As you may have heard, the City of Buffalo achieved two weather milestones and received two awards for the 2021–2022 snow season: snowiest city in New York State (Golden Snowball Award) and snowiest city (population 100,000+) in the U.S. (Snow Globe Award). Certainly when it comes to snow, we are “Buffalo Tough!”

The Golden Snowball Award comes with a trophy. The Buffalo State Geography and Planning Department is hosting the trophy on behalf of the City of Buffalo. To celebrate our snow heritage, you are invited to drop by the Barnes & Noble at Buffalo State Bookstore on Wednesday, August 31, between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. to see the Golden Snowball trophy and display.

The Registrar's Office is pleased to announce that graduate students can now apply for graduation using Self Service Banner. Instructions and links for this new process can be found on the Registrar's website.

The American Red Cross will hold a campus blood drive today, August 30, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Campbell Student Union Social Hall. Call (800) RED-CROSS or visit www.redcrossblood.org (sponsor code: BuffState) to schedule an appointment or to learn more. Walk-ins are also welcome. All participating WNY blood donors will be automatically entered in a drawing for a $500 gas card.

The American Red Cross will hold a campus blood drive tomorrow, August 30, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Campbell Student Union Social Hall. Call (800) RED-CROSS or visit www.redcrossblood.org (sponsor code: BuffState) to schedule an appointment or to learn more. Walk-ins are also welcome. All participating WNY blood donors will be automatically entered in a drawing for a $500 gas card.

The American Red Cross will hold a campus blood drive on Tuesday, August 30, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Campbell Student Union Social Hall. Call (800) RED-CROSS or visit www.redcrossblood.org (sponsor code: BuffState) to schedule an appointment or to learn more. Walk-ins are also welcome. All participating WNY blood donors will be automatically entered in a drawing for a $500 gas card.

The YuJa Enterprise Video Platform is now available as a replacement for Ensemble Video. This service is used for managing and organizing your video and media assets at Buffalo State within a secure, cloud-hosted video repository. The YuJa Enterprise Video Platform offers convenient and powerful capabilities including drag-and-drop organization, deep search-inside-video, auto-creation of LMS-linked video channels, video editing, content management capabilities, and more.

Log in at Buffalo State's YuJa page, being sure to use "Buffalo State College Single-Sign-On" from the drop-down menu.

Alternatively, you can access the service through Blackboard Learn. When logged into Blackboard, go to any content area in your course, hover over "Build Content," and then select the "YuJa Media Chooser" to find and insert your media into your course.

Please note that although you can add new content in YuJa now, your old Ensemble content will not appear in the service for another two to three weeks. If you need to use that content in your courses in the meantime, the links to Ensemble should still work throughout the migration process, but you may also download your needed content from Ensemble manually and upload to YuJa. New content cannot be added to Ensemble Video.

For more information on using YuJa, please see Instructional Design and Distance Learning's YuJa Enterprise Video Platform page or our Knowledge Base article.

For training, please refer to the resources on our site and check the Workshop Registration System for upcoming sessions. You may also book an individual appointment with our staff.

Thank you for your patience during this transition process!

The data science and analytics graduate program is pleased to announce the next talk in its fall 2022 Seminar Series, “Application of ML and Data Science to Optimize Mission Planning and Execution,” presented by CUBRC’s Michael Moskal, ’81, CIO and senior vice president of the Information Exploitation Sector; and Erika Swiatowy, a software engineer specializing in machine learning, on Monday, October 17, from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. in Technology Building 358 or via Zoom. All are invited to attend.

Talking Points

• ML and Data Science for Mission Planning and Execution
• CUBRC's Data Science and Information Fusion Group
• Overview of ML in Defense and Intelligence Applications
• ML Model Development, Training, Testing, Verification, and Validation

The Data Science and Analytics Seminar Series invites industry experts to give presentations on cutting-edge topics in analytics. For more information, please call the DSA program coordinator at (716) 878-5295. To obtain the link to attend virtually, please contact Heather Campbell, professional science master’s coordinator.

The Registrar’s Office accepts Change of Major/Minor/Concentration/Microcredential Forms electronically and in paper format. Forms are located on the Buffalo State Registrar’s website under forms and services. Students can send the form electronically to the department chair for approval, or they may print the form and take it to the department for approval. Once the printed form is approved by the department chair, departments may scan the form and forward it to the Registrar's Office by email for processing.

Microsoft PowerPoint users are invited to familiarize themselves with the basics of creating accessible presentations through trainings provided by Deque University, Module: Other Courses, MS PowerPoint Accessibility Techniques.

Microsoft PowerPoint is a teaching tool that is widely used for instruction and presentation of content. Information presented in slide format is created to be talking points in classrooms, webinars, and online courses, as well as to support note-taking for students. It is therefore important to make this content accessible to all users.  

Deque University content will be available to Buffalo State College faculty and staff through August 2023. If you need to set up a new account, please complete the “Deque University registration request” form. If you are unsure whether you already have an account or not, please contact Sumana Silverheels, interim director of student accessibility services.

Learn more about Buffalo State's Electronic and Informational Accessibility Plan (PDF, 586 KB) created in accordance with SUNY EIT Accessibility Policy and SUNY EIT Accessibility Standards.

Upton Hall will experience a planned power and data interruption on Saturday, August 27, from roughly 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Building occupants need not take any special action with computers, refrigerators, or similar equipment relating to this service interruption. Campus Internet services will resume after power has been restored.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as the campus replaces electrical switchgear in Upton Hall. Questions about this work may be addressed to vpfm@buffalostate.edu.