The Research Foundation will launch its new electronic purchasing forms on Monday, October 3. Learn how to locate, access, prepare, and submit new e-forms.

Training sessions will be held on Tuesday, September 27, and Wednesday, September 28, at 12:15 p.m. in E. H. Butler Library 210.

To register for one of the training sessions, e-mail rfcommunication@rf.buffalostate.edu.

More information is available on the Research Foundation's website.

Please join us to learn how to use PowerPoint to develop your own slide show. We’ll start with the basics: creating professional-looking slides with text, pictures, and hyperlinks that enhance your oral presentation. Then we’ll get into some more-advanced features and printing options. This one-hour session is suitable for students who have never used PowerPoint as well as those who need a quick review or some new skills.

Note to Buffalo State instructors: Please encourage students to attend, perhaps by giving them extra credit for participating. Students can sign an attendance sheet, which we will forward to you. The Workshops to Success are sponsored by the Academic Skills Center (ASC) of University College and offered free to Buffalo State students. If you have any questions, or if you wish to register for the workshop (not required, but it enables us to anticipate attendance), please call the ASC at ext. 4041.

Instructor: Monica Heavey
Time: 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Date: Wednesday, October 26
Location: South Wing 320

The Buffalo State Philharmonia has just begun its third season and has openings for both violin and French horn musicians. The Philharmonia is composed of Buffalo State College faculty, music majors, non-music majors, area professional musicians, local music educators, and community enthusiasts who are committed to performing a challenging symphonic repertoire. Continuing education units (CEU) are available for educators. Rehearsals are Monday nights from 7:00 to 9:30 p.m., and the first concert is Tuesday, November 22. If you are interested in joining the Philharmonia or would like more information, please e-mail BSCPhil@gmail.com.

Support the Burchfield Penney Art Center this fall by attending the museum's annual Art Auction and Gala on Friday, October 28, from 6:00 to 11:00 p.m. in the Mary Seaton Room at Kleinhans Music Hall.

The highlight of the evening is an art auction featuring more than 70 works by Western New York artists.

For information and tickets, visit www.bpgala.org or contact Allie Brady, ext. 3227.

The Burchfield Penney Art Auction and Gala is presented by First Niagara.

Are you working with numbers and looking for a way to include them in your written report? Making a table in Microsoft Word can help, but it won’t add up those long columns of numbers for you! If you have enough numbers, it’s worth your time to join us for this quick, one-hour session on basic features in Excel. Using an example problem, we’ll organize data, perform calculations, and develop graphs. This workshop is for students who have never used Excel as well as those who need a quick review or some new skills.

Note to Buffalo State instructors: Please encourage your students to attend, perhaps by giving them extra credit for participating. Students can sign an attendance sheet which we will forward to you. The Workshops to Success are sponsored by the Academic Skills Center (ASC) of University College and offered free to Buffalo State students. If you have any questions, or if you wish to register for the workshop (not required, but helpful for us to anticipate attendance), call the ASC at ext. 4041.

Instructor: Monica Heavey
Time: 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Date: Wednesday, October 19
Location: South Wing 320

The campus community is invited to hear Steve Ralbovsky speak today, Thursday, September 15, at 3:00 p.m. in Bulger Communication Center South 2.

Ralbovsky is a recording industry executive and a 1979 graduate of Buffalo State College. With more than 25 years of experience working for such labels as A&M, Elektra, Arista, Columbia, and RCA, he is responsible for signing major musical acts including Soundgarden, Kings of Leon, My Morning Jacket, the Strokes, and David Gray.

He is currently the president and CEO of Canvasback Music, and we are delighted to welcome him back to campus. Please let students know about this opportunity.

You may know that Apple's latest operating system, OS X Lion, is now available for the Mac (you may see it as an app available for download in the App Store). Although you may purchase this for your use at home if you have a personally owned Mac, we ask that you not install it on your Buffalo State College computer. Lion does not yet work properly in the Active Directory environment in which we operate on campus, and we are unable, in any case, to support personally owned copies of software on campus-owned equipment (see www.buffalostate.edu/cts/x772.xml).

Snow Leopard is currently the campus-supported version of the Mac OS X and is the latest operating system that will be restored on any Macs coming into Computing and Technology Services for service.

Please contact the Computing Help Desk, ext. 4357, if you have any questions.

If you’re like most people, you probably wish you had a larger vocabulary. The reason you don’t? It’s too difficult to memorize the meaning of every unfamiliar word. What if there were shortcuts, some tricks that made it easier to expand a limited vocabulary and turn yourself into a veritable walking dictionary? Such tricks do exist, as you’ll discover if you attend the highly informative presentation "Vocabulary Building: Demystifying the Mystery of Words," the next session in the Workshops to Success series sponsored by the Academic Skills Center (ASC) of University College and free to Buffalo State students. Instructor-tutor Anne Marie Golaszewski will show you how to crack meanings out of arcane and recondite words so you can impress your friends and complete the most difficult crossword puzzles.

Note to Buffalo State instructors: Please encourage your students to attend, perhaps by giving them extra credit for participating. Students can sign an attendance sheet, which we will forward to you. To make arrangements, call the ASC at ext. 4041.

Date: Wednesday, October 26
Time: 11:00-11:50 a.m.
Place: Classroom Bldg C116
Presenter: Anne Marie Golaszewski.

Although you’re welcome into the workshop as a drop-in, you can call the Academic Skills Center to reserve a seat or to ask any questions—ext. 4041.

You’ve written an essay, and now you’re wondering what you need to do to edit it quickly and efficiently. Here’s a streamlined approach that can serve the purpose. Write Right: Ten Quick Style Tips is the next session in the Workshops to Success series sponsored by the Academic Skills Center of University College and offered free to Buffalo State students. Roswell Park, director of academic support programs, will share several quick-fix approaches for editing any piece of writing that will instantly improve your essay and—we certainly hope—your grade.

Note to Buffalo State instructors: Please encourage your students to attend, perhaps by giving them extra credit for participating. Students can sign an attendance sheet, which we will forward to you.

Date: Wednesday, September 21
Location: E. H.  Butler Library 210B
Time: 4:00–5:00 p.m.
Presenter: Dr. Roswell Park

Although the workshop is open to drop-ins, please call the Academic Skills Center to reserve a seat or to ask any questions you may have: ext. 4041.

The Music Department will host the New York State Association of College Music Programs (NYSACMP) annual fall meeting on Saturday, September 17. Music department chairs, directors, and deans from throughout the state's colleges, universities, and conservatories will arrive on campus for the daylong meeting. This year's meeting topic is “Ensuring the Ongoing Success of Our Music Programs: Rhetoric, Evolution, Advocacy, and Change.”

Invited guest speakers include Edward Tierney of BlackDog Strategy & Brand and D. Bruce Johnstone, former president of Buffalo State and former SUNY chancellor. As part of the meeting, the Music Department will offer a showcase concert featuring students and faculty in the Burchfield Penney auditorium at 11:00 a.m. This performance is free and open to the public. For more information about the NYSACMP annual meeting, please visit www.nysacmp.org or e-mail music@buffalostate.org.