Today is Cinco de Mayo. Celebrate with a fantastic Spanish lunch provided to you by Buffalo State Dining in the Resident Dining Hall today from 11:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Indulge in a delicious menu that includes posole; chicken, pork, or veggie tostadas; a build-your-own-taco station; nachos grande; and a margarita bar. Also, try your luck at a piñata for a chance to win candy and Chartwells dollars!

Enter with a meal swipe or door price of $8.99. Faculty and staff members, get 10 percent off when you use your Bengal Bucks.

For more information on Buffalo State Dining, please visit our website.

A new form called SZACSCN is now available for use in Banner-INB. Department secretaries and staff members who are responsible for master schedule input and maintenance can now use 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 on form SSARRES, and Field of Study Restrictions on form SSARRES. Please begin making changes for these data fields for spring 2014 (201410), summer 2014 (201420), and fall 2014 (201430) effective immediately using this form. If you enter this information directly in Banner, you do not need to file a Course Schedule Change Notice Form.

May is blood pressure awareness month. Weigel Health Center will offer two ambulatory blood pressure monitors to interested faculty and staff members this month.

Why do you need to be aware? Almost 75 million people in the United States have high blood pressure, or hypertension, and 90 percent of adults ages 45–64 will develop hypertension. Nearly one in five has high blood pressure and is unaware. Hypertension increases the risk for heart disease, the No. 1 cause of death in the United States, and stroke, the third leading cause of death in the U.S. Take an active role in your health and get your blood pressure checked regularly. Know your numbers!

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is a technique used to estimate true blood pressure using a monitor that is worn for 24 hours. The monitor can be worn on a belt or in a pouch, but you will have a blood pressure cuff on your nondominant arm for a full 24 hours. The monitor is programmed to take readings every 20 minutes while you are awake and every 60 minutes while you are asleep. At the end of testing, the results are downloaded into a computer and printed for you. We will not be responsible for treatment or follow-through on your results but ask that you follow up with your personal doctor accordingly. In addition, we will not use the results of any tests performed for any purpose. The readings are highly accurate, within 5 mmHg of readings taken with a manual blood pressure cuff.

It is important to know that, while wearing the cuff, your arm must remain relatively still while the cuff is inflating, and you are unable to shower with the monitor. You should not exercise while wearing the monitor. Please wear loose fitting clothing the day of your appointment. The cuff will be placed on your nondominant arm.

Anyone who is interested in ambulatory blood pressure monitoring should call Julie Nichols, nurse practitioner in the Weigel Health Center, at ext. 6711. We look forward to seeing you and answering any questions you may have.

The public administration program will host Aroon Manoharan, assistant professor of public administration at Kent State University, for the lecture "Digital Governance Success Factors and Transparency" on Monday, May 19, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. in Classroom Building C122. (Please note the change in time.)

Manoharan received his Ph.D. from the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University-Newark and his M.P.A. from Kansas State University. His primary research interest is in the use of information technology in government and politics, with particular attention to e-governance in local governments. He is also interested in strategic planning, public performance reporting, and public management. ??As associate director of the E-Governance Institute at Rutgers-Newark, he directed major initiatives including the implementation of the Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide Surveys, which evaluated the e-governance performance at the municipal level globally. He also directed the U.S. States E-Governance Survey and U.S. Municipalities E-Governance Survey.

As senior research associate of the National Center for Public Performance, he assessed the performance reporting strategies of transit and parks agencies and related public advocacy groups. He is a recipient of the John Carlin Scholarship in Public Administration and a member of Pi Alpha Alpha, the national honor society for public administration.

His talk is funded by the Grant Allocation Committee and is free and open to everyone.

Blackboard training sessions for May are now listed on the Workshop Registration System website. Please review the sessions and register for those you may need.

May 6 is National Teacher Day, part of a weeklong National Teacher Appreciation celebration of the many ways that teachers make schools and communities great.

Do you remember a teacher who opened your mind to new ideas? Recognized your potential and celebrated your dreams? Motivated, listened, supported, and cared? Helped you to discover, explore, build, and soar? Inspired your career? Changed your life?

Join us in thanking those teachers who make learning come alive!

To celebrate the Buffalo State Year of the Teacher and to recognize the impact that teachers have had on our community, every student, staff, and faculty member is invited to stop by the Campbell Student Union during Bengal Pause on Tuesday, May 6, to write a note of appreciation to a favorite teacher. Laptops and volunteers will be available to help search for current teacher addresses. All postcards will be stamped and mailed by the School of Education office of the dean.

Please join us in recognizing the efforts of educators across the nation and globe, and encourage students to stop by the Thank a Teacher table on May 6.

Departments must ensure that all requests for hardware and software quotes and requisitions for fiscal year 2013–2014 are received by the Computing Help Desk by 4:00 p.m. on the dates below. In order to make ordering at the end of the fiscal year a smooth process for everyone, please contact the Computing Help Desk as far in advance of the deadline dates as possible. Note: These dates are about two weeks earlier than the procurement deadlines. Requests received after the dates below may not be processed in time to meet the 2013–2014 deadlines.

$20,000 or more
Monday, May 5

Under $20,000
Friday, May 9  (for Tech Fee or Academic Equipment Discretionary Funds only)

$2,500 to $19,999
Friday, May 23

Under $2,500
Friday, May 30

Please contact Rick Engelhardt (e-mail preferred), assistant director for computing technology support services, ext. 4611, with questions.

Chenn Zhou, director of the Center for Innovation through Visualization and Simulation (CIVS) and interim associate vice chancellor for research and graduate studies at Purdue University Calumet, will present "Integration of Numerical Simulation with Virtual Reality Visualization" on Monday, May 12, at 1:30 p.m. in E. H. Butler Library 208.

The CIVS is a multidisciplinary center that combines advanced simulation techniques with 3-D visualization and VR technologies. Recognized globally for its applied research, CIVS has developed methodologies to integrate numerical simulation and VR visualization with various applications in disciplines such as engineering, technology, health care, science, and the humanities. A number of interactive virtual learning and training modules have been developed and demonstrated to be highly effective, with significant educational and economic impacts. These methodologies have also proved useful for virtual design to solve real-world problems addressing issues on energy, environment, productivity, safety, and quality. Through its industrial partnerships, CIVS has provided innovative solutions to companies, saving over $30 million.

Please read or listen to the NPR story on cloud storage. You can listen to the audio or read the transcript. This is important information for all cloud storage users.

The SUNY Center for Professional Development (CPD) and Equal Access to Software and Information (EASI) are pleased to offer the following month-long asynchronous online courses:

Barrier-Free Information Technology
Starts Monday, May 5
This course is designed to guide an institution in making both its computer and information technology systems fully accessible to users with disabilities. Digitized information is display-independent, which means it can be input and output in ways that make it available to all users regardless of their abilities. The emphasis of this course is on creating structures that lead to institution-wide system change as required by disability-related legislation.

Creating and Repurposing More Accessible Content
Starts Monday, May 5
This course is designed to support alternative media specialists in creating new documents that are more accessible and in converting existing documents into alternate formats such as Word, PDF, DAISY, and NIMAS. Documents need to be well constructed, which in turn facilitates accessibility. Documents also need to be repurposed to other formats based on organizational need. This course is designed to inspire as many questions as it might provide answers.

Barrier-Free E-learning
Starts Monday, June 2
This course has been significantly updated and also enriched with new multimedia. The course is now based on the realization that course content authors, faculty, and instructional designers are placing content inside a courseware or learning management system. Most of the web accessibility issues relate to that interface, and only a few accessibility features are relevant to the actual course content. This makes creating accessible content much simpler. The revisions focus on a limited set of accessibility issues and also stress how to achieve accessibility using familiar software that designers are already using.

View a full description of each course and register on the Cvent website.

Cost
SUNY CPD Member $245
Buffalo State is a CPD member.
All points have been used this fiscal year.
SUNY Non-CPD Member $265

Registration
Register online. SUNY faculty and staff registering through the SUNY CPD receive the discounted SUNY rate above.

Questions?
Contact Judy Marshall at the SUNY CPD, (315) 214-2427.

See what courses are coming up in the months ahead.

Check out EASI's new Synchronous Clinics.