Kim Chinquee, associate professor of English, has received her third Pushcart Prize for her piece "How Do You Roll?" published in Post Road magazine. This piece is also featured as a preface to her eighth book, her novel Pipette, due out with Ravenna Press in fall 2022. The Pushcart Prize is "the most honored literary project in America, including Highest Honors from the American Academy of Arts and Letters."
Talia Rodriguez, associate director of West Side Promise Neighborhood initiatives in Buffalo State's Civic and Community Engagement (CCE) Office, was the subject of a feature article, “An Anchor in the Fight Against Hunger: How a Lifelong Westsider Is Helping to Connect Those in Need with Those Who Can Help,” in the spring 2022 issue of Rich Products’ magazine, Table Stories. The CCE facilitates Buffalo State’s involvement in a number of regional and national community initiatives, including West Side Promise Neighborhood, a diverse group of public and private partners who share a common vision and commitment to improving the lives of families living on Buffalo’s West Side.
The Buffalo State College Career Development Center received three awards from the Western New York Association of College Career Centers (WNYACCC) at the group’s 2022 annual meeting.
Spirit Award
Kayla James, Career Counselor
Awarded to a member of WNYACCC who enthusiastically attends events, promotes consortium-sponsored events on his or her individual campus, and volunteers on a regular basis. This award recognizes a WNYACCC member who consistently demonstrates excitement toward the mission of WNYACCC and continues to move the organization forward.
Ms. James, who serves as secretary of the WNYACCC, continually encourages the CDC to attend and support WNYACCC events. She also continues to educate herself on career coaching strategies by participating in professional development through the National Association of Colleges and Employers. As the spring 2022 semester was wrapping up, Ms. James developed a two-week workshop series, “I’m Graduating, Now What?” to better support Buffalo State’s graduating seniors. These workshops brought together local employers and CDC staff members to educate graduates on everything from the elevator pitch to successfully negotiating salary. Her energy and enthusiasm for career services and WNYACCC are truly remarkable.
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Outstanding Initiative Award
Lynn Rogers, Assistant Director of Employer Engagement
Given to a WNYACCC member who created a campus program, workshop, or initiative that promotes career exploration and development, this award highlights a new employee-led initiative that had a significant influence on the campus.
Ms. Rogers spearheaded the Bengal Internship Award this year at Buffalo State, a new initiative to raise funds to support students who take unpaid or underpaid internships. These internships disproportionately affect women, students of color, and first-generation students. Her efforts have had a significant impact on the Buffalo State campus. Five students were chosen as recipients of the award for this inaugural season. Ms. Rogers’s initiative led the center to work with several faculty members, employers, and donors as well as alumni and advancement personnel to bring this to fruition. The Bengal Internship Award not only significantly helped students but also greatly raised the profile of the CDC on campus and with employers.
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Building Bridges Award
Maureen Pernick Huber, Associate Director
This award highlights the collaborative aspects of our profession, recognizing and showcasing the work of two or more offices, colleges, or departments working together to promote career success for students.
Ms. Huber continues to build bridges among WNYACCC members. Most recently she continued the collaboration with SUNY Fredonia on the annual Graduate School Fair. This partnership allows both schools to promote, advertise, and virtually bring together students and graduate programs. Ms. Huber has also again taken on a WNYACCC leadership role as chair of the Professional Development Committee. She hosted a WNYACCC virtual roundtable for members to share ideas and get advice on challenges, and she is coordinating a session with the National Federation for Just Communities for members. She is always looking for ways to bring members together to create meaningful partnerships. Her bridge building extends beyond WNYACCC to Buffalo State, where Ms. Huber has taken the lead on a major initiative called Bengal Career Champions. Bringing together faculty and staff members with the CDC staff, she facilitates training to educate participants on career resources and best practices. This program helps build capacity for the CDC, strengthens our relationships with campus constituents, and encourages students to use our office. She is truly deserving of the Building Bridges Award.
Arjun Pathak, assistant professor of physics, published the peer-reviewed scientific article “Anomalous Electrical Transport Behavior in the Vicinity of the First-Order Magnetostructural Transition in the Giant Magnetocaloric Gd4ScGe4” in the American Physical Society journal Physical Review B 105, 174440 (2022). This work was in collaboration with Ames Laboratory, a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy. The materials that undergo the first-order phase transformation usually show unusual physical properties that are often important for green energy applications. In this article, the authors reported a strong discontinuous first-order nature of the coupled magnetic and structural phase transition and an understanding of the electrical properties as a function of applied temperature and magnetic fields of the Gd4ScGe4 compound. The article provides a detailed understanding of the electrical and magnetic properties of rare-earth-based compounds.
The Say Yes Program at Buffalo State College received a summer bridge grant from the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo. The grant will completely fund the 2022 Say Yes Summer Success Academy and make it possible to provide an in-person academy experience. The Say Yes staff is incredibly grateful to the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo and is looking forward to a successful summer.
Kerry Renzoni, associate professor of music, has had two articles accepted for publication in the International Journal of Music in Early Childhood. The first coauthored article, "Documenting 'The Early Childhood Music Collaborative': A Multi-Organizational Response to Early Childhood Music in the Time of COVID-19," is available in the current issue 16 (2). The second article, "An Exploration of At-Home Parent and Child Music Mediation," was coauthored with senior music education and philosophy major Nicholas Stanford and will be published in the upcoming issue.
John Abromeit, professor of history, co-edited Siegfried Kracauer: Selected Writings on Media, Propaganda, and Political Communication, a collection of writings by the eminent German-Jewish sociologist and cultural critic Siegfried Kracauer (1889–1966) recently published by Columbia University Press. The book’s co-editors are Jaeho Kang, professor of communications at Seoul National University in South Korea; and Graeme Gilloch, professor of sociology at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom.
Naila Ansari, assistant professor of theater, has been awarded a $10,000 fellowship from the Black Interfaith Project for her research on Choreographies of Black Womxn's Joy, an initiative led by the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) under the direction by Eboo Patel. The Black Interfaith Project at IFYC centers on the diversity of religious, spiritual, and philosophical expressions that have animated the Black experience in America from the time of enslaved Moroccan explorer Mustafa Azemmouri in the early sixteenth century to the era of President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris. Additionally, the Black Interfaith Project explores the dialogue between those traditions, the bridge-building between the corresponding groups, and the implications for Black communities and America as a nation. The project is supported by a $1 million grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.
Ms. Ansari will meet the first cohort of Black Interfaith fellows with a broader audience with IFYC hosting an important discussion called "Black Interfaith in the Time of Climate Crisis" at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., on May 17. This event will feature keynote addresses from former Vice President Al Gore and Black Interfaith fellow Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, followed by responses from leaders in climate justice movement. A private dinner for panelists and Black Interfaith Project participants will follow the discussion.
Arjun Pathak, assistant professor of physics, published the peer-reviewed scientific article “Origins of Magnetic Memory and Strong Exchange Bias Bordering Magnetic Compensation in Mixed-Lanthanide Systems” in the American Physical Society’s journal Physical Review Materials, 6, 044413. This work was in collaboration with Ames Laboratory, a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy. Dr. Pathak was also responsible for the conceptualization and design of the project. The article reports how one can control and manipulate the interactions between heavy and light lanthanide metals and, therefore, design novel materials and unique magnetic functionalities for energy application. This article has been selected by the editors of Physical Review Materials as an “Editors’ Suggestion.” This special appreciation is given only to a small number of papers that the editors and referees find of particular interest, importance, and clarity. Editors’ Suggestion papers, when published, also feature prominently on the American Physical Society journals website with an image and summary “teaser.”
Zhang Jie, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Sociology and director of the Center for China Studies, attended the 55th annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology (AAS), held in Chicago, Illinois, April 27–30 and delivered his research paper on the suicide rates in China. He discussed the social and economic factors that have brought down the suicide rates in China in the past two decades.