Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of welcoming nearly 400 guests as they arrived to participate in our annual gala to support scholarships for students enrolled in the Muriel A. Howard Honors Program...
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The Buffalo State undergraduate research program is among the longest-running programs in SUNY and spans all disciplines. To date, Buffalo State has administered more than $1.5 million to support our outstanding undergraduate research efforts...
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I cordially invite you to a retirement celebration honoring Provost Dennis Ponton on Wednesday, May 13, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in the Campbell Student Union Social Hall. Please reply online by the end of the day if you plan to attend. No regrets needed. Thank you.
The excitement of Commencement is in the air. During the last few weeks, we have honored our graduating undergraduate and graduate students in many ways...
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From the Vice President for Student Affairs
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Zena M. Maggitti as resident district manager of dining services in the Student Success area, following a national search. Maggitti comes to Buffalo State College from Washington College, where she serves as director of dining services. She replaces Manny Lezama, who served as resident district manager until November 2014. Maggitti starts on May 18, 2015.
As director of dining services, Maggitti is responsible for managing and coordinating five dining concepts, which include the campus retail program. She is also responsible for managing a staff of eight managers, five supervisors, and over 80 associates with a volume totaling 1,231 meal plans for over 1,441 full-time students.
Before joining Washington College, Maggitti served as director of dining services at Marietta College; senior food service director at Abilene Christian University; director of operations and serve-safe food safety instructor at Northwestern State University; and catering and concessions director at Liberty University. In total, Maggitti has more than 21 years of cumulative education and experience in the food service industry.
Maggitti’s accounts have earned Compass Group’s National President’s Five Jewel Award for Best Practices in Diversity in 2013 and 2014 and received the Silver Sustainability Award and Bronze Award in Residential Dining, both from the National Association of College and University Food Services in 2014.
Please join me in welcoming Zena Maggitti to Buffalo State. With her arrival, please join me in thanking Darryl Hauser for his service as interim resident district manager over the last six months and congratulating him as he leaves us for his new position as director of dining services at Nazareth College.
Buffalo State is pleased to announce a new relationship with data-management start-up company Doolli. Buffalo State entered into a four-year agreement with Doolli in March to provide the campus community with access to its cloud-based application platform for building and publishing databases and views into that data for different audiences. The company’s CEO, Scott Baxter, a proud Buffalo State alumnus, describes Doolli as a “next-generation Internet technology company.” Doolli’s COO, Charlotte Walker, gave an inspiring talk at the Year of the Innovator kickoff last fall. And Doolli hosted a “hackathon” in Buffalo State’s Technology Building on February 28, when teams of students competed using the Doolli platform. Faculty account access to Doolli will be coordinated this summer, and many exciting projects are under way and will be coming to campus soon.
I am pleased to announce the appointment of David Demers as Buffalo State’s new chief information officer. Dr. Demers, who will begin his new role at Buffalo State on July 1, is currently the chief operating officer of the American Women’s College, an all-online degree program for women managed by Bay Path University in Massachusetts.
Dr. Demers brings nearly 20 years of experience and leadership in the ever-changing field of computer technology and information systems, including his background in developing and executing technology budgets, his assessment of campuswide technology needs, and his leveraging of virtualization strategies. Additionally, he has a successful track of collaborating across all campus divisions and an expertise in understanding all aspects of technology resources. I look forward to his vision and leadership as we continue to improve appropriate technology at Buffalo State that advances student learning and provides support for faculty and staff.
I invite you to read more about Dr. Demers’s background in the biography below.
I would like to thank the members of the search committee and search chair William White for their efforts and service to Buffalo State.
Lastly, please join me in thanking Bradley Fuster for his dedicated and outstanding service over the past two years in key interim roles at the college, including the 2014–2015 academic year as the interim chief information officer. Brad brought keen technological insights, creative energy, and lessons learned from the classroom to his leadership as CIO. His leadership this year has allowed us to advance our work within the division and to enhance our foundation as we move forward. Thank you, Brad!
About David Demers
As the chief operating officer of Bay Path University’s American Women’s College since its inception in 2013, David Demers has served as the principal designer and architect of an innovative online learning environment, Social Online Universal Learning (S.O.U.L.), which combines robust learning analytics with student demographic data to inform adaptive social learning opportunities for students as well as proactive advising and early intervention strategies. The S.O.U.L. initiative was recently awarded $3.5 million in funding through the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) First in the World competition through the U.S. Department of Education.
Prior to his appointment as COO of the American Women’s College, Demers was the vice president for academic and administrative technology at Bay Path from 2009 to 2013, where he provided strategic vision and oversight of technology resources to support teaching and learning, student information systems, telecommunications, and business systems. As Buffalo State’s chief information officer, he will serve as a member of the President’s Cabinet and oversee the areas of Computing and Technology Services, Instructional Technology, and Butler Library.
From 2005 to 2009, Demers was the director of instructional technology and online learning at Sacred Heart University. He also held administrative posts at the University of Connecticut Health Center (2001–2005) and the University of Hartford (1999–2001). Additionally, he was an assistant professor of biology at Springfield Technical Community College from 1996 to 1999.
Demers has a long history of scholarship, having published articles in the International Journal on E-Learning, Family Medicine, and Gene as well as textbooks and electronic resource guides for W. W. Norton & Co. and Allyn & Bacon.
Demers completed his B.S. (1989) and Ph.D. (1995) at the University of California at Riverside, where he pursued research interests in the field of cell and molecular biology.
Forms for the submission of 2014–2015 annual reports for professional staff, academic departments, and administrative departments are posted on the Human Resource Management website.
Following the suggestion of Middle States, we are using a new electronic collection method for individual information sheets for faculty and librarian annual reports. Professional staff, academic departments, and administrative departments will continue to follow the same procedure as in years past.
Within the next 10 days, faculty members and librarians will receive an e-mail from Doolli Support with the subject line "Invitation to join the Buffalo State account of Doolli." From this e-mail, instructors, faculty, librarians, and department chairs will be given instructions on how to create an account to enter their annual report. Additional e-mail messages and Daily Bulletin announcements will contain links to instructional videos and print instructions.
The information being collected is identical to that which was collected in 2013–2014, although the platform is now digitized. The new digital report will allow us to create useful dashboards at the department and school levels.
The timetable for the submission of annual reports for 2014–2015 is as follows:
We appreciate the support of UUP, Doolli, and Information Services and Systems in providing the campus with this meaningful new tool that will allow Buffalo State to better capture the exciting work being done by our faculty.
I appreciate your willingness to embrace the new format and am confident that this platform will continue to evolve to best meet the needs of the faculty and Buffalo State.
As you are aware, SUNY has a contract with MOOC platform provider Coursera. Coursera has alerted SUNY to a rapid, competitive RFP process to create Specializations, a series of courses leading to a capstone project. Several of our campuses are well positioned to respond by focusing on existing academic content that can be formatted for massive online distribution. The potential impact is significant. Johns Hopkins University has been extremely successful in providing learning opportunities with its Data Science Specialization. There is also an opportunity to generate considerable revenue through the Coursera Specialization Certification process. To encourage creation of content beginning this summer, Coursera has offered the following:
The RFPs are very targeted and are currently limited to the following content areas. Detailed information and proposal forms are provided below:
Coursera has also announced that the multinational technology company Splunk will offer a $100,000 grant to a selected Coursera partner to produce a Specialization in Big Data, which will be further supplemented by production support resources by Coursera if desired.
The announced timeline is as follows:
SUNY will host a WebEx conference call on Tuesday, May 19, at 10:00 a.m. for all campuses that intend to express interest in this opportunity. Those who are interested may come to Bulger Communication Center 120 to participate or call in from their home or office phones. Please dial (855) 830-3230 and enter code 232 538 8451. Questions regarding this opportunity may be sent in advance to lisa.stephens@suny.edu.
I have had many conversations with students who express the importance of scholarships to their ability to attend Buffalo State or to reduce debt associated with school loans...
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