If the disaster that happened in Japan occurred here in Western New York, would you be prepared? If Western New York experienced flooding like that in Tennessee, would you have a plan for evacuation?

The Buffalo State College Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is offering four training workshops that deal with just such events. These events are open to the campus community. If you attend all four workshops you are eligible to become a certified CERT member.

The workshops will be held Monday, May 23, through Thursday, May 26.

Each workshop is two hours long and will run from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. each day.

The workshops will be held in Ketchum Hall 218

For details, check the CERT website.

To register for the workshops, go to http://bscintra.buffalostate.edu/registration.

Contact the CERT team by e-mail at CERT@Buffalostate.edu.

EVERGREEN collected 171 pairs of glasses/sunglasses during the month of April. In 2010, EVERGREEN collected 149 pairs. By donating your glasses, you are helping people with eyesight difficulties worldwide. With the price of glasses exceeding three months' average salary in some African countries, donated eyeglasses are the only feasible way to bring sight to many visually impaired. Thanks to everyone who helped us reach and surpass our goal this year!

The 1970s will be "stayin’ alive" in Buffalo today, Wednesday, May 11, at 7:00 p.m. in the Burchfield Penney Art Center auditorium when Jefferson Cowie, an award-winning historian from Cornell University, gives a public lecture and multimedia presentation (featuring film and music from that fateful decade) on "A Nation Without Class: The 1970s and the Origins of Our Own Time."

Sponsored by the Cornell Club of Greater Buffalo, the Partnership for Public Good, Talking Leaves Books, and the Burchfield Penney Art Center, the talk is free and open to the public.

Cowie, an associate professor of history at Cornell University, has been called "One of our most commanding interpreters of recent American experience" by The Nation magazine.

He is the author of Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, which has won the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. The annual award, intended "to stimulate the writing of history as literature," is made for a nonfiction book "on any aspect of the history of what is now the United States."

The book has also won the Organization of American Historians' 2011 Merle Curti Award for best book in social and intellectual history, and the United Association for Labor Education's 2011 Best Book Award. Stayin' Alive was also one of four finalists for the J. Anthony Lukas Prize for the best book in all of nonfiction, sponsored by the Columbia School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. His first book, Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy Year Quest for Cheap Labor, won the Taft Prize for the best book in labor history in 2000.

Noted Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote:

"Jefferson Cowie's Stayin' Alive will long stand as the finest and most sophisticated portrait of politics and culture in the American 1970s, and also as a model for how to talk about both political and cultural transformations without shortchanging either. Ranging from Brooklyn to Lordstown, Ohio, and from Saturday Night Fever to Born to Run, Cowie traces how "a republic of anxiety overtook a republic of security" in the United States. Combining empathy with passion, Cowie makes understanding his goal and condescension his enemy. Americans living in 2011 will understand themselves far better because of Cowie's brilliant excavation of the 1970s."

Questions? Contact Cornell Club President, Matthew Nagowski at nagowski@cornell.edu.

The deadline has been extended for nominations to recognize outstanding students, faculty, and staff participants of First-Year Programs. 

Outstanding Faculty/Staff Contribution to First-Year Student Success
This award will go to a faculty or staff member who demonstrates excellence in teaching and/or advising in First-Year Programs. The awardee will receive $500 for scholarship/research. The money can be used for travel expenses to a professional conference or for research materials.

Outstanding First-Year Student Scholarly or Creative Achievement
This award will go to a student who demonstrates superior academic accomplishments. The awardee will receive $250 per semester during his or her sophomore year for textbooks and supplies.

Outstanding First-Year Student Contribution to Campus Life
This award will go to a first-year student who demonstrates a significant contribution to a campus organization. The awardee will receive $250 per semester during his or her sophomore year for textbooks and supplies.

Nominations are being accepted until Friday, May 13. To nominate someone for any of these awards, visit the First-Year Awards page.

If you have no record of a student on your grade roster attending your class, you need to assign the student a grade of "EV." This new grade distinction replaces the old policy of assigning an "E" grade and then e-mailing the Financial Aid Office that the student never attended. As long as you have assigned the "EV" grade, you no longer need to e-mail the Financial Aid Office about students that did not attend your course.

Questions regarding this procedure should be referred to the Financial Aid Office, ext. 4902.

Funded by the Sylvia L. Rosen Endowment for Fine Arts in Craft Media, the juried biennial exhibition returns to celebrate and explore the contemporary work of fine artists of the region working with glass, wood, fiber, clay, and metal. The juror for the 2011 exhibition is John McCoy, potter and faculty member at Florida Atlantic University.

To be eligible, artists must be current or past residents of Western New York State (Allegheny, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee, Niagara, Orleans, Wyoming, or Monroe counties). Works in clay, fiber, glass, metal, and wood which have been completed in the past two years will be considered. The deadline for entries is Friday, June 3. For more information about the exhibition or submitting work, contact Scott Propeack at BPCraft@buffalostate.edu. Submissions will be in the format of digital images 300 dpi at 4 x 6 inches (minimum) in either tiff or jpeg formats.

Download the prospectus at http://www.burchfieldpenney.org/pdf/Craft_Prospectus_Web.pdf.

From the Accounts Payable and Travel Services Office
Our office has seen a number of requests for the payment of gift or prepaid credit cards. Many times the intention of these cards is to make available prepaid funding to faculty or staff in order to purchase inexpensive materials or supplies and in some cases food. We understand that these cards are purchased in good faith for official college business; however, we cannot process payment for these items with the use of state-allocated or IFR funding. These cards are considered prepayments, which are not an allowable expense. Also, please keep in mind that in order to stay within New York State regulations and Buffalo State practices, all supplies and materials are usually subject to the Procurement Office’s approval before they are purchased. If you are considering purchasing a gift card or a prepaid credit card for any purpose, please call the Procurement Office at ext. 4113.

Faculty should now use the grade of "EV” for students who never attended. The faculty grade drop-down box will include the “EV” grade option. The “EV” grade will show as an "E" grade on all student records. If you have questions, please contact the Registrar’s Office at ext. 4811.

The Buffalo State College Campus Safety Forum is interested in faculty and staff perceptions of campus safety. Please complete the brief survey. Your feedback will allow the Campus Safety Forum to determine areas of focus for the future. Thank you.

When assigning an I or N grade, you are required to indicate the student’s last date of attendance on the grading form. The last date of attendance is the last date you met with the student to discuss progress in the course. Doing so will potentially allow the student to retain a portion, if not all, of their aid for the term.

Questions regarding this procedure should be referred to the Financial Aid Office, ext. 4902.