Readers see your writing as a reflection of how you think. The academic style of writing requires clarity and conciseness. Knowing the guidelines to write more clearly and concisely will help keep your writing direct and logical. Increase your writing power with connection to Buffalo State's strategic plan and communicate effectively with these tips for polished report writing. 

Wednesday, May 14
Noon–2:00 p.m. Lunch provided.
Professional Development Center, E. H. Butler Library 181B
Co-presenters: Ottilie Woodruff and Lauren Copeland

Register online through the CyberQuad Workshop Registration System.

Employees who “quit but stay” are not giving their talents, creativity, energy, or passion to their jobs and are exacting an immeasurable tax on the organization. There are many reasons for disengagement, but one of the greatest is a lack of trust. When employees fail to meet expectations, leaders have the difficult challenge of determining how much to trust employees with future tasks or projects. The distrust-disengagement cycle is self-perpetuating and will cripple an organization. In this professional development workshop, Stephen Covey’s unique methodology will focus on the “what” and the “how” to effect practical, sustainable change.

"Speed of Trust" – Employee Engagement and Campus Culture
Wednesday, April 16
Professional Development Center, E. H. Butler Library 181B
Noon–2:00 p.m.
Lunch provided.

Register through the CyberQuad Workshop Registration System.

Do you experience life in blocks of seven, with each day’s events and obligations mapped out on your calendar? Do you feel you start planning for next week even while you’re working to get through this Wednesday? When life is flying by at warp speed, it’s a big clue that you’re caught up in a whole lot of doing and not very much (if any) being. Time is necessary to manage our lives, but so often time manages us. Your happiness is about what you do each day to fulfill yourself. Fulfillment means something different to everyone, but in general it’s what fills you up and gives you energy, what puts you back in touch with yourself and the present moment. You may fulfill yourself by taking a quiet walk at lunchtime, playing with your pet after work, or listening to your favorite music during dinner. Come and meditate, relax, and get stress free now during this workshop on Tuesday, March 18, from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. in the Professional Development Center, E. H. Butler Library 181B.

Register through the CyberQuad Workshop Registration System.

The University Police Department has been awarded a New York State Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee Police Traffic Services grant for traffic safety, observational activities, and increased enforcement (March–May 2014).

The goal is to increase safety for vehicles and pedestrians on campus roadways. Targeted areas include seat belt use, speeding, aggressive driving, distracted driving, pedestrian safety, motorcycle safety, and school bus safety.

This year’s national Distracted Driving Mobilization period is April 10–15. This year’s national Click It or Ticket Mobilization for seat belt enforcement is scheduled from April 17 to May 1. University Police will be actively participating in the mobilization to ensure that all motor vehicle occupants are buckled up day and night to reduce the risk of injury and death.

University Police encourages all members of the campus community to exercise traffic safety and adherence to the New York State vehicle and traffic laws.

You may have noticed announcements for an upcoming film series or lecture, displays of student work, or photos from recent campus events, as well as career workshops and USG events, on the digital signage monitors around campus. Did you know that learning how to add content to the system takes less than an hour?

Digital signage is a valuable tool designed to engage and inform the campus community with visual messages to students, faculty, staff, and visitors through the broadcast of events and the distribution of other information of interest to the campus. Training sessions are still available. Visit the CyberQuad Workshop Registration System to register.

If you are unable to attend a training session, you may submit content online via the Instructional Resources website.

Students are invited to learn more about an international study opportunity in Istanbul, Turkey, during this information session on Thursday, March 6, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Classroom Building B106.

This innovative summer-abroad experience will combine the study of Turkish and Middle Eastern history and literature with a hands-on experience of life and culture in Istanbul, Turkey. Students who enroll in this program will have the opportunity to experience distinctive literature and art, learn a rich and diverse history, and examine a political system that is different from most other nations. This program is open to students from all majors.

The Burchfield Penney Art Center will present Burchfield’s Birds: All That Jizz, a class and workshop on Sunday, March 9, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., as part of its International Center for Watercolor series.

Jizz is a term used by birders who have learned to identify different species of birds based on a bird’s characteristic impression. In our workshop, we will explore the timeless depiction of birds highlighted in Charles Burchfield’s works. We will take our inspiration from the energy of the birds themselves and translate it into works of visual and literary art.

Charles Burchfield said he liked to be able to "advance and retreat just like a man writing a book." Painter Kateri Ewing will lead us as we advance toward watercoloring a bird of our choosing, and writer Karen Lee Lewis will develop a writing retreat that helps transition from painting to creative writing. All levels are welcome.

Kateri Ewing is a writer and self-taught watercolorist from East Aurora, New York. The fields, ponds, and woodlands of her beloved Knox Farm State Park are her place of inspiration. She hopes to reveal the intricate details of the cycles of nature, the luminous particulars she notices in natural objects, such as a single seedhead of grass, a broken acorn, a decaying leaf, or the spirit of a tiny nuthatch spiraling down a hemlock tree. The birds of Western New York have become her favorite subject to capture on paper, as she aspires to portray each one in a way that reveals its uniqueness, right down to the spark of life in its eye. It is the desire to urge others to pause and look a bit more closely that stokes her creative fire in both writing and visual art.

Karen Lee Lewis is an avid birder and poet and a council member of the Buffalo Ornithological Society. She teaches creative writing extensively throughout Western New York and offers writing workshops for adults at Buffalo’s C. G. Jung Center. Lewis is also a teacher consultant for the Western New York Writing Project. Her new chapbook is a 10-part poem paired with original photographs, and was inspired by Charles Burchfield’s painting Solitude.

To register for this workshop, please contact Kathy Gaye Shiroki, ext. 3549, or download the registration form. Cost: $30 for members and $40 for not-yet members.

A lecture and discussion, My Appreciation of Watercolor: A Personal View – Inspired by Charles Burchfield by Karen Lee Lewis, will be held Friday, March 7, from 12:30 to 1:00 p.m. in the Burchfield Penney conference room. This event is part of the International Center for Watercolor Lunchtime Lecture Series.

When writers work with watercolor, their inkwells never run dry. Working with watercolor helps to "bring up living words / like fishes hooked in their gills / leaping from the deep." (Lu Chi) 

Karen Lee Lewis is a writer and photographer. Her chapbook "Solitude" was inspired by Charles Burchfield's painting Solitude. The book is a 10-part poem paired with her original photographs.

Enjoy lunch at the Burchfield Café before the lecture. Watercolor presentations will be held Fridays from February 7 to March 14 in the conference room. Free with gallery admission.

More information is available at www.burchfieldpenney.org.

When advising international students about their courses, bear in mind that international students studying in the United States are allowed to take only one distance-learning or online course as part of their full-time course load.

The Department of Homeland Security has strict rules and regulations about distance-learning and online courses for international students who are attending college in the United States on a student visa. Any international student who is a full-time student is allowed to take only one distance-learning or online course, for no more than 3 credit hours, as part of the course load that brings the student to full-time status. Students may take additional distance or online courses only if those courses are in addition to the courses counting toward their full-time status.

The Accounts Payable and Travel Services Office in Cleveland Hall 414 will be renovated from Monday, March 24, through Monday, March 31. The office will be temporarily relocated to Cleveland Hall 416, with limited staff during this time.

Services will be available but limited. The preferred method of contact during this period will be e-mail to staff members. Please deliver mail for CLEV 414 to the mailroom in the basement of Cleveland Hall. Telephone access will be extremely limited. Voice mail messages will be checked periodically.

We will be unable to process travel advance checks during the aforementioned dates. Please send your requests for travel advances to our office by Friday, March 14. Also, postage stamps will not be distributed during the relocation period; therefore, please obtain stamps by Thursday, March 20.

Thank you.