Faculty may enter their fall grades on SABRE beginning at 1:00 a.m. Wednesday, December 7. All grades must be entered no later than 8:00 p.m. Monday, December 19.

Grading "drop-in" sessions will be held in CyberQuad, E. H. Butler Library 318, as follows:

December 7, noon–4:00 p.m.
December 9, 9:00 a.m.–noon
December 12, noon–4:00 p.m.
December 13, 9:00 a.m.–noon
December 14, noon–4:00 p.m.
December 16, 9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
December 19, 9:00 a.m.–noon

For more information, visit www.buffalostate.edu/sabre/facstaff and click on SABRE Final Grading Instructions. If you have forgotten your SABRE password, please call SABRE Support at 878-3434. If you cannot log in to SABRE for any other reason, please call the Computing Help Desk at 878-4357 for assistance. If you should encounter problems with grading, please call the Registrar’s Office at 878-4811.

As always, SABRE hours are Tuesday–Friday, 1:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, 1:00 a.m.–Monday 8:00 p.m. (continuous).

A memorial service for Professor Emeritus Donald Savage will be held on Sunday, December 4, at 2:00 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo, 695 Elmwood Avenue, at West Ferry. The service will be followed by a reception at 3:00 p.m. at the church. Professor Savage's family invites friends and colleagues to join them.

Don Savage taught theater on the Buffalo State College faculty from 1963 until 1987. He died on October 14, 2005, one day before the Savage Theater and Communication Building at Buffalo State College was dedicated in his honor.

A pilot project is under way to assess the effectiveness of the advisement-holds functions of the SABRE system. The pilot project includes only undeclared students in EOP or on probation, a total of 407 students. With the holds in place, a student will not be able to register until a staff adviser in either the EOP Office or the Academic Interventions Office has advised the student and removed the hold. (The student will see a message in SABRE with appropriate contact information.)

Some situations may exist where a student has changed majors from undeclared to another program. The holds will still exist for these students. If a student who is new to your program indicates that he/she sees a message in SABRE saying that an advising hold exists, please contact the EOP Office at ext. 4426 or ext. 4224 or the Academic Interventions Office at ext. 3734 to have the hold removed.

Lessons learned from this pilot project will be applied to a follow-up project for the summer/fall registration cycle in the spring.

Because of a delay with the delivery of paychecks from Albany, distribution of paychecks will begin today at 1:00 p.m. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Recent investigations of the exterior walls of the Science Building revealed deterioration of many of its components. Deterioration at the older (north) wing of the building is of the type normally expected for a building of this age, and repair work is well under way. The problems uncovered at the newer (south) wing are more extensive. The short-term plan includes the construction of canopies to protect pedestrians from potential falling debris. The long-term plan includes a rebuilding of many wall sections, which is best done as part of the upcoming full building rehabilitation.

If you have any questions or need further information, please call Steve Shaffer, manager of design and construction, Facilities Planning, at ext. 6034. Thank you.

Reminder: The college is closed tomorrow, Friday, November 11, to observe Veterans Day. No classes will be held. All eligible classified and unclassified employees may observe the holiday without charge to accruals.

The flu shot clinic scheduled for Thursday, November 10, has been canceled because of a delay in the shipment of vaccines. We hope to have a new date soon. Watch the Daily for the announcement.

Because of an editing error, Friday's Daily announcement of the CASTL Research on Teaching Seminar listed the wrong location. Tomorrow’s seminar will be held in Bulger Communication Center North 2B. The corrected announcement appears below. College Relations regrets the error.

CASTL Research on Teaching Seminar: Creating a Context-Rich Learning Environment
Tuesday, November 8, 12:15 p.m., Bulger Communication Center North 2B
Presentation by Dr. Maria Pacheco

Students who struggle in “gateway” courses may find themselves barred from progressing in a major or completing degree requirements. In some cases, this may be due to a lack of understanding of the relationship between course content and the “real world.” In response, many Buffalo State departments and individual faculty members have begun infusing “real world” content into their courses. This activity has included case studies, service learning, and internships as well as the addition of historical background and current developments in the disciplines.

This seminar will discuss these techniques as well as the results of Dr. Pacheco’s yearlong fellowship. She investigated the impact of redesigning traditional chemistry experiments to include “real life” applications as a means to create a context-rich learning environment. Results of a survey exploring students’ expectations of the laboratory activities, their views of the course, and general attitudes toward chemistry will be discussed.

For more information on CASTL or this seminar, contact CASTL coordinator Cheryl Albers at ext. 3292 or alberscm@buffalostate.edu, or visit www.buffalostate.edu/orgs/castl.

President Muriel Howard, Vice President Hal Payne, E. H. Butler Library, and the Monroe Fordham Regional History Center cordially invite you to a reception and book signing of Rogovin's book Milton Rogovin: The Mining Photographs, on Saturday, October 29, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. in the lobby of E. H. Butler Library. For more information, call ext. 3898.

New York State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, chairman of the Senate Committee on Higher Education, will host a hearing to investigate the future of higher education in the public sector on Monday, October 24, from noon to 2:00 p.m. in E. H. Butler Library 210. This is the fourth and final hearing of a series held throughout the state. Testimony is by invitation only; however, the public is welcome to attend.