From the Chair of the College Senate
The next meeting of the College Senate will be held at 3:00 p.m. Friday, March 12, in Classroom Building C122. The meeting agenda contains Old Business/Action Items (from both December 2009 and February 2010) as well as New Business, and is available on the College Senate Web site.
From the Interim President
I have approved the following curricular items, which have been recommended by the appropriate dean, the College Senate, and the interim provost:
Program Revision:
Minor in Environmental Science, ENV
New Course and Intellectual Foundations Designation:
WORLD CIVILIZATIONS
HIS 231 World Civilizations II
Course Revisions:
CNS 610 Polymers in Art and Conservation
CNS 611 Polymers in Art and Conservation Laboratory
CNS 626 Technology and Conservation of Paintings IV
Course Revisions and Intellectual Foundations Designations:
ORAL COMMUNICATION
MAT 491 Capstone Research Mathematics
WORLD CIVILIZATIONS
HIS 230 World Civilizations I
By Mary A. Durlak
Daniel W. Cunningham, associate professor of mathematics, spends his time exploring the mathematical universe. During his fall 2008 sabbatical, he discovered a truth within that universe, and prepared a paper about his research that is slated for publication in the Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic. He also completed a draft of a mathematics textbook for undergraduates.
Cunningham came to Buffalo State as an assistant professor of mathematics in 1991 after earning his Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles. “I’m an L.A. native who loves Buffalo,” he said.
A personal search for truth brought him, by way of logic and philosophy, to the study of pure mathematics. There he found a universe that is no less real for being a universe of the mind, a universe that offers new discoveries without end, and a universe in which Pilate’s famous question, “What is truth?” can be answered with certainty.
Cunningham’s sabbatical discovery is something called a “covering lemma” by mathematicians. With this new information, Cunningham, whose research interest is set theory, adds to the description of a particular smaller universe within the mathematical universe. This smaller universe, according to Cunningham, is the playful universe, in which games take place. The nature of this playful universe is revealed by who wins and who loses the games.
This discovery is based in part on his own research, which was published earlier in the Annals of Pure and Applied Logic and Archive for Mathematical Logic. Given that the name of his latest paper is “A Covering Lemma for HOD of K(R),” it is apparent that details of his discovery can only be shared with fellow explorers who speak the language.
Cunningham hopes that the textbook he has written will help undergraduates become fluent in that language. “I love teaching,” he said. “It’s fun to explain these things.” Over the last 20 years, however, he has observed that students seem to have more difficulty making the transition from lower-division to higher-division mathematics.
“To be successful,” Cunningham has written, “students must possess three essential skills: the ability to read, to understand, and to communicate in the language of mathematics.” The purpose of his text is to help students acquire those skills, and to construct mathematical proofs.
Mathematical proofs and theorems go hand in hand. Most students learn the Pythagorean Theorem in high school. Cunningham explained that a theorem is a mathematical statement that has been verified to be true by a mathematical proof. One of the key components in Cunningham’s textbook is the development of a methodology to lay bare the structure underpinning the construction of a proof, much as diagramming a sentence lays bare its grammatical structure. His classroom experience indicates that this strategy helps students develop the skills to write mathematical proofs, a prerequisite to advanced mathematics.
In fact, the earliest drafts of the textbook came into being as Cunningham taught his own classes. His dedication to teaching is demonstrated not only by the courses he has developed and revised, and the Ph.D. candidates he has inspired, but also in his willingness to mentor honor students. He has also presented a talk to junior high school students, “Every Function Tells a Story.”
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Read previous Focus on Sabbatical stories:
Felix Armfield
Betty Cappella
Ann Colley
Michael De Marco
Rob Delprino
Mark Fulk
Musa Abdul Hakim
Katherine Hartman
David Henry
Andrew Nicholls
Wendy Paterson
M. Stephen Pendleton
Stephen Phelps
John Song
Carol Townsend
Jonathan Thornton
Mark Warford
Michael Zborowski
The following grants were awarded through the Research Foundation at Buffalo State College in February. For more information, contact the principal investigator or the Research Foundation at Buffalo State College.
February 2010
Maryruth Glogowski, Associate Vice President, Library and Instructional Technology
$12,520
New York State Education Department
Library Collection Aid 2010
Camille Holmgren, Assistant Professor, Geography and Planning
$25,280
National Geographic Society
An Ice Age Refugium for Plant Community Assembly in the Sonoran Desert
Theresa Janczak, Assistant Professor, Exceptional Education
$338,004 (Year Two of Five)
New York State Education Department
New York State Response to Intervention Technical Assistance Center
Stephen Vermette, Professor, Geography and Planning
$9,940
Great Lakes Research Consortium
Pre-Restoration Wetland Characterization and Chemical Mass Balance Study; Woodlawn Beach State Park, New York
Ronald G. Ehrenberg, the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics at Cornell University, has been appointed to the State University of New York Board of Trustees.
Ehrenberg is a nationally known labor economist and the director of the Cornell University Higher Education Research Institute. A member of the Cornell faculty for 33 years, he has authored, coauthored, or edited more than 120 papers and 21 books. He was the founding editor of Research in Labor Economics, and served a 10-year term as co-editor of the Journal of Human Resources. He has served on several editorial boards and as a consultant to numerous governmental agencies and commissions and university and private research corporations.
He holds a B.A. in mathematics from Harpur College (now Binghamton University) and an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Northwestern University.
Read the complete news release on the SUNY Web site.
From the Chair of the Senate Curriculum Committee
Correction
MED 407 and PSC 340 were incorrectly listed as both IF and WAC designations in the March 4 issue of theBulletin. MED 407 and PSC 340 are Intellectual Foundations courses only, not Writing Across the Curriculum designations. Only PSC 470W has both IF and WAC designations.
Advanced to the Senate Curriculum Committee
The following have been received in the College Senate Office and forwarded to the Senate Curriculum Committee for review and approval:
Program Revisions:
M.S.Ed. Early Childhood Special Education (6340), EXC MSED-ED
M.S.Ed. Childhood Special Education (6341), XCE MSED-ED
M.S.Ed. Adolescence Special Education (6342), EXA MSED-ED
Minor in Mathematics (1718), MAT
New Courses:
MST 621 Museum Registration Methods.Prerequisite: Museum studies graduate student status or instructor permission. Daily challenges and excitement of working with priceless art, history, and natural history collections. Wide scope of museum registration practices, including policy development, legal aspects, technologies, and how registrars must accommodate the sometimes conflicting museum mandates of collection access and accountability.
MST 623 Digital Museum Collections. Prerequisite: Museum studies graduate student status or instructor permission. Survey and practice of how museums utilize new technologies to transform internal practices and communication with varied audiences through access to collections, exhibitions, and public programs. Benefits, risks, and case studies of presenting museum collections; what the future holds for the digital museum.
PAD 502 Administrative Law. Prerequisite: 6 credits of PAD graduate courses or instructor permission.Selected topics in administrative law examined and analyzed in depth.
PAD 689 Research Methods in Public Administration. Prerequisite: Graduate status. Design, execution, and interpretation of research for public and nonprofit managers. Quantitative and qualitative research methods, constructing and testing hypotheses, data collection and analysis, use of SPSS, ethical consequences of social science research, preparing a research report.
PAD 699 Data Analysis and Presentation.Prerequisite: PAD 689 or instructor permission.Preparation for advanced research and data analysis in public administration and nonprofit management.
THA 107 Theater Performance for Non-majors.Prerequisite: Instructor permission. Participation in the rehearsal and performance of a Buffalo State College Theater Department production.
New Course and Intellectual Foundations Designation:
TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY
FLE 201-T Introduction to Technology in Foreign Language Education. Prerequisite: Official enrollment in French or Spanish foreign language education program. Introduction to the uses and limitations of technology in language instruction with particular emphasis on the principled use of computer-assisted instruction, situated within standards- and research-based language pedagogy.
WORLD CIVILIZATIONS
HIS 445 History of Women and Gender in the Middle East. Prerequisite: Upper-division status or instructor permission. History of women and gender in the Middle East from Muhammad to present. Women and gender in the formation of Islam, medieval caliphates, and Islamic empires. Historical role of modernization, colonization on early Middle Eastern feminist movements. The end of empires and influence of nation-building on social relations.
Course Revision:
ENG 452 Studies in Drama. Prerequisites: ENG 190 and 3 hours of literature, or instructor permission. A particular aspect of drama or theater history: a theme, period, genre, philosophy, concept, or movement in British, American, or world literature. May be taken for credit more than once when content varies.
Course Revision and Intellectual Foundations Designation:
ORAL COMMUNICATION
EDU 404 Practicum in Elementary Teaching for Exceptional Education and Middle School Ext Students. Prerequisites: Minimum cumulative GPA of 2.5; minimum grade of C in teaching methods courses (EDU 310, EDU 311, and EDU 312). For elementary education teacher candidates seeking certification in childhood/exceptional education, or childhood with a middle school extension, this is the childhood teaching experience which takes place five full days a week for approximately seven consecutive weeks. Teacher candidates are required to effectively demonstrate content knowledge, pedagogical preparation, instructional delivery, classroom management, knowledge of student development, collaboration with school professionals, and reflective practice.
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Advanced to the Interim President
The following has been approved by the Senate Curriculum Committee and forwarded to the interim president for review and approval:
New Course:
PSC 308 International Organizations andInternational Law
The deadline for all course and program proposal submissions is Monday, March 15. Any submission received after that date will not be reviewed until fall 2010.
All technical issues with SharePoint are handled, via Neil Palmer in Computing and Technology Services, at 878-4611. The Senate Office does not handle SharePoint technical problems. If you need to add a person/party to the workflow for your process, please notify Palmer.
When submitting a course on SharePoint, the blue routing form must be signed by the dean/associate dean and delivered to the Senate Office in order for it to be forwarded to the Bulletin editor and to the Curriculum Committee for review. Programs are not submitted via SharePoint. They will continue to be submitted via hard copy to the Senate Office and e-files sent to the Senate Office.
Curriculum course archival folders will be added to SharePoint (by Neil Palmer) for all departments. These folders are strictly for old or current courses, not for newly submitted courses. This will begin the archival process that the Senate Curriculum Committee has brought forth as a resolution to the College Senate, and also will eliminate these documents as TASK items.
From the Chair of the College Senate
The next meeting of the College Senate will be held at 3:00 p.m. Friday, March 12, in Classroom Building C122. The meeting agenda contains Old Business/Action Items (from both December 2009 and February 2010) as well as New Business, and is available on the College Senate Web site.
From the Vice President for Finance and Management
This policy describes the assignment, use, and management of desk and cellular telephones and mobile computing devices by employees of Buffalo State College.
Policy
Desk and cellular telephones and portable computing devices are to be used for official business-related activities only. Personal use of telephones should be limited to emergency calls. Payment for reimbursement of personal desk or cellular telephone calls should be forwarded to the Accounting Office. Personal use of laptops and other mobile computing devices should be kept to a minimum.
Cellular Telephones
Cellular telephones and broadband cards may be assigned only to employees whose duties and responsibilities require immediate or remote communications capabilities. The assignment of cellular telephones and broadband cards must be approved by the vice president for finance and management, who will review assignments annually to ensure compliance with this policy.
Each employee assigned a mobile device shall be primarily responsible for its security and maintenance, and must immediately report any theft, loss, damage, or vandalism of the unit.
New York State law prohibits the use of handheld cellular phones while driving.
From the Vice President for Finance and Management
To comply with New York State Ethics Commission regulations (Title 19 NYCRR Part 930 of the Public Officers Law), the college is required to annually report honoraria received by full-time faculty and professional and management/confidential employees. An honorarium is defined as “a payment, fee, or other compensation given to an individual for services rendered not related to the individual’s official state duties.” It also includes payment for travel expenses when the expenses incurred are unrelated to the employee’s duties.
Examples of honoraria include compensation for delivering a speech, writing an article, or attending a meeting. Honoraria do not include salary, wages, or fees earned from outside employment. Faculty are not required to declare honoraria received within their academic disciplines.
Although reporting honoraria is required, obtaining prior approval of requests to receive honoraria is optional rather than mandatory. However, the college encourages employees to seek prior approval from the president’s designee (your respective vice president) before engaging in an activity that leads to the receipt of honoraria.
If you receive honoraria during the period April 1, 2009, through March 31, 2010, and do not request prior approval from your vice president, you will be required to report the source, date, and amount of honoraria received to your vice president by May 7, 2010.
Information regarding reporting of honoraria can be found on the New York State Ethics Commission Web site. Questions should be directed to Susan Earshen, associate vice president for human resource management, at 878-3042.