The Budget Office has updated two forms—the Reassignment of Funds Form and the Position Release Form—which are available on its website. Please begin using the updated forms immediately. For more information on how to fill out the forms, please visit the Budget Office website, or call ext. 4312 if you have questions.

Thank you.

The 2013 Veterans Business Outreach Center of the Year was awarded this month to John McKeone, business adviser in the Small Business Development Center and an employee of the Research Foundation for SUNY at Buffalo State.

Karen Gordon Mills, administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration in Washington, D.C., said in her award announcement, "Your hard work, innovative ideas, and dedication to your community have helped you and the Research Foundation for the State University of New York succeed. The SBA is pleased to recognize the Veterans Business Outreach Center's achievements and your role in driving our nation's economic growth."

McKeone will receive the prestigious recognition at the National Small Business Week celebration in Washington, D.C., on June 21, acknowledging his outstanding work with more than 200 veteran clients to provide targeted training, counseling, and mentoring to help them develop their businesses and entrepreneurial ideas in the Western New York area.

The campus is invited to celebrate this significant achievement at a reception to congratulate McKeone on Monday, June 24, from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. in Cleveland Hall 206.

We wish to encourage all faculty and staff members of Buffalo State to join us for First-Year Convocation activities on Wednesday, August 21, at 9:00 a.m. in the Sports Arena.

To succeed, First-Year Convocation requires the enthusiastic participation of our campus community. All departments and offices are encouraged to allow their staff to support this event as a work assignment for that morning by allowing personnel to march, volunteer, or simply attend the event as an audience member. Faculty and staff are urged to process in regalia to demonstrate Buffalo State's commitment to incoming students.

Please tell us if you will be marching in regalia or volunteering to staff the event by registering online.

Members of the Buffalo State community are invited to attend an open forum with the second candidate for the position of dean of the School of the Professions. Guy-Alain Amoussou, Ph.D., will deliver a presentation to the campus community on Monday, June 24, from 11:00 a.m. to noon in Bulger Communication Center West 2 as part of the interview process. All faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend.

Election results are in. Earl Morris has been elected president, and Susan Dickinson has been elected treasurer.

If you have any questions about the election forms or process, please call one of the CSEA Local 640 Election Committee members, listed below.

• Mary Codick, chair, Caudell Hall 101, ext. 6121, M–F days
• Leslie Brogan, Weigel Health Center 102A, ext. 6711, M–Th 11:45 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. or F days
• Perry Edinger, Clinton Center 112, ext. 6111, M–F days
• Amy Kline, Moot Hall 110, ext. 5713, M–F days

Members of the Buffalo State community are invited to attend an open forum with a candidate for the position of dean of the School of the Professions. John Helmuth, Ph.D., will deliver a presentation to the campus community on Thursday, June 20, from 11:00 a.m. to noon in Bulger Communication Center West 2 as part of the interview process. All faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend.

To accommodate the construction of a new parking lot south of the Technology Building, the sidewalk between Lot F-1 and Academic Drive will be closed beginning Monday, June 17. This closure is expected to last through mid-August. Pedestrians are advised to travel along Rockwell Road or the pedestrian spine during this time. To minimize the inconvenience for pedestrians, a new sidewalk adjacent to the Technology Building will be made available in early July.

Questions about this undertaking may be e-mailed to vpfm@buffalostate.edu. For more information about Buffalo State capital projects, please visit the campus construction website.

Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated.

If you’re already flipping your courses or are just starting to think about it, you have to consider how to assess student learning. Since flipping lessons results in different classroom activities, it takes different assessment approaches to measure the efficacy of these new instructional approaches. Learn how to effectively measure flipped learning in this webinar presented by Barbi Honeycutt, Ph.D., director of graduate teaching programs at North Carolina State University.

This webinar offers cutting-edge assessment strategies that will enable you to find out just how well your flipped classroom is working. Join us on Tuesday, August 13, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. in the Professional Development Center, E. H. Butler Library 181B. After participating in this webinar, you will be able to

• map learning outcomes to flipped teaching strategies;
• apply the concept of layering to assessment;
• identify different assessment techniques for a flipped class;
• create a layered assessment plan for a flipped class.

Register at http://bscintra.buffalostate.edu/registration/classdetails.asp?class=3201.

It is time to move online courses toward competency-based learning. Effective assessment provides the starting point for creating better and more effective Internet-based learning. It amplifies the inherent benefits of online education while minimizing the difficulties. Discover how alternative assessment methods can make you a more effective instructor, both online and in the classroom in this webinar presented by Dr. Rena Palloff. Join us on Tuesday, August 6, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. in the Professional Development Center, E. H. Butler Library 181B.

After participating in this webinar, you will be able to:

• Design truly learner-centered assessments
• Create clear, easy-to-understand assessments specifically for the online environment
• Align with learning objectives to ensure that students learn what you teach
• Use authentic assessments to improve relevance and prevent plagiarism
• Devise grading rubrics to assess learning activities that are hard to quantify
• Save time by using collaborative assessments to “crowd source” the evaluations
• Channel students’ efforts to provide feedback with clear guidelines and modeling
• Tailor your assessment techniques to the context to provide more useful feedback
• Employ student input to generate more effective assessments
• Create rubrics that allow students to measure their own progress

Register at http://bscintra.buffalostate.edu/registration/classdetails.asp?class=3202
 

Accessibility is about increasing learning for any and all students. Small changes to existing courses can eliminate barriers and provide all students with more equitable opportunities to learn and to demonstrate their learning. Receive a variety of protocols and strategies for improving access to your course content by examining assumptions and making slight modifications to methods and practices. Lectures, exams, group work—you can make just about any course component more accessible once you know how to evaluate it. Join us on Wednesday, July 31, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. in the Professional Development Center, E. H. Butler Library 181B.

After participating in this webinar, you will be able to:

• systematically evaluate courses to identify potential barriers to student learning or demonstration of learning;
• identify two or three assumptions that could be barriers to learning;
• determine what kind of learners might be challenged by those assumptions;
• recognize three or four simple changes to make teaching more accessible;
• understand how to implement those changes for immediate improvement.

Register at http://bscintra.buffalostate.edu/registration/classdetails.asp?class=3203.