From the President
The next meeting of the Buffalo State College Council will be held at 4:00 p.m. Tuesday, April 28, in Cleveland Hall 518.
Agenda
Call to Order
Action Items
--- Approval of Minutes: March 10, 2009
Council Chair’s Report
President’s Report
Committee Report
Announcements
Adjournment
By Tony Astran
Buffalo State’s annual “Take Back the Night” tradition will now be part of a larger week of events aimed to educate the Buffalo State community about ways to prevent violence, especially sexual assault. Violence Prevention Week takes place April 19–24 with a variety of activities for students, faculty, staff, and the larger community.
Dorothy Edwards, founding director of the Violence Intervention and Prevention Center at the University of Kentucky, will meet with faculty, staff, and students on the topic of preventing sexual assault and violence on campus and in the community on Friday, April 24, in the Campbell Student Union Social Hall. Her presentation will include the importance of the “bystander” in preventing violence. Her talk will be repeated three times—at 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and 2:30 p.m.—to allow as many people as possible to attend. A reception will follow from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Edwards will also serve as the keynote speaker for the 31st annual Take Back the Night event, which begins in the Campbell Student Union Social Hall at 7:00 p.m. Take Back the Night, which is designed to empower survivors of sexual and domestic violence, will include poetry readings, survivor stories, monologues, and music.
Edwards holds a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Texas Woman’s University. She has worked in counseling and teaching capacities in higher education at Appalachian State University and Texas Women’s University. With a specialty in primary prevention, she has developed and implemented professional training seminars on topics related to violence against women, diversity, and organizational capacity building for universities and nonprofit organizations across the country.
Members of the One in Four organization will provide violence-prevention workshops in Bulger Communication Center North on April 19: a program for men from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m., and a program for women from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. They will also address the critical role of the bystander in high-risk situations and how to help others recover from traumatic experiences. One in Four, currently on a national campus tour, is named for the statistic that one in four college-age women will become a victim of sexual assault.
A free screening of the movie Milk will take place in the Campbell Student Union Fireside Lounge on April 20 at 7:00 p.m. It stars Sean Penn, who recently won an Oscar for best actor for his portrayal of Harvey Milk, San Francisco’s first openly gay public official, who was assassinated by a former city supervisor.
On April 21 at 5:00 p.m., the Buffalo State community is invited to gather in the Campbell Student Union Social Hall for free pizza while working on a community quilt to be displayed during Take Back the Night on April 24.
Tammy Kresge, coordinator for health promotions in Weigel Health Center, said the quilt includes individually designed squares of fabric to symbolize solidarity.
“The quilt brings everyone’s stories together,” she said. “I hope faculty and staff can attend; the event is a wonderful opportunity to see students in their environment.”
Kresge and Donald Pembleton, health educator at Weigel, have been organizing Violence Prevention Week since the fall. They wanted to tie messages of violence prevention to the campuswide push to create a “caring and civil community,” spearheaded by Charles Kenyon, dean of students. Fittingly, the week’s theme is dubbed “Do Something!”
Kresge anticipates a record turnout of more than 500 students at Take Back the Night. “Everything takes place in April, which is Sexual Assault Awareness Month,” she said. “We hope to begin a tradition at Buffalo State of even greater awareness of violence prevention.”
Violence Prevention Week is sponsored by the Weigel Health Center’s Health Promotions unit and United Students Government, and is supported by the Equity and Campus Diversity Minigrant Program, the Auxiliary Services Grant Allocation Committee, the Faculty-Student Association, and the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence against Women. More than 15 student organizations were also involved in the event planning. For more information, contact Kresge, 878-6725.
By Tony Astran
The Volunteer and Service-Learning Center is looking for a few good volunteers—400 or more, actually—to participate in Community Service Day on Saturday, April 25. Now in its 13th year, the Buffalo State tradition has expanded its reach to sites all over the city.
Volunteers will work in neighborhoods and parks near Buffalo State as well as many locations on the East Side, such as the Central Terminal, block clubs, community gardens, and churches. Tasks will include planting trees and bulbs, creating new garden beds, picking up trash, organizing a food pantry, and painting the interior of a community center.
This year, the VSLC is encouraging Buffalo State faculty and staff to bring age-appropriate family members, particularly those who need to fulfill high school community service requirements. Those who wish to work together in groups—such as families, student organizations, and class sections—are encouraged to register by the middle of next week by e-mailing theVSLC, calling 878-5811, or visiting Cleveland Hall 306.
Volunteers are asked to meet at the Buckham Campus School by 8:30 a.m.; bus transportation will be provided to and from most locations. Lunch is included, and all participants will receive a community service certificate from the college.
In addition to making Community Service Day more family-friendly, Laura Hill Rao, coordinator of the VSLC, is taking measures to make sure volunteers understand the purpose and positive effects of their contributions.
“At each work site, the day will begin with a five- to 10-minute orientation to learn how the work fits into the particular organization’s mission and activities,” she said. “At lunch, there will be a planned time of reflection on the good works performed.”
Rao said that many of the 16 work sites have been part of Community Service Day for a number of years, but that a few new community block clubs were added to the list based on neighborhood need.
Community Service Day is affiliated with Keep America Beautiful’s 2009 Great American Cleanup and is also connected to Earth Day, April 22. Rao said no matter what tasks volunteers perform, she is always amazed to see how much is accomplished in a few short hours.
“It’s fun to see the commitment and dedication build throughout the day,” she said. “The volunteers always return to campus with great enthusiasm for how they’ve helped.”
Funding for this year’s event is provided by the Auxiliary Services Grant Allocation Committee, the City of Buffalo Green Fund, M&T Bank, and United Students Government. Last year, nearly 350 Buffalo State students participated in Community Service Day.
By Tony Astran
Summer Session Course Registration Begins Earlier
Based on recommendations from the Enrollment Management Retreats in December and January, the Registrar’s Office is pushing up the dates for Summer Session course registration for nonmatriculated students by five weeks this year, to April 21. Traditionally, these students began registering for classes in late May.
Registrar Mark Bausili believes the change will help with recruitment and revenue. Historical data from the Registrar’s Office show that about one of every six students on campus during the summer months is nonmatriculated.
“This will be helpful for students who go to other institutions but are from the area and want to earn college credit while they are home for the summer,” he said. “It provides an earlier opportunity to secure a desired class and might put Buffalo State in a better position compared to other local schools,” he said.
Bausili also thinks the earlier registration will provide better reporting for deans, department chairs, and instructors to help them gauge demand for particular courses and sections.
Summer Session registration for current Buffalo State students began April 8. First-year students—the final group to register—begin registration tomorrow, April 17. Because of this year’s advanced schedule, Bausili recommends that faculty advisers encourage all current students not to delay in registering for summer courses and ideally to register within two weeks of their start date.
In addition, new transfer students for fall 2009 will be allowed to register five weeks earlier than last year. University College will begin to register new freshmen on May 18.
New Advisement Tool
The Registrar’s Office recently unveiled a new tool within the course listings to help faculty advisers more easily determine academic requirements for students. Now when the mouse cursor hovers over the advisement code for a course, a pop-up window shows both applicable codes and definitions.
For example, COM 100 Media Literacy, a class that meets in Summer Session A, fulfills requirements for humanities in GE2KA, GE2KB, GEC, and IF. Additionally, it fulfills an IF requirement in Technology and Society and a GE2KB and GEC requirement for Applied Science and Technology.
“Faculty have asked for this for a while,” Bausili said. “Fortunately, we were able to implement it faster than we expected. Faculty now do not have to go back and forth between the online listing and the legend of codes.”
Full-Load Scheduling
Bausili also said the recent push for students to take 15 or more credit hours each semester is going well. One hundred thirteen additional undergraduate students took 15 credit hours or more in spring 2008 compared to spring 2007. This semester, that number has risen by 222 over 2008.
Bausili said the new statistics are positive; the increased course loads help with retention and support timelier graduation rates.
By Phyllis Camesano
The Hospitality and Tourism Department will host its 15th annual Ambassador Awards on Tuesday, April 21, at 5:30 p.m. in the Burchfield Penney Art Center auditorium.
This year’s honorees are Tom Lombardo, owner of Ristorante Lombardo; Ted Pietrzak, director of the Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College; and the culinary team at Wegmans Amherst Street store. Wendy Barth, senior vice president of international marketing for Rich Products Corporation, will deliver the keynote address.
Honoring individuals and companies who have made significant contributions to the hospitality industry and the community has become a high point for Buffalo State’s growing undergraduate hospitality and tourism program. Buffalo State students are also recognized for their outstanding achievements in the field at this event.
Following the awards ceremony, a reception and wine dinner will be held at Campus House, the center for hospitality students’ education, training, and research.
Contact Krista Constantino, Campus House guest services manager, 878-3300, for more information.
Buffalo State is pleased to welcome Rajendra S. Sisodia, professor of marketing at Bentley University, who will present “Conscious, Caring, Creative, Compassionate: The New Face of Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century” on Thursday, April 30, during Bengal Pause (12:15–1:30 p.m.) in the Burchfield-Penney Art Center. The lecture, the first in the Business Department’s inaugural speaker series, is free and open to the campus community.
The United States and much of the world are in the midst of broad economic changes. Sisodia will describe a shift toward “conscious capitalism” and what companies must do to prosper under these new realities.
Sisodia is a widely published author, educator, and consultant whose expertise includes marketing ethics, marketing strategy, and the tactical use of information technology. An electrical engineer from Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani (India), he holds an M.B.A. in marketing from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies in Mumbai, and a Ph.D. in marketing and business policy from Columbia University, where he was the Booz Allen Hamilton Fellow. He served as associate professor of marketing and director of executive programs—including the executive M.B.A. program and the master’s program in technology management—at George Mason University until 1998, and as assistant professor of marketing at Boston University from 1985 to 1988.
Sisodia was cited as one of “50 Leading Marketing Thinkers” in 2003 by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the largest marketing association in the world. His book The Rule of Three: How Competition Shapes Markets (with Jagdish N. Sheth, 2002) has been translated into German, Italian, Polish, Japanese, and Chinese. It was the subject of a seven-part television series by CNBC Asia and was a finalist for the 2004 Best Marketing Book Award from the American Marketing Association. His book Firms of Endearment: How World Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose (with David Wolfe and Jagdish N. Sheth, 2007) has been translated into six languages and was named one of the best business books of 2007 by several organizations.
With nearly 100 published articles in such journals as theHarvard Business Review, the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, andInformation & Management, Sisodia has also written more than two dozen business cases, primarily on strategic and marketing issues in the telecommunications industry, as well as a number of analyses and book chapters.
He writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal, and his work has been featured in the New York Times, Fortune,the Financial Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Economic Times, as well as on radio and television networks such as CNN, CBC, National Public Radio, and Fox. He is on the editorial boards of several journals, and was previously the associate editor of the Journal of Asia-Pacific Business. He has served as a reviewer for theJournal of Marketing, the Journal of Retailing, and other leading marketing journals.
He has taught in the United States, Canada, Chile, Dubai, England, Hong Kong, India, and Singapore. His consulting and education clients have included AT&T, Ernst & Young, IBM, MCI, Price Waterhouse, Siemens, Sprint, Volvo, the Bureau of Land Management, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Internal Revenue Service, the United Nations, the U.S. Postal Service, and the World Bank.
By Tony Astran
Faculty, staff, students, alumni, and families are invited to attend the eighth annual “Celebration of Life” ceremony tomorrow from noon until 1:00 p.m. in the Campbell Student Union Assembly Hall. Thirty-seven people from the Buffalo State community who died during the past year will be remembered.
The nondenominational event includes music from the Buffalo State Chamber Choir, a message from President Howard, readings, the lighting of memorial candles, and a post-event reception. Faith Hoffman, a senior social work major, will serve as master of ceremonies. Alumni from the women’s hockey team will present the memorial wreath in honor of teammate Madeline “Maddy” Loftus, one of the victims of the Flight 3407 tragedy in February. Others killed in the crash, students, faculty, and staff members will be remembered as well.
As the full list of the deceased is read, a memorial bell will ring once after each name. There will also be a moment during the ceremony to privately acknowledge other loved ones, who can be honored through a memory book-signing as well.
Modupe Akin-Deko, associate director and clinical coordinator, and Ronald George, senior counselor,Counseling Center, are two of the celebration’s organizers. Akin-Deko said the event is designed to focus on the Buffalo State community and show that everyone is cared for.
“We want to acknowledge grieving,” she said. “It’s part of life.”
“The Celebration of Life is a time for healing, remembering, and coming together as a community,” George added. “We mourn together, but celebrate together.”
Akin-Deko is a co-coordinator of the Critical Incident Support Team. She encourages more faculty, staff, and students to get involved with the volunteer group and become first-responders to “moments of grief” on campus. She also invites the community to help participate with next year’s event by suggesting readings or volunteering to read.
This year’s Celebration of Life ceremony is sponsored by the Academic and Student Affairs Office, the Dean of Students Office, the Residence Life Office, and the Vice President for Finance and Management’s Office.
By Tony Astran
Hank Nuwer, distinguished alumnus from the Class of ’68, and Fraser Drew, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor emeritus of English, will sign copies of their new book, One Long, Wild Conservation: Selected Letters Between a Buffalo State Professor and His Student, a Writer, on Saturday, May 2, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. in E. H. Butler Library 134, the library director’s conference room. The event is part of the 11th annual Student Research and Creativity Fall Forum.
One Long, Wild Conservation is a compilation of Nuwer and Drew’s correspondence over many years. The book is published by E. H. Butler Library and the Monroe Fordham Regional History Center.
Drew was the first Buffalo State professor to receive the SUNY Distinguished Teaching Award, in 1973. He helped Nuwer, a first-generation college student, find his voice as a writer and continued to be a mentor years after graduation.
Nuwer is an author, journalist, professor and nationally recognized authority on hazing and binge drinking among high school and college students. He has appeared on CBS, CNN, ESPN, and NBC Nightly News. He has also been interviewed by reporters for USA Today, Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many other national and international publications.
Buffalo State honored Nuwer with the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1999 and the SUNY Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 2006. Also in 1999, Nuwer established a special collection in the E. H. Butler Library Archives in honor of Drew. It includes the only collection in the world devoted to scholarship on hazing. The collection also contains dozens of books signed by their authors, including William Least Heat-Moon’s Blue Highways, Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead.
By Phillip Weiss
The Buffalo State Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) chapter will host a daylong conference, “Degree, Check! Earning Your Stripes in the PR World,” on Saturday, April 25, on the Buffalo State campus. More than 100 students from colleges across New York State will be in attendance learning about various aspects of public relations, including social networking, fundraising, crisis management, and sports information. The conference is designed to help students network with area professionals and guide them beyond their academic degrees.
Public relations practitioners from across Western New York, including Buffalo State faculty and staff, will participate as guest speakers or panelists: Deborah Silverman, assistant professor of communication, will discuss the role of ethics in PR; Barbara DeSimone, assistant director of the Niagara County Community College Foundation and lecturer of communication, will discuss fundraising; Jeffrey Paterson, director of communication and advancement for the Health Association of Niagara County and lecturer of communication, will discuss diversity; and Timothy Walsh, associate vice president for college relations, will address his role in providing public relations for Buffalo State as part of a panel on diversity.
More information, including a lineup of the day’s events, can be found on the PRSSA Web site.
By Tony Astran
Behind the scenes, hundreds of Buffalo State students are providing a “real lifeline” for their fellow students. That’s according to Ray Lorigo, accommodations specialist for the Disability Services Office, who manages the student notetaker service. But what some of these students may not realize is that they are also giving themselves a boost.
Notetakers formally share their class notes with students who qualify for the service as an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. All notetakers must have at least a 3.0 grade point average and complete a training course through ANGEL. The names of the notetakers and the students they help are kept confidential.
The number of notetakers has nearly doubled in the past two years, and the formal training program began a year ago. One hundred eighty-three new notetakers joined an existing group of more than 230 this semester. Lorigo calls these students a “little army” that helps others achieve success. About 100 to 150 students currently request assistance, most for multiple classes.
“For many students with disabilities, it can be difficult to split attention between listening to a professor and trying to simultaneously record notes,” Lorigo said. Students who receive notes are still required to attend classes and take their own notes as well.
Lorigo contacts students two weeks before each semester via Banner to gauge interest. He manages a master list of available notetakers and those who request the service, and collects and distributes the notes accordingly. He maintains frequent contact with all students and pays a $50 stipend to each notetaker at the end of the semester. But one of the most powerful and perhaps unintended benefits of the program is how the service helps the notetakers themselves.
Lorigo said he is often amazed by the quality of some of the notes. Some professors have posted particularly good notes to ANGEL for their course sections. And because of the effort students take to provide detail and clarity in their notes, they often find they do better in their classes as a result.
“I’ve seen many notetakers go the extra mile to include pictures and diagrams, which helps a great deal for students with disabilities,” Lorigo said. “In turn, I’ve heard some students tell me that being a notetaker helps them ‘step up their game’ and stay better focused in class.”
Lorigo is grateful for the increased interest of students wanting to become notetakers and said the added help allows his office to reach more students.
“Generally speaking,” he said, “I think the student notetakers often don’t receive enough credit for what they do.”