The Productivity Enhancement Program (PEP) enrollment period ends Monday, December 5. This program is available for 2012 to eligible CSEA-represented, PEF-represented, and M/C employees. This program gives eligible employees the opportunity to exchange previously accrued annual leave (vacation) or personal leave for a credit toward the cost of their health-insurance premiums. Sick leave credit cannot be exchanged under this program.

The complete PEP description, including eligibility requirements and enrollment forms, is available in Cleveland Hall 410 or on the Human Resource Management website.

To participate in the 2012 program, eligible employees must file an election form by Monday, December 5. Participants currently enrolled in PEP must submit a new election form to participate in the 2012 program.

Please call Human Resource Management at ext. 4821 with questions or for additional information.

Final papers? Final projects? Final exams? Any of these can overwhelm a student—but they don't have to, if you know how to deal with them. The Academic Skills Center offers several end-of-semester workshops to help you complete your assignments and alleviate your anxiety as you prepare for CEP week. All workshops are conducted in South Wing 320 and Twin Rise 104.

Organizing Essay Content
Organize your ideas into a coherent composition by using a simple outline—with Tom Renzi
Monday, December 5
1:00–2:00 p.m.
Twin Rise 104

Taking Multiple-Choice Exams
Learn strategies that can improve your score on a multiple-choice exam—with Marie Ferraro
Tuesday, December 6
12:15–1:30 p.m. (Bengal Pause)
South Wing 320

Fending Off Failure
If you fear you may fail a course, there still may be things you can do to turn things around—with Lauren Copeland
Wednesday, December 7
2:15–3:15 p.m.
South Wing 320

Write It Right
A last-minute workshop on writing and revising for those final papers—with Catherine George
Tuesday, December 13
10:00–11:00 a.m.
South Wing 320

The Academic Skills Center has a staff of professional tutors to help students with any subject. We are located in South Wing 330. Call ext. 4041 or ext. 5303 to make an appointment.

The Hospitality and Tourism Department, in association with Upstate New York Transplant Services, will sponsor a Blood Drive today, December 6, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Campbell Student Union Social Hall. Hospitality students will provide a “sweets table” during the event. For every presenting blood donor, UNYTS will donate the equivalent of a pound of food to the Food Bank of Western New York. Walk-ins are welcome.

The Hospitality and Tourism Department, in association with Upstate New York Transplant Services, will sponsor a Blood Drive on Tuesday, December 6, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Campbell Student Union Social Hall. Hospitality students will provide a “sweets table” during the event. For every presenting blood donor, UNYTS will donate the equivalent of a pound of food to the Food Bank of Western New York. Walk-ins are welcome.

Attention, faculty, staff, and students: January Orientation is scheduled for Thursday, January 19, 2012. For more information, please visit www.buffalostate.edu/orientation/x999.xml.

Please join the Great Lakes Center for the seminar “Restoration of Burrowing Mayflies (Hexagenia spp.) in the Laurentian Great Lakes” on Thursday, December 8, in Classroom Building B118 during Bengal Pause (12:15–1:30 p.m.). The presenter is Donald W. Schloesser of the USGS Great Lakes Science Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Faculty, staff, and students are welcome. Light refreshments will be served.

Julian Cole, assistant professor of philosophy, will present "On the Temporal and Modal Profile of Institutional Ontology" on Tuesday, December 6, from 3:15 to 4:45 p.m. in Bacon Hall 211 as part of the Philosophy and Humanities Department's fall Faculty-Student Colloquium series. Philosophy major Marcus Nudelman will serve as commentator.

The Art Education Learning Community is proud to announce the completion of a service-learning project by first-year art education (AED) majors—a ceiling mural designed, executed, and installed at Compass House. The mural is a tribute to youth who use the facility as a refuge in time of need. The AED Learning Community students are enrolled in BSC 101 taught by Candace Masters, FAR 101 taught by Philip Ogle, and CWP 101 taught by Irene Sipos. Sarah Vélez is liaison for the group.

The design of the mural reflects constellations and signs of the zodiac. Students planned the mural with the idea that looking toward the colorfully designed “sky” would offer a sense of hope to youth at Compass House. Since this is the Year of the Arts at Buffalo State, the Art Education Department is honored to have the opportunity to add this effort to the numerous accomplishments in the visual arts. These AED majors will present their achievement at the University College Learning Community Symposium on Thursday, December 8, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. in Rockwell Hall.

Thanks to all the faculty, staff, students, and friends of Buffalo State who supported the first Thanksgiving Pie Sale. The Buffalo State College Student Chapter of the Club Managers Association of America reported that 85 pies were sold and 16 pies were donated to the City Mission. Proceeds from the sale will support students who plan to travel to the 85th CMAA World Conference and Club Business Expo in New Orleans in February 2012.

The Burchfield Penney Art Center, AIDS Community Services of Western New York, and E. H. Butler Library's Archives and Special Collections will host an observance of World AIDS Day today in the Burchfield Penney from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. with a press conference at 11:00 a.m.

The observance will feature more than 50 handmade memorial quilts crafted as tributes to beloved Western New Yorkers lost to AIDS. The quilts, known as the Mending of the Hearts Memorial Project, are being displayed throughout the main foyer of the beautiful new art center. This unique display provides an opportunity for the public to remember the emotional impacts of HIV/AIDS in Western New York. Each quilt represents a personal testimony of an individual who lost his or her battle with AIDS.

An exhibition of the Madeline Davis Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Archives of Western New York will accompany the quilt exhibition to demonstrate the effect of 30 years of AIDS on the Western New York GLBT community and its accompanying devastation to the arts community both locally and nationally.

At 7:00 p.m., Madeline Davis, founder of the GLBT Archives of WNY, and Gerald Mead, adjunct lecturer of design at Buffalo State, will present 30 Years of AIDS…Where Have All the Artists Gone? at the Burchfield Penney.

While most people now know that AIDS is not a “gay disease,” that was not true in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Thirty years ago, the first reported AIDS cases were all gay men, and as the numbers of people with HIV and AIDS grew, communities of gay men continued to be disproportionately affected. Among them were thousands of visual and performing artists, some well known, such as Keith Haring and Michael Bennett, and many, many more whose talents were just emerging. During the past 30 years, AIDS has devastated the arts industry—locally, nationally and globally. No other industry has suffered the depth or volume of loss to this disease as our arts and cultural institutions.

This panel discussion will offer a unique perspective of the impact of AIDS on the local and national arts community. What would the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s galleries and collection would look like today were it not for AIDS? How many brilliant but now unknown artists might have been represented?

Davis is a renowned and highly respected GLBT community advocate as well as the founder of the Madeline Davis GLBT Archives of Western New York, now overseen by the Archives and Special Collections department of Buffalo State's E. H. Butler Library.

Mead is an adjunct lecturer in the Design Department at Buffalo State and an independent curator, arts writer, and art collector. During his 18-year tenure (1987–2005) as a curator and educator at the Burchfield Penney, he organized more than 130 art, architecture, craft, and student exhibitions for the museum, developed accompanying programming, and edited numerous exhibition catalogs.

World AIDS Day is observed every year on December 1. The World Health Organization established World AIDS Day in 1988. World AIDS Day provides governments, national AIDS programs, faith and community organizations, and individuals with an opportunity to raise awareness and focus attention on the local and global AIDS epidemic. An estimated 33 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS, more than 1 million of them in the United States. Locally, as many as 5,000 people may be living with HIV/AIDS.