From the Chair of the College Senate Bylaws and Elections Committee
The College Senate will hold elections April 25–29 to fill two at-large College Senate seats (professionals or academics). Both seats have three-year terms (2022–2025). Voting will begin at 12:01 a.m. Monday, April 25, and continue until 11:59 p.m. Friday, April 29. The College Senate Bylaws and Elections Committee will again use an electronic voting system supplemented by paper ballots to conduct the elections.

Our primary goals are to encourage participation in the shared governance of Buffalo State College and to share information on each candidate. If you have not already visited the College Senate’s Elections and Caucus information site to review the candidates’ qualifications, please do so.

Voter Eligibility
All full-time academics and professionals (NU = 8; negotiating unit 8) are eligible to vote.

Voting
We urge everyone to vote electronically. Paper ballots will be sent only to voters who request them.

Electronic Ballot

• Visit the election voting portal link (log-on required), located on the College Senate’s Elections and Caucus information site.
• Log in using your e-mail username and password.
• When you log in, the system will identify the election(s) in which you are eligible to vote. If you think you have been misidentified or some other issue arises, please contact Slade Gellin, College Senate parliamentarian.
• With general questions only, please contact Vincent Masci, assistant to the College Senate, 878-5139.

Paper Ballot
Paper ballots will be sent only to voters who request them. Please e-mail Vince Masci, assistant to the College Senate, to request a paper ballot. Please provide your name and phone number. Requested paper ballots will be distributed before or during election week (April 25–29) and must be returned to the College Senate office by 5:00 p.m. Friday, April 29, to be counted.

Thank you for your participation in this year’s election. Please send any feedback, questions, or concerns to Ramona Santa Maria, chair of the College Senate Bylaws and Elections Committee.

From the Chair of the College Senate Bylaws and Elections Committee
Two at-large College Senate positions will become vacant on August 29, 2022. At-large senators represent the entirety of the college. All full-time faculty and professional staff members are eligible to run for these seats provided they meet other eligibility requirements (see below).

A call for nominations and information about candidates’ statements can be found on the College Senate website. The call for nominations closes at 5:00 p.m. tomorrow, April 22. Elections for these positions will run from 12:01 a.m. Monday, April 25, to 11:59 p.m. Friday, April 29.

Senate elections conducted by the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, the School of the Professions, and the Professional Staff Caucus should be concluded before April 29.

Eligibility: Current College Senate members who are completing two consecutive terms in their respective positions are not eligible for reelection. For additional information on eligibility requirements, please consult the Bylaws of the College Faculty on the College Senate website.

Campaigning: The College Senate Bylaws and Elections Committee strongly discourages using college email services for campaigning. Please limit campaigning to the candidate statement posted on the College Senate website, available to the college community on Monday, April 25.

Please note: Individuals running for a senator position in another election may not also run for an at-large senator position while the other election is being conducted. If the other election concludes during the period when nominations for at-large senators are still being accepted, eligible individuals may self-nominate for the position.

If you are interested in being a candidate, please contact Vincent Masci, assistant to the College Senate. We look forward to your participation in the vital process of campus governance.

SUNY invites applications for two projects funded by the Innovative Instruction Technology Grant (IITG) program. IITG seeks to promote research and innovation to foster understanding of how new technologies support academic excellence and student success. The projects will focus on investigation of software tools that enable flexible instruction at scale and help inform the new SUNY Digital Learning Environment. True to the spirit of the IITG program, the 2021–2022 projects will be faculty-guided efforts.

1. Tools for HyFlex Course Delivery - This project will examine the efficacy of online tools that support HyFlex learning models valued by nontraditional and adult students with multiple demands on their time. SUNY defines HyFlex as instruction that simultaneously combines online and face-to-face instruction into a single course section, with the mode of direct instruction determined by each individual student (e.g., choice of seated-in-class, connected remotely, or attended at a later time via recording).
    
2.  Tools to Teach Large Courses - Faculty members will explore instructional technology tools that help facilitate feedback, assessment, and interaction in large enrollment (> 50 students) courses. The goal of this project is to guide professional development and investment in the tools that prove suitable for teaching larger courses.

The deadline to apply as a participant in either project is Monday, April 25. The project pages contain links to the short application form. Those who apply will be informed no later than Friday, May 6, if they will be invited to participate.

Please contact Chris Price, academic programs manager with SUNY CPD, with questions.

The SUNY Undergraduate Research Conference (SURC) will take place Saturday, April 23, beginning at 9:30 a.m. on the Buffalo State College campus. Student talks, posters, and art displays will be housed in the Science and Mathematics Complex from 9:30 to 11:45 a.m. and from 1:30 to 3:45 p.m.

More than 350 undergraduate presentations are scheduled, including about 180 from Buffalo State students. Buffalo State President Katherine Conway-Turner, University Faculty Senate President Keith Landa, and Gerard Puccio, SUNY Distinguished Professor and chair of the Center for Applied Imagination, will deliver remarks during lunch in the Campbell Student Union Social Hall beginning at noon. Lunch will be followed by dance performances from students at Buffalo State and SUNY Geneseo.

The full schedule of events and technical program are available online.

Lot I-37 will be offline from Monday, May 2, through Monday, May 9, to accommodate a large tent that will be part of the May 7 Bengala, the Buffalo State College Foundation Scholarship Gala.

In addition to the lots surrounding Lot I-37 during this period, faculty and staff members seeking alternative parking arrangements will find ample space in Lot R-12.

Please email Parking Services with questions about this temporary closure. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding.

Campus map (PDF, 4 MB)

SUNY’s current systemwide contract with Blackboard expires December 21, 2022. Following an extensive RFP process, SUNY has selected Desire2Learn’s (D2L) Brightspace learning management system to serve as the new systemwide hub of its digital learning environment.

Here’s your opportunity to obtain early access to a Brightspace sandbox and work with an Instructional Design and Distance Learning team member to explore the new platform.

The Brightspace sandbox is an initial Brightspace environment that can be used to explore the core functionality that will be available in the new learning management system. The purpose of the sandbox is to explore Brightspace from a faculty and student perspective. This is a temporary environment that will look different from the final production environment. For example, the Brightspace sandbox will not have additional third-party or extended functional tools that will be available in production. There will be both in-person and virtual workshops via Microsoft Teams.

Please register using the links below or through the Workshop Registration System.

The following workshops will be held in Butler Library 314:

Friday, May 6, 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Wednesday, May 18, 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

The following workshops will be held online via Microsoft Teams:

Tuesday, April 26, 12:15–1:45 p.m.
Wednesday, April 27, 6:00–7:30 p.m.
Thursday, April 28, 12:15–1:45 p.m.
Saturday, April 30, 9:30–11: 00 a.m.

For more information or future offerings of this workshop, please email Jamie Tabone, instructional designer.

The Earth Sciences Department and the Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium are excited to announce the 2022 Dr. Jack Mack Lecture in Astronomy and Planetary Science, as Buffalo State College alumnus Paul Schenk, ’80, planetary scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, delivers this year’s lecture, “60 Years of Solar System Exploration: What Have We Learned?” on Tuesday, April 26, at 7:00 p.m. in the LoRusso Alumni and Visitor Center.

Light refreshments will be served afterward. This event is free and open to the public. 

The Dr. Jack Mack Lecture in Astronomy and Planetary Science was established in honor of associate professor John E. “Jack” Mack following his retirement from the Earth Sciences Department in 2008. This year’s lecture is especially meaningful because Dr. Mack died in December 2021.

With the end of the spring semester quickly approaching, we need to place textbook adoptions for the summer and fall 2022 semesters.

Getting your textbook adoptions in early helps us provide students with the best cost options for books and helps us ensure that we have books ready on or before the first day of classes.

Also please be mindful of the delay in shipping and book production over the past year that might cause a delay in our receiving the required textbooks, especially any custom books that are printed on demand.

Please feel free to email Buffalo State College’s Barnes & Noble Bookstore with any questions on submitting your adoptions.

The spring 2022 “Conversations in and out of the Disciplines” concludes this Friday, April 29, as Gehan Senthinathan, assistant professor of social and psychological foundations of education and adult education, will present “Sweet Neuroscience: Intermittent Access and Excessive (Addiction-Like) Consumption” at 3:00 p.m. in Ketchum Hall 320. The talk will be followed by a Q&A. Everyone is welcome.

The “Conversations” series was started over a decade ago by Ann Colley, SUNY Distinguished Professor Emerita of English, to “celebrate and draw attention to the research being done in various departments at Buffalo State College.” Over the last few years, colleagues from Anthropology, Art Conservation, Art History, Biology, English, History, Mathematics, Philosophy, Political Science, and Secondary Education (among others) have shared their work with the Buffalo State and Buffalo communities.

Taskstream AMS, Buffalo State College’s annual report of assessment software, will be upgraded and renamed Watermark Planning and Self Study (PSS), effective Tuesday, May 10.

Please note that no upgrades have been made to Taskstream LAT, the Teacher Education Unit and Social Work student assessment system. As previously announced, EvaluationKit, Buffalo State’s course evaluation software, has been upgraded and is now called Watermark Course Evaluations and Surveys (CES).

Beginning May 10 for all faculty and staff members, the log-in to Watermark Planning and Self Study, Watermark Course Evaluations and Surveys, and Taskstream LAT will be synched with Buffalo State credentials. You will no longer need a separate username and password for these systems.

When the new system goes live, please take a minute to check the new integration and view the new look. Links to these tools will still be found in the same places. CES and PSS links can be found in the MyBuffState toolbox and on the Teacher Education Unit’s Assessment Resources web page.

Please contact Tiffany Fuzak, research analyst, (716) 878-4132, with questions.