioner at Weigel Health Center. Please reserve questions specifically about quitting smoking for the program itself.

The 15th annual Faculty and Staff Research and Creativity Fall Forum will be held Thursday, October 30, in the beautifully renovated Houston Gym. The goal of the forum is to develop, encourage, and support Buffalo State faculty and staff research and creativity, and to make collaborative research endeavors and grantsmanship more accessible. This is an excellent opportunity to network with other Buffalo State faculty and staff members and to identify common scholarly and creative interests you may have.

All faculty and staff members are invited to organize an exhibit to present current research, creative activities, or other scholarship. Individual, departmental, or group exhibits are welcome. Titles and abstracts or descriptions must be submitted electronically by Friday, September 26.

The 2014–2015 academic year has been declared the Year of the Innovator, recognizing the collaborative spirit and creative mindset that is valued at Buffalo State. Hosted by the School of the Professions, the year will focus on innovative achievements across campus in multiple academic disciplines. If your submission relates to or supports this theme, please include it in the box on the submission form so we may highlight it in the program.

To participate in the fall forum, please complete the online form. Please note the September 26 deadline.

Current submissions are available online for review; click on a title to read the abstract.

Please note: There will be a limited number of electrical outlets, tables, and chairs available, as this is a smaller venue. Display space is limited to one 5-foot table or two easels per submission.

You're invited to participate in the Western New York Region Citizen Preparedness Corps Training Program on Saturday, September 27, from noon to 2:00 p.m. in Bulger Communication Center North.

The program seeks to provide citizens with the tools and resources to prepare for emergencies and disasters, respond accordingly, and recover as quickly as possible to pre-disaster conditions.

Each family that attends will receive a free NYS disaster preparedness kit containing key items to assist individuals in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The state training and kits will help New Yorkers be the most trained and best prepared citizens in the country.

Registration is required. Register online or call (716) 720-3193.

A form called SZACSCN is available for use in Banner-INB. Department secretaries and staff members who are responsible for master schedule input and maintenance should be using this form to enter information directly in Banner for any active term available for the following: Instructor Change (add, delete, or change an instructor assigned to a section), Section Comment (form SSATEXT-Section Long Text), Class Restrictions from form SSARRES, and Field of Study Restrictions from form SSARRES. You can now enter this data directly on SZACSCN for the following terms: fall 2014 (201430), January Term 2015 (201505), and spring 2015 (201510). Do not file a paper Course Schedule Change Notice Form for these types of changes. Instructions on how to use SZACSCN are now available on the Registrar's Office home page.

Join fellow faculty members in an open roundtable discussion of the role of technology in higher education on Friday, September 26, from noon to 1:30 p.m. in Butler Library 181B. This conversation offers faculty members the opportunity to share ideas, discuss best practices, and talk about current and future technology needs. A light lunch will be served. Facilitated by Bill White.

Register online through the CyberQuad Workshop Registration System.

e truth has emerged in the research on higher education pedagogy: the traditional lecture-based "transference" view of teaching and learning will not suffice. From face-to-face to blended and fully online course environments, the latest theory and practice with regard to optimizing learner engagement in classroom discourse offers promising applications to benefit a variety of instructional contexts. This workshop will be held on Tuesday, December 2, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in Butler Library 208. Facilitated by Mark Warford. Please register online through the CyberQuad Workshop Registration System.

A workshop on the Institutional Review Board process to help researchers whose projects involve human participants determine appropriate levels of review will be held on Thursday, November 20, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Butler Library 181B.

Before the review process, researchers must be sure that their project is, in fact, research with human participants as defined by the federal government. To qualify as research with human participants, the following must be true: (1) The participants must be living. Thus, oral history projects fall under the guidelines, but research involving diaries kept in the 1800s does not. (2) The project is a systematic investigation; that is, it is designed to be a study. For example, instances in classrooms where teachers ask students’ opinions on the material to measure progress are not research; however, if that same teacher designs a study to evaluate two methods of teaching the material to see which is more effective, this would be research if the third criterion is met. (3) The project is designed to contribute to the generalized knowledge. To qualify as research, the person conducting the project must intend for it to be disseminated at some level.

On our campus, we also review student projects that may not be disseminated but that meet the first two criteria so that our students will learn the process of research with human participants and because we have contracted with the federal government to do so.

This workshop will be facilitated by Gina Game, research compliance officer for Sponsored Program Operations. Please register online through the CyberQuad Workshop Registration System.