Please join the Civic and Community Engagement Office for the webinar "Building Thriving Partnerships between Colleges and Local Government," featuring Derick Brown, Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good, University of San Francisco; Anthony Tirado Chase, Young Initiative on the Global Political Economy, Diplomacy and World Affairs, Occidental College; and Maribel Martinez, County of Santa Clara, Office of LGBTQ Affairs, on Thursday, December 2, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. This event is presented by Campus Compact as part of its National Webinar Series and is free to members of the Buffalo State College community.

As the nation struggles with a pandemic, housing and food insecurity, a strained social safety net, police brutality, unemployment, natural disasters, and racial discrimination, colleges and universities must play a critical role in engaging students with these issues through intentional projects that are designed in partnership with local municipalities. Representatives from two of California Campus Compact urban institutions with extensive experience partnering with or working for city government, along with one current local government representative, will share their reflections, recommendations, and lessons learned on how colleges can effectively partner and engage college students with local government. Presenters will share their perspectives on how to build thriving partnerships with local governments that reflect values of equity, justice, and inclusion.

Please register online for this webinar and any others in the National Webinar Series as you would like.

The Great Lakes Center is pleased to release the fall issue of its newsletter. This issue focuses on the return to field sampling after the COVID-19 pandemic, graduate student research, and activities at the Field Station, including the first purple martin fledglings in our housing structure.

Fall 2021 Newsletter (PDF, 2MB)

All articles will also be posted separately in the News section of our website, so look for further updates to share the same newsletter content in a new format.

If you'd like to be on the mailing list for future editions of the newsletter, please send an email to greatlakes@buffalostate.edu with the subject "Newsletter mailing list add."

Thank you to everyone who has submitted their textbook adoptions for the spring 2022 semester thus far; however, 60 percent of classes still have not submitted any course materials for the upcoming semester.

Please take a moment right now to log in to our Adoption Insights portal, found under the Faculty Resources tab in Blackboard, and submit your adoptions. If you are not using any course materials for the spring semester, please log in and select the option "No course materials needed."

Rental textbooks are due back to our store soon, and we would like to keep any inventory we may need to have a quick turnaround for the spring semester. Please submit your orders today! Thank you.

Please contact textbook department manager Trista Hayes, (716) 878-5509, with questions about textbook adoptions or the AIP system.

Learn skills and techniques that build confidence in speaking situations and provide a significant advantage in careers and life during the PSST workshop, led by alumnus Jay Beckley (B.S. and M.S. in communication), on Thursday, November 18, from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. in Bacon Hall 117.

Mr. Beckley spent his career coaching individuals, leading teams to succeed, and presenting to senior executives at the world’s most well-known brands. He believes all speaking is public speaking and that any problem can be solved through communication. He knows that effective speaking skills and confidence can be learned and provide an advantage in all situations. In PSST, he hones the best practices from 25 years of presentation training to provide immediate, actionable, and lifelong skills. Please join us for this fun, interactive, and especially valuable training session.

Please register in advance. Open to all faculty, staff, and students.

Funding for this workshop was generously provided by a grant from the Faculty-Student Association.

Please join the Civic and Community Engagement Office for the webinar "Mapping the Way to Innovative, Effective, and Equitable Policy," presented by Will Werner from the University of Missouri–St. Louis, on Friday, November 19, at 1:30 p.m.

In 2024, the $1.7 billion “Next” National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency West (N2W) will open its new headquarters on 97 acres in historic St. Louis Place, an underdeveloped neighborhood in North St. Louis with high levels of poverty and decades of disinvestment. N2W represents the largest federal investment in St. Louis history and will complement the existing National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) campus, located just a few miles away. The establishment of N2W arrives with tremendous potential to create a geospatial innovation hub in the St. Louis region, to grow diverse talent pipelines from our most underserved communities to meet the needs of geospatial employers, to advance geospatial research and entrepreneurism, and to strengthen the neighborhoods surrounding N2W. These opportunities are interconnected. To build a geospatial innovation hub, the region must take bold steps now to address critical skill gaps, to ensure equity and inclusion in talent pipelines, and to advance community-led development work in the neighborhoods surrounding N2W. The Geospatial Collaborative at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) is poised to be a driving force in helping the St. Louis region realize its potential as the nation’s leading hub for geospatial innovation.

As a major player in the burgeoning geospatial ecosystem in St. Louis, the GEOINT Symposium is an excellent opportunity to illustrate that UMSL is exceptional in its efforts to build capacity in underserved areas of the city, while developing opportunities for the youth that will be filling those critical jobs in the future. UMSL is having an impact on the geospatial ecosystem in several ways:

• Leading the partnership with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to develop effective K-16 educational programs.
• Working to develop the next generation of geospatial professionals.
• Creating research projects in diverse fields of study, illustrating the ubiquity of geospatial techniques and their impact.

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Immediately following is "Leading DEI Initiatives at Departmental Levels: An NYU Example" presented by Wilnelia Gutierrez from New York University.

As the central unit responsible for NYU’s internal and external communications, community engagement, university-wide events, and government relations, the University Relations and Public Affairs (URPA) DEI Working Group collaborates to ensure that NYU’s commitment to building and strengthening a university-wide culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion is realized and supported across the division and that the values of the committee are reflected in their work.

Their work is advanced across subcommittees focused in the areas of Education and Development, Coaching and Volunteering, Communications and Storytelling, Standards and Accountability, and Hiring and Onboarding. Participation in this working is invitational, and they encourage participation from all members across the division resulting in a multiplicity of skills, perspectives, and interests. Drawing on the resources provided to them centrally by the Office of Global Inclusion, as well as external sources, they provide pathways into DEI work that feel relatable to their professional roles, remaining committed to discomfort over inaction. Their work together focuses on elevating their institutional values and expectations for engagement in an environment that promotes, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

This Lightening Session will discuss how the URPA Working Group was formed, its structure, its goals and successes to date, and future plans. Participants will takeaway lessons learned on how to advance internal DEI initiatives within complex university structures to ensure systemic change is truly being integrated and realized.

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The final topic is "Removing Implicit Bias in Student Evaluations of Teaching: Observations of High-Impact Classroom Practices," presented by Christopher Moore, Sarah Edwards, and Tracie Reding from the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

They will present on progress made in developing a student evaluation of teaching (SET) inventory that is free of implicit bias, instructor-actionable, and reliable across student evaluators. Their approach has focused on elevating faculty doing the “invisible work” disproportionately done by minorities and/or women that evidence demonstrates is required for underrepresented student success, but is rarely rewarded by traditional university structures. In particular, SETs focused on the affective-domain have been criticized for being race and gender biased and for failing to measure the underlying construct: teaching effectiveness. For example, although research-validated high-impact teaching practices (HIPs) are more likely to be used in courses with minority and/or women instructors in a variety of fields, this population often scores lower on SETs, which are frequently used in personnel decisions. To construct an anti-racist and anti-sexist SET, we started with the Teaching Practices Inventory (TPI), which is a validated instructor self-report of research-based HIPs usage. Language was modified to turn the TPI into a student observation protocol, where over the course of 15 prompts students identify HIPs used in the course. In contrast to affective-domain SETs, the student-reported modified TPI was designed to minimize subjective judgements. Either a student did or did not observe a specific practice. Initial face validity of the SET has been established via student focus groups and clarity surveys (N = 22), and reliability and congruent validity studies are ongoing. Preliminary results from faculty self-reports (N = 92) using the modified TPI show higher use of HIPs by minorities and/or women, as expected from the literature. Moving toward an anti-racist and anti-sexist SET promotes structures that incentivise the types of work that must be done to build an inclusive and diverse university and to retain top talent, especially those utilizing HIPs. Key takeaways will be a generative framework for development of a SET with significantly reduced implicit bias, and the change process being utilized at a large metropolitan research university for adoption of bias-free SETs via shared-governance.

This hour-long event is presented by the CUMU Learning and Sharing Virtual Series and is free to members of the Buffalo State community. Please register online for this webinar and any others in the series you may be interested in.

Please join the Civic and Community Engagement Office for the webinar "Connecting Community Wealth-Building to the Core Academic Mission," presented by Jodi Bantley, Metropolitan State University of Louisville, and Eva Song Margolis, Greater Twin Cities United Way, on Thursday, November 18, at 2:00 p.m.

This presentation is designed to inspire faculty and staff members to tap into community-driven initiatives and resources to cooperatively build pathways to living-wage employment for local job-seekers and to more broadly influence employment practices by leveraging and adapting the university’s academic assets and institutional networks. We will elevate the challenges, opportunities, and learning involved in a Cybersecurity Certificate Training program piloted earlier this year through the Hmong American Partnership (St. Paul, Minnesota) and Metropolitan State University’s College of Science—an effort initiated by and now poised to expand through a broader coalition of place—and culturally-based workforce development agencies, the East Side Employment xChange. Participants will be encouraged to imagine the high-impact workforce development opportunities that could be crafted in their campus-community context and identify critical factors for success including clarity about “the why,” key trusting relationships, community partners’ goals and capacity, champions, institutional constraints, and funding.

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Immediately following will be "Technology Enabled Rapid Response: How a Grassroots Team Launched an Emergency Food Program and Created Thousands of Community Connections during the COVID-19 Pandemic," presented by Chris Powers, Jennifer Lucarelli, and Cameron Underdown from Oakland University. 

Attendees will learn (1) how to use technology to expand their capacity and make data-driven decisions, (2) how to engage a diverse set of stakeholder groups to accomplish big goals, and (3) how to pivot program delivery during a crisis.

This hour-long event is presented by the CUMU Learning and Sharing Virtual Series and is free to members of the Buffalo State community. Please register online for this webinar and any others in the series you may be interested in.

Please join the Psychology Department in celebration of Buffalo State College’s 150th anniversary for a seminar on alcohol use during adolescence and over the lifespan, presented by Buffalo State alumnus Matthew Lee, ’06, assistant professor in the Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies at Rutgers University, tomorrow, November 19, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. in Technology Building 160. All students, staff, and faculty are welcome.

Please join the Psychology Department in celebration of Buffalo State College’s 150th anniversary for a seminar on alcohol use during adolescence and over the lifespan, presented by Buffalo State alumnus Matthew Lee, ’06, assistant professor in the Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies at Rutgers University, on Friday, November 19, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. in Technology Building 160. All students, staff, and faculty are welcome.

Please share the following information with your students about the upcoming general information meetings on the Anne Frank Project student trips to Rwanda:

Buffalo State College’s Anne Frank Project has been facilitating student trips to Rwanda, Africa, for over 10 years. Our students grow from this immersive experience in multiple ways. The lessons from Rwanda’s remarkable post-genocide reconciliation process are especially necessary today in our conflicted world. The power of forgiveness, community, compassion, and unity are explored through the use of stories on this unique international experience. Students receive 6 credit hours.

General Information Sessions

• Friday, November 19 | 3:00–4:00 p.m. | Campbell Student Union 419*
• Tuesday November 30 | 12:30–1:30 p.m. | Campbell Student Union 419*
• Thursday December 2 | 4:30–5:30 p.m., Zoom (virtual)

*Light refreshments will be served.

For more information, please contact Drew Kahn, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor and director of the Anne Frank Project. 

The Supplemental Instruction Program is holding information sessions to showcase the supplemental instruction (SI) leader position for the spring 2022 semester. The SI leader position is a student leadership, teaching, and professional development opportunity available to students. SI leaders run hour-long sessions to support high failure rate courses and improve students' grades in specific courses. Courses for spring 2022 include BIO 111, MAT 103, MAT 114, and MAT 311.

Qualifications

1. 3.0 GPA minimum
2. Junior, senior, or graduate level standing
3. Earned grade of B+ or higher in the course you are applying for or a declared major in the course you are applying for. 

To learn more about the position, including the courses we are hiring for and the application process, please visit the Student Achievement Programs website. The information sessions for this position are one hour long and will take place in Butler Library Room 316. If students have any questions or would like to register to attend a session, they can email Ashley Martin, director of student achievement programs, at si_instruct@buffalostate.edu.

Information Sessions
Tuesday, November 23 | 12:15–1:15 p.m.
Wednesday, December 1 | Noon–1:00 p.m.
Thursday, December 9 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Tuesday, December 14 | 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.