The 14th annual Student Affairs Professional Development Conference, “Using Insight to Focus Our Passion,” will be held on Friday, November 13, at 1:00 p.m. in the Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College. This powerful half-day symposium of workshop sessions and networking opportunities is designed for students, faculty, and new and experienced professionals in higher education.

Marilee J. Bresciani, Ph.D., professor of postsecondary education leadership at San Diego State University, will provide the keynote address. Bresciani coordinates the master’s in student affairs/services in community colleges and higher education; the certificate in institutional research, planning, and assessment; and the master’s and doctorate in community college leadership programs at San Diego State. Her research focuses on the evaluation of student learning and development.

Bresciani has held faculty and higher education administration positions for over 20 years. As assistant vice president for institutional assessment at Texas A&M University and as director of assessment at North Carolina State University, Bresciani led university-wide initiatives to embed faculty-driven outcomes-based assessment in the curriculum. She has led reforms in outcomes-based assessment program review, assessment of general education, quality enhancement, and assessment of the co-curricular.

Bresciani has presented and published her findings and is a leading author of five books on assessing student learning and outcomes-based assessment program review. She has developed and delivered several courses on assessment of student learning, and serves on the editorial board of the NASPA Journal.

She is a reviewer for the Australian Quality Assurance Agency and is also a managing partner in an international assessment and enrollment management consulting firm. She holds a Ph.D. in administration, curriculum, and instruction from the University of Nebraska and a master of arts in teaching from Hastings College.

To register for the Student Affairs Professional Development Conference or for more details, please visit the conference Web site or contact Lynn Lyons, 878-3789

Ethics Bowl competitions are not so much about answering questions the right way as they are about asking the right questions. That’s what a dozen students are learning this semester in PHI 351: Ethics Bowl, a new class that, for some, doubles as an extracurricular activity.

The class is open to all upperclassmen and any student who has taken at least one philosophy course. It also satisfies the oral communication requirement of Intellectual Foundations. Students learn to develop well-informed opinions and ethical reasoning, and then orally present their arguments to other students and judges. Students must also react to others’ opinions.

Julian Cole, assistant professor of philosophy, instructs the class and serves as head coach of the Buffalo State Ethics Bowl Team. He said students tackle “fundamental issues” like freedom of speech and privacy and, thus, have to think critically about their role in society.

“We discuss the legal, moral, and political issues of today in a practical setting,” Cole said. “The experience makes the conflicts feel more ‘real’ and helps develop students as responsible citizens.”

Beyond the classroom, six of the students are preparing for the Northeast Regional Tournament on November 14, one of 10 tournaments that will culminate in the national Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl (IEB). Cole will travel with the students this weekend to Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, to compete against 17 teams from 11 colleges. The top 32 teams will qualify for the IEB, to be held March 4 in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the 19th annual meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. The IEB has received special commendation for excellence and innovation from the American Philosophical Association.

Students have been preparing and refining arguments for 15 real-life ethical scenarios covering topics such as torture; MySpace; mining in West Papua, New Guinea; and taking ADHD medications to improve academic performance.

During the competition, a moderator announces a topic, and a team of three to five students has one minute to prepare and up to 10 minutes to present. The opposing team responds, and the first team rebuts. The judges ask questions for another 10 to 15 minutes. The moderator then presents a second topic in the round, and the two teams switch roles. Each round lasts about 75 minutes, and teams continue to advance throughout the day.

Cole said each member of the team is responsible for knowing three to five cases, which makes the competition a “true team event.”

“The structure is modeled on what a good philosophical conversation should be,” he said. “It’s about asking thought-provoking questions more so than debating. A student could ask, ‘Have you considered reason X as to why your argument might be correct?’”

Cole said students participating in the Ethics Bowl tournament have spent many hours preparing outside of class. He credits James Grunebaum, professor emeritus of philosophy, and Dr. Barbara Olsafsky, an independent scholar, for serving as coaches and thanks Jason Grinnell and John Draeger, assistant professors of philosophy, who have made themselves available outside of class to discuss the theoretical aspects of ethics with students.

The new class seems to be a hit with students and provides numerous benefits for learning and character development, Cole said.

“I think Ethics Bowl really grabs students’ interest because particular cases help bring issues to life,” he said. “Ethics Bowl also helps with communication and gets students to shake away their nerves. They learn how to speak, present, and think and reason critically. They also receive immediate feedback, which is very valuable for learning. There’s a lot of work involved, but many rewards, too. I’ve seen tremendous development in the students, and they’re very engaged in class.”

Funding for Ethics Bowl was made possible by grants from the Dean of Arts and Humanities Office and the Undergraduate Research Office, which is sponsoring a research study on philosophical discourse that students from the team will conduct during this weekend’s tournament.

Students looking to get a head start on the spring semester and potentially ease their workload for future months may want to consider enrolling in an Intersemester class. The Intersemester period is a separate, condensed block of courses from January 4 to 22 that count toward the spring semester. This year, students have a record 22 classes from which to choose.

Registrar Mark Bausili said that in past years, Intersemester averaged about 17 classes. While he is pleased to see an increase in the number of courses this year, he advises faculty and staff that Intersemester courses fill up quickly. As of November 10, six classes were closed.

“Intersemester offers students the opportunity to gain extra credit and graduate sooner,” Bausili said. “On the other hand, if a student takes an Intersemester course, he or she could take as little as 9 credit hours during the traditional spring semester and still be considered a full-time student.”

“This could be advantageous for students who are struggling,” added Mark Petrie, associate vice president for enrollment management.

Most classes run from Monday through Friday for three hours a day. Students must carry a minimum 2.0 GPA to register for an Intersemester class; the drop/add deadline is Tuesday, January 5. The scheduled deadline for faculty to submit a course for the 2011 Intersemester is August 13, 2010, the same as for spring 2011.

David Henry, associate professor of elementary education and reading, regularly teaches during Intersemester. He will teach EDU 501: Seminar for the Reflective Teacher in January.

“I like to teach the class in a compressed format; it gives students time to have discussions and work on projects,” Henry said. “They come in worried about such a long class but are all pleasantly surprised at how fast the time seems to go by. When I teach this class in a regular semester format, I find that the students have a hard time connecting from one week to the next. During Intersemester, I know that this is the only class they are taking, so they are more focused on the work we do in the course.”

Henry recommends that more faculty try teaching during Intersemester. He appreciates having extra time to work on research as the spring semester progresses.

“My only advice,” Henry cautioned, “is to teach courses that are interactive and are based on discussions. It would be hard to teach a lecture-based course in this format.”

Seven of every 100 children born won’t live to see their fifth birthday. The connection between that statistic and anthropology will be covered in a topics course, “Anthropology of Disease,” to be offered in spring 2010 by Julie Wieczkowski, assistant professor of anthropology.

Topics courses are a valuable method for developing and evaluating courses before subjecting them to the rigorous review necessary to become a regular part of the college’s course offerings.

“Teaching a topics course can keep faculty members revitalized,” said Dennis Gaffin, associate professor and interim chair of anthropology. “A professor usually chooses to create a course based on his or her passion and area of expertise, so it can be a rewarding course for students.”

Wieczkowski will explore illness from an anthropological perspective. Besides infant mortality, students will learn how a society’s culture contributes to the understanding, spread, and prevention of disease; how disease manifests itself in the archaeological record; and how anthropologists contribute to the fight against disease.

“One of my major advisers in graduate school studied epidemiology,” said Wieczkowski, “and I developed an interest in the spread of disease.” Wieczkowski is a physical anthropologist who conducts research on primates. Physical anthropology, also known as biological anthropology, is a science that studies human biological origins, evolution, and variation.

Undergraduate topics courses are numbered 189 or 389, preceded by the course prefix. A course can be taught only twice before either being dropped or submitted for curricular approval. However, all topics courses must be approved by the chair, dean, and provost no later than two weeks before the start of the class.

“If the course attracts students,” said Gaffin, “and supports the department’s goals, the chair and dean will forward it to the Curriculum Committee for review by the College Senate.”

Sometimes a topics course is designed to explore new programmatic offerings. That’s the case with a new course in the Theater Department, “Acting for New Media,” which will be offered in the spring by an adjunct faculty member, Shaun McLaughlin, ’84.

“Shaun is leading a collaborative group of professionals from on and off campus who are creating an integrated media degree program for us,” said Drew Kahn, professor and chair of theater. “He has a wealth of industry expertise as a result of a long career in L.A., where he has been a successful animator, director, writer, and producer.” Among McLaughlin’s credits are several of the Batman movies including Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.

By “new media,” McLaughlin means animation, digitally enhanced film, and Web video productions. “Doing voices for animation,” he said, “is more than just doing funny voices. You have to be able to create a character and act.” Gollum, the antihero of the Lord of the Ringsmovies, was built by filming an actor in a special costume that enabled computers to capture his movement. “That kind of acting, ironically, requires a return to some classical modes of acting, such as mime,” said McLaughlin.

“Topics courses are a valuable tool for any faculty member who wants to share a particular area of interest,” said Karen O’Quin, associate dean of the School of Natural and Social Sciences. “Sometimes teaching such a course opens up new avenues for both students and faculty.”

Buffalo State’s Science Teaching Center, located in the basement of the Science Building, houses a one-of-a-kind collection that is beginning to attract attention from international scholars. The Donald L. Birdd Historic Science Education Curriculum Library chronicles the development of science teaching curricula in the United States from the early 1800s to the present day. The collection contains some 6,000 textbooks, many of them quite rare.

The library is named for Donald L. Birdd, professor emeritus of earth sciences and science education, who retired last year after a 23-year career with Buffalo State. Birdd is credited with extraordinary efforts to preserve materials that would otherwise have been discarded, but he insists the library is not “his.”

“The collection is really a credit to a lot of people, particularly highly involved leaders from Buffalo State who helped shape national curricula,” Birdd said. “When I arrived on campus, it was clear to me, upon seeing the materials on hand, that this was a collection that could not reach the trash barrel.”

The Birdd Library includes textbooks, journals, posters, and multimedia. Catherine Lange, assistant professor of earth sciences and science education, began the painstaking process of documenting and organizing materials shortly after joining Buffalo State in 2007. Together with Birdd and Michele Parente, instructional support specialist for earth sciences and science education, she has neatly categorized the books by subject and type, and maintains an ongoing list online.

Lange said scholars from the international community have begun to take notice of the rare materials available, and some have borrowed books for research projects. She points to the post-Sputnik era of the 1960s as an impetus for the accumulation of materials.

“After Sputnik launched, the U.S. responded by placing more emphasis on K–12 science and math classes, and revisited curricula and materials,” she said. “Buffalo State professors such as Joyce Swartney, Robert Davitt, James Orgren, and Robert Horvat all played a role in developing national curricula.”

Birdd said he was one of the first teachers to use new materials in 1960s when he taught high school students. Lange credits him for recognizing the importance of preserving materials and for collecting textbooks from local schools. “The collection displays the history of our discipline, how we developed pedagogy, and also how Buffalo State played a role in shaping national policy,” she said. “No one has a collection this expansive anywhere in the world, and I think its value is just beginning to be realized.”

Lange said students find materials in the Birdd Library helpful—especially graduate students who must take a curricular trends course in order to earn a master’s degree in science education.

For now, Birdd Library materials are housed in various locations throughout the Science Teaching Center, including rooms 100, 103, 127, and 133. Once the science and mathematics complex is constructed, all the materials will be housed there. Birdd also has more books at his residence to add to the collection.

Lange said a dedicated space for the Birdd Library will help to better secure the collection. Her goal is to get books into the Library of Congress.

“We’re pretty lucky to have this collection here on campus,” she said. “This part of our identity as an institution is something we can be proud of. The collection reflects with pride on our intellectual heritage.”

Birdd said he’s glad he held on to so many materials and thinks they provide students and scholars with a rich sense of history.

“It’s important to have an understanding of where we came from, before we plot where to move ahead,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re bound to repeat ourselves.”

Fall enrollment of veterans and military personnel at Buffalo State is up 30 percent over last spring and is expected to grow further. The increase is indicative of a trend on campuses nationwide spurred by the new, expanded Post-9/11 GI Bill, stepped-up recruiting efforts, and the job-constrained economy. 

At Buffalo State, several new programs and initiatives have been started to help veterans and military personnel transition to campus life and to expedite paperwork required for certification and benefits. In Cleveland Hall, the Veterans Office was established under the direction of Associate Vice President Margaret Shaw-Burnett as part of her role with Continuing Professional Studies. In the Registrar’s Office, the often time-consuming task of veteran certification has come under the purview of Gail Rettig, associate registrar, and Pamela Bohin, agency program aide. Both offices are staffed by veterans who bring valued expertise and perspective.

“It is great having the veterans and military personnel on campus,” said Shaw-Burnett. “They bring a level of excellence and worldview that is valuable to all. We also recognize their unique circumstances and the need for special communication, connections, and resources.”

The Post-9/11 GI Bill expands benefits offered under the Montgomery GI Bill, which was enacted in 1985. The new option is offered to veterans of recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and veterans who were on active duty after September 11, 2001, and may include tuition, housing, and books, depending on the length of service. Direct dependents and survivors of veterans are also eligible.

According to Shaw-Burnett, many veterans and members of the military are new to college and need help transitioning from the formal structure and hierarchy of the military to life on campus. Others have been away from the classroom and may need remedial courses. Most need help deciphering and processing benefits.

“While most veterans are mature beyond their years and groomed to be stoic in the face of challenges, they still need help,” said Shaw-Burnett. “With limited resources, we are trying to package and communicate what’s available on campus.”

The Veterans Office functions as a one-stop shop, responsible for recruitment and advisement, admissions and financial-aid counseling, orientation, and new GI Bill information, as well as a liaison to other veterans on campus. Coordinator of veterans services Keisha Dobney, a senior airwoman in the Air Force Reserves, has been instrumental in re-establishing the Buffalo State College Armed Services Organization, which now meets every other week. The organization has proved to be an effective way for veterans to meet other veterans and share information.

For all veterans, their first stop is the Veterans Certification Office in Moot Hall. Rettig, Bohin, and the veteran work-study students work closely with the local Veterans Administration (VA) to ensure that paperwork is received and expedited. Early in the semester, when claims became backlogged at the VA and classes had already started, the Veterans Certification Office worked with Financial Aid to assist veterans in determining if they were eligible for other types of financial aid.

“In general, the vets come to you for help,” said Bohin. “A vet is always going to be polite, but I can see in their faces how eager they are to understand the system and make it work for them.”

For Veterans Day celebrations, Dobney has worked with Armed Services Organization leaders, Marine veteran Nathaniel Rey and Air Force Security Forces veterans Peter and Monica Trippi, on special tributes that will take place that week. On Monday, November 9, the Marine Corps Reserve will lead a color guard from the west side of the Campbell Student Union to the Veterans’ Memorial plaque near Rockwell Hall during Bengal Pause. At the memorial, 300 American flags will be placed, each representing 11 dead from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Organization members also plan to have the Rockwell Hall bell tower illuminated in red, white, and blue.

Everyone is invited to attend the annual Armed Services Reunion on Saturday, November 14, at the American Legion Niagara Frontier Post 1041, 533 Amherst Street. The event, which begins at noon, honors Buffalo State alumni, students, emeriti, faculty, and staff who have served or are serving in any branch of the United States or Allied military services.

The following grant was awarded through the Research Foundation at Buffalo State College in October. For more information, contact the principal investigator or theResearch Foundation at Buffalo State College.

October 2009

Amy McMillan, Associate Professor, Biology
$7,000 (Canadian)
Environment Canada
Canadian Loon Genotyping 2009–2010

According to Carl Wilkens, genocides are caused by a small number of people, and can be stopped by a small number of people. Wilkens, who was the only American to remain in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide in that country, spoke on campus on October 29. His presentation was part of Africa Week.

Wilkens was serving as head of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International in Rwanda when the violence erupted there. He and his wife decided that he would stay in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, and continue his work while she took the children to a nearby country for safety.

While Wilkens spoke about the violence he saw firsthand, he emphasized the need to recognize the common humanity people share. He and his wife are bicycling around the country, speaking and raising money and awareness through their organization, World Outside My Shoes.

An audio recording of Wilkens’s talk at Buffalo State is available on the Podcasts section of our Web site.

Four Buffalo State students were each awarded a $10,000 URGE to Compute scholarship for 2010. Michael Jansma, Class of 2011; Michael Kourt, Class of 2011; Michelle Rua, Class of 2011; and Katie Sember, Class of 2012, joined eight undergraduates from the University at Buffalo at a luncheon held on Sunday, October 25.

The event, which also included poster presentations from the 2009 cohort of undergraduates in the program, was held at UB’s Center for Computational Research, part of the New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences in Buffalo. Thomas Furlani, ’80, ’82, director of the Center for Computational Research, took the students on a tour of the center.

The URGE to Compute program is a collaboration among Buffalo State, the University at Buffalo, the Center for Computational Research, and the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute. The program is funded by the National Science Foundation as part of NSF’s Computational Science Training for Undergraduates in the Mathematical Sciences program. CSUMS’ goal is to “better prepare…students to pursue careers in fields that require integrated strengths in computation and the mathematical sciences.” The mathematical sciences are mathematics and statistics.

Students accepted into the URGE to Compute program receive a $10,000 stipend while they take part in a yearlong computational math program that requires special seminars, 15 hours a week in collaborative research each semester, and an eight-week summer research program. Students agree not to have any other job while receiving the stipend.

Joaquin Carbonara, associate professor of mathematics, is the principal investigator at Buffalo State for the $181,943 funded program.

“This program gives students several opportunities,” said Carbonara. “One, they have the opportunity to work very closely under faculty mentors who are scholars in the discipline. Two, they each will belong to a research group of three or four students while still being part of, and interacting regularly with, the larger cohort of 12 UB and Buffalo State students, so they will have both collaborators and peer support. And three, the stipend allows them to dedicate themselves to this opportunity.”

Members of the 2010 cohort will work on one of four projects, each of which is related to this year’s theme, “computational discrete mathematics.” This year, Carbonara and Valentin Brimkov, professor of mathematics and a world-renowned expert in discrete geometry and combinatorial image analysis, will serve as research project mentors from Buffalo State.

Renay Scales, director of the Multicultural Research and Resource Center at George Mason University, will lead a faculty workshop, “Applying the Key Principles of Diversity into the Curriculum,” on Wednesday, November 11, from 8:30 a.m. to noon in E. H. Butler Library 210.

Participating faculty will engage in logic models developed by Scales that are based on more than 30 years of research. Designed to enhance the skills of both new and experienced faculty interested in incorporating topics of diversity into their courses, the workshop will provide information about creating classrooms of inclusion, give examples of best practices, and engage faculty in hands-on activities.

“The workshop is another way in which Buffalo State is addressing the professional development needs of our faculty and staff,” said Interim Provost Kevin Railey. “During the past two years, the college has supported and sponsored a number of broad initiatives focused on key areas—faculty, staff, leadership, and chair development—along with a leadership for diversity initiative.

“Our National Coalition Building Team has partnered with the Center for Excellence in Urban and Rural Education to bring Dr. Scales to campus to assist our faculty and staff in moving forward in the important area of applying diversity principles throughout the curriculum,” Railey added. “Everyone who teaches is invited to attend.”

Faculty members who are interested in attending the workshop should contact Diane Mercuri, CEURE staff assistant, 878-3610.

“Students today expect diversity to be infused into all aspects of the curriculum, regardless of the discipline,” said Gail Wells, director of student life and co-leader of the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI) Team. “Our presenter has considerable experience with this topic and will provide our faculty with some excellent tips to help better prepare our students to enter an increasingly diverse workforce.”

The workshop is sponsored by the Provost’s Office, the Center for Excellence in Urban and Rural Education (CEURE), and the college’s NCBI team. The college’s Writing Center and African and African American Interdisciplinary Unit are also key supporters of the event.