We are in the final stretch of our State Employees Federated Appeal (SEFA)/United Way Campaign, and we need everyone’s help to meet our $100,000 campaign goal. Buffalo State College has a long-standing tradition of community involvement and support, and one way we demonstrate our commitment to our neighbors and region is through our participation in the annual SEFA Campaign.

This year, the campaign theme is “We Are SEFA.” And, since we are SEFA, we are counting on you!

The Buffalo State community can take pride in the leadership position we hold within SUNY’s SEFA/United Way Campaign. Our campus holds the distinction of giving more to SEFA/United Way than any other SUNY college—by far! In fact, we have a higher rate of participation than any other SUNY campus. Your contribution can help us maintain this status. Let’s keep this going!

This year, we are urging faculty and staff members to use the e-pledge system. To do so, simply go to the SEFA online pledge site and click on “Forgot User ID or Password” to begin the process. Of course, if you prefer, a pledge card is available through your department’s SEFA ambassador or by contacting campus campaign coordinator Maria Garrity, senior systems programmer, 878-3570; or campaign chair Tom Koller, senior associate athletics director, 878-6514.

For your convenience, a list of SEFA-supported agencies (PDF, 3.7 MB) can be found on the SEFA website. The United Way of Buffalo and Erie County is one of the many organizations listed. A gift to its critical core areas of education, income, and wellness would be used where the need is greatest. 

Please join me as we make this final push to meet our goal in this important community-wide effort and make your contribution to SEFA/United Way through Buffalo State College today. Thank you.

I am pleased to announce the following appointments to the President’s Institutional Innovation Advisory Council (IIAC):

Chair
Jonathan Hulbert, Director of Leadership and Organizational Development, Professional Development Center

Administrative Team
William Benfanti, Associate Vice President for Government Relations, Institutional Advancement
Benjamin Christy, Dean, School of Arts and Humanities 
Jerod Dahlgren, Communications Director, Marketing and Communications
Rebecca Eggleston, Professional Development Assistant, Professional Development Center
Khaleel Gathers, Deputy CIO and Director of Technology Planning and Outreach, Information Technology
Susan McCartney, Director, Small Business Development Center
Crystal Rodriguez, Chief of Staff,  President’s Office
Jocelyn Tejeda, Senior EOP Counselor, Educational Opportunity Program
Jamie Warnes, Manager of Classified Employment and Employee Relations, Human Resource Management

Research Team
John Cabra, Professor, Center for Studies in Creativity 
Joaquin Carbonara, Professor, Mathematics
Atta Ceesay, Associate Professor, Political Science
Robert Delprino, Assistant Dean, School of Natural and Social Sciences
Mohan Devgun, Chair and Professor, Engineering Technology
Kelly Marczynski, Director, Institute for Community Health Promotions and Center for Health and Social Research
Gerard Puccio, Chair and Professor, Center for Studies in Creativity 
John Torrey, Assistant Professor, Philosophy 
Jing Zhang, Associate Professor of Elementary Education, Literacy, and Educational Leadership  

College Senate Representatives
Maria Brickhouse, Coordinator, EOP Academic Center for Excellence; Chair, College Senate Faculty and Staff Welfare Committee 
Julian Cole, Associate Professor, Philosophy; Chair, College Senate Bylaws and Elections Committee

In my Opening Year Address, I noted that higher education is undergoing significant demographic and technological shifts, which will require us to change how our institution operates, how we collaborate across departments and divisions to solve institutional challenges (retention, enrollment, developing new revenue streams, etc.), and how we prepare our campus workforce to address the ever-changing challenges of the future. To examine these challenges and questions, I have appointed representatives from each division and faculty with expertise in the content areas being examined (organizational development, workforce planning, innovation, organizational psychology, etc.) to serve on the IIAC.

The IIAC is charged with helping assess and analyze institutional data, policies, and processes and making recommendations to the president and the cabinet to help inform their decision-making for the following challenges:

• What are the campus’s strengths, challenges, opportunities, and threats in terms of organizational culture, employee engagement and satisfaction, workforce development, organizational agility, and institutional innovation, and how do they affect institutional performance? What strategies and initiatives can further improve institutional performance by leveraging these factors?
• How do we assess and build institutional capacity (workforce development, organizational structure, process improvement, organizational agility, technology infrastructure, etc.) to support new campus initiatives, programs, and strategies identified in the strategic plan?
• How can Buffalo State College be more intentionally innovative and agile as an institution to quickly adapt to meet market needs and demands?

To begin examining these questions, the first project IIAC will be charged with from fall 2019 to fall 2020 is administering a Campus Culture and Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Study using the “Great Colleges to Work for Survey.”

Additionally, the IIAC will be developing systems and structures for faculty and staff members to share and cultivate innovative ideas to help Buffalo State thrive in the twenty-first century. More information regarding these opportunities will be shared in the coming months.

The final report from the NACADA Academic Advising Program Review (PDF, 634 KB) is posted on the Institutional Effectiveness Reports and Resources web page. In many ways, the recommendations in the report echo those of the College Senate report and the activities of the more recent Title III grant. Both speak to the inconsistency in the student experience and the need for a more intentionally designed approach. The report recommends that we establish centralized leadership for academic advising across both professional and faculty advising lines, with responsibility and authority for the campuswide coordination and management of academic advising within the Provost’s Office.

 The Academic Advisement Advisory Council will be charged with

• studying, promoting, and implementing best practices in advising;
• continually assessing the quality of advising on campus and recommending process or policy improvements as needed;
• serving in a consultative role for offices collaborating on initiatives related to advising.

I am excited about the potential of this initiative to assist Buffalo State students in successfully pursuing their degrees and achieving their personal and professional goals. If you have questions, concerns, or comments about the plan, or about advising more generally, please direct them to Aimee Woznick, director of the Academic Commons.

I am pleased to announce that Graziela Rondon-Pari, assistant professor in the Modern and Classical Languages Department, has received the President's Professional Development Award. She will take the Federal Court Interpreter Certification test on December 6 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This professional development opportunity will allow Dr. Rondon-Pari to become one of the very few instructors in the United States to train students to become Spanish-English interpreters. Her professional development award profile can be viewed on the Professional Development website.

The President’s Professional Development Award supports professional development opportunities that enrich the experiences of all employees on campus by promoting opportunities that allow employees to build on their expertise, identify best practices, and network with others.

Members of the campus community are invited to submit nominations for the President’s Professional Development Award by 5:00 p.m. Friday, December 13. If you submitted an application and did not receive the award in past months and you are interested in submitting again, please resubmit your nomination. For more information about the award criteria and recipient selection process, please visit the Professional Development website.

Please join me in celebrating the exceptional 38-year career of Judi Basinski, associate vice president for enterprise data and analytics, during a retirement party on Monday, December 16, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in the LoRusso Alumni and Visitor Center. Everyone is welcome. RSVP by Monday, December 9, to Katie Malik-Willard, executive assistant to the CIO. I hope you will stop by and thank Judi for her tremendous dedication to Buffalo State and to wish her well!

All professional staff members, faculty members, and librarians will submit their individual annual reports online for the 2019–2020 reporting year. Unique links will be e-mailed on Tuesday, December 3, and will remain open through the deadline for submission (June 30, 2020). Faculty and professional staff members can save and return to this form any time, from any device. Our hope is that early access to the form will allow faculty and professional staff to collect and enter their accomplishments throughout the year. 

If you have questions about the content of the annual report, please contact Luke Krieg, interim associate vice president for institutional effectiveness, 878-5550. If you have technical questions, please contact Tiffany Fuzak, research analyst, 878-4132.

I am pleased to announce that Dawn Greil, administrative assistant I in the Higher Education Administration Department has received the President's Caring Bengal Award.

Ms. Greil was nominated for the award by the Higher Education Administration Department, a current student, and an alumnus of the program. I am so pleased to recognize Ms. Greil, and I encourage the entire campus community to join me in thanking her for her exceptional effort to make Buffalo State a great place to live, learn, and work. Her award profile can be viewed on the Professional Development website.

I announced the creation and implementation of the President's Caring Bengal Award in December 2017 to recognize supportive colleagues in our Buffalo State community who not only transform the lives of our students but also help create a caring and collegial environment for our faculty, staff, and administrators.

Members of the campus community are invited to submit nominations for the President's Caring Bengal Award by 5:00 p.m. Friday, December 6. For more information about the award criteria and recipient selection process, or to submit a nomination, please visit the Professional Development website.

I am pleased to inform you that Jill Singer, professor of earth sciences and science education, has been appointed Distinguished Teaching Professor by the State University of New York Board of Trustees.

The Distinguished Teaching Professorship recognizes and honors mastery of teaching; outstanding service to students and commitment to their ongoing intellectual growth, scholarship, and professional development; and adherence to rigorous academic standards and requirements.

I’m extremely proud of Professor Singer, who exemplifies Buffalo State’s commitment to student excellence and undergraduate research. Her scholarship includes more than 100 published abstracts, 20 peer-reviewed papers, and several reports. Dr. Singer also possesses an impressive list of accomplishments at the national level. She is a fellow of the Geological Society of America. She’s served as a program officer in the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and as president of the Council on Undergraduate Research.

At Buffalo State, Dr. Singer established and directed the Undergraduate Research Office for more than 15 years. She initiated the annual Student Research and Creativity Conference, now in its 22nd year, and the Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship Program, which has been in place for nearly 20 years. In addition, she undertook a multiyear effort to develop and field test a methodology for measuring student learning and related outcomes known as EvaluateUR. With funding from the NSF and with input from faculty across disciplines, the methodology focused on 11 student outcomes to better inform program impact and, ultimately, refinement. EvaluateUR is now being expanded to the national level and modified for use in course-based undergraduate research experiences. Clearly, Dr. Singer’s influence as an educator and mentor transcends our campus.

She will be officially inducted into the SUNY Distinguished Academy at a ceremony in Albany on June 23. We will also honor Dr. Singer on campus at our Faculty and Staff Recognition Ceremony in fall 2020.

In the meantime, please join me in congratulating her on this prestigious honor.

Buffalo State College is excited to celebrate its sesquicentennial during the 2021–2022 academic year. The Sesquicentennial Planning Committee asks that you consider building around our theme of 150 years of Inspiring, Believing, and Achieving with signature or annual events that you may host during that time.

The committee would like to include information on the 150th planning calendar about events that you might be preparing to host in the sesquicentennial year. The committee is also soliciting names of possible speakers (alumni, keynote) to participate in the celebration. Another project being developed is 150 Voices of Buffalo State, featuring individuals (students, community members, faculty members, etc.) who are connected to the college’s history in some way, and we welcome your recommendations for this project as well.

Please submit information for any of these areas related to the sesquicentennial using this form.

Should you have any questions, please contact either of the committee's co-chairs: George Hole, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus, or me, Tim Gordon, 878-4704. Thank you. We look forward to your recommendations and to celebrating the campus’s 150th anniversary!

During negotiations for the 2016–2022 State/UUP Agreement, the parties agreed to develop guidelines and a methodology for a salary equity study to be conducted at each campus. The purpose of such study is to identify compression and inversion for UUP-represented employees. Salary inversion may exist when new employees are hired at salaries higher than experienced employees; compression may exist when salaries of experienced employees fail to maintain distance above salaries of new employees.

A State/SUNY/UUP executive-level committee has developed guidelines and a methodology to analyze and identify the extent of salary compression and inversion, and the adopted guidelines and methodology have been utilized at Buffalo State College. 

In addition to the 0.5 percent that was established to provide for discretionary, merit-based salary increases (awardees were notified November 12, and appeals were notified November 27), the agreement between the State and UUP also includes using 0.5 percent of the DSI to address identified compression and inversion. I have reviewed the results of the analysis, and considered them in making decisions regarding distributing discretionary salary increases. In following the negotiated guidelines, and in an effort to be transparent, a summary of specific considerations made in the distribution of the 0.5 percent dedicated to addressing identified compression and inversion (PDF, 111 KB) is provided.

Employees who will receive salary increases based on the salary compression and inversion analysis will be notified via their campus e-mail addresses by December 5, 2019. Increases for both the 0.5 percent discretionary, merit-based awards and the 0.5 percent based on the compression analysis will appear in paychecks dated December 24, 2019. The increases will be retroactive to July 1, 2019, for professional employees and employees with 12-month obligations, and September 1, 2019, for employees with academic year obligations.

In accordance with SUNY guidelines, employees who receive salary compression/inversion adjustments were not disqualified from consideration for increases from the 0.5 percent discretionary, merit-based pool. Conversely, receipt of a discretionary increase does not disqualify employees from eligibility for compression adjustments.

If anyone should have any specific issues or concerns regarding the analysis completed at Buffalo State, please contact Human Resource Management.