The Undergraduate Research Office celebrates the conclusion of the spring 2021 semester with its 23rd annual Student Research and Creativity Conference (SRCC), to be presented as Digital SRCC 2021 during CEP week. Project abstracts representing over 150 student presenters and their faculty mentors will be publicly available online, with viewing of individual presentations accessible to the Buffalo State College community on an ongoing basis via Butler Library's Digital Commons platform. The annual SRCC program booklet is also available online. Congratulations to all participating Buffalo State students and faculty mentors!

Buffalo State College will celebrate the accomplishments of the Graduating Class of 2021 with virtual Commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 15. We invite Bengals far and wide to congratulate our graduates on the online 2021 Grad Wall and through social media.

Whether you are a faculty or staff member, a family member of a graduate, a classmate, an alumnus, or a graduate yourself, we invite you to share your photos, congratulatory messages, and words of encouragement with our graduates by using the hashtag #BuffStateGrads on Instagram and Twitter.

All submissions will be organized and collected through the Grad Wall. If you don’t have a social media account and would like to offer a supportive message to the Class of 2021, please submit your well-wishes online and those messages will also be shared on the Grad Wall.

Please help us acknowledge the hardworking, determined Class of 2021 and submit a message to the Grad Wall to celebrate our amazing #BuffStateGrads!

All professional staff members, faculty members, and librarians must submit their 2020–2021 individual annual reports online. Individual links were emailed to all faculty and professional staff members on Wednesday, May 5. If you did not receive the email, please contact Tiffany Fuzak, research analyst in Institutional Effectiveness and Planning.

For reference, a template version of the annual report can be found on the Institutional Effectiveness and Planning website under Resources.

Your unique link is accessible from any device, and you can save and return to the form at any time. Each page is saved once you advance to the next screen. Once you submit the online form, you will be given the option to print or save the completed form as a PDF. A summary of all responses will also be emailed to you in a confirmation email. A copy of each report is automatically uploaded to the department or unit workspace in Taskstream.

Please note that these processes are under review and will be updated to align with our new strategic plan. The Academic Effectiveness and Planning Office values your comments regarding opportunities to improve these processes. Many changes have been made to the individual faculty annual report based on these comments, and we will continue to collect your feedback.

Deadlines
Individual Faculty, Professional Staff, and Librarians* - Wednesday, June 30
Academic Departments and Functional and Co-curricular Areas - Friday, July 16
Vice Presidents, Associate Vice Presidents, and Deans - Friday, August 20

*Adjunct instructors should contact their department chairs if they are unsure whether they need to complete this form.

Individual Faculty, Professional Staff, and Librarians
Complete individual annual reports and submit online.

Academic Departments and Functional and Co-curricular Areas
Review individual faculty and staff annual reports.
Submit an annual report for the department or unit via Taskstream.

Vice Presidents, Associate Vice Presidents, and Deans
Review department and unit submissions and provide feedback via Taskstream.
Submit an annual report for the school or VP area via Taskstream.

The Institutional Effectiveness and Planning Office will offer Taskstream Annual Report Workshops through the month of June. Registration is required via the Workshop Registration System.

Please contact the Institutional Effectiveness and Planning Office, 878-3838, or Tiffany Fuzak with questions.

From the Chair of the College Senate Bylaws and Elections Committee
The College Senate caucus to elect the officers of the College Senate for the 2021–2022 academic year will be held Friday, May 14, from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. via Zoom. Invitations containing the Zoom meeting link will be sent to all of those voting members allowed to attend. This includes returning, reelected, and newly elected senators for 2021–2022. 

Candidates for all officer positions—Senate chair, Senate vice chair, Senate standing committee chairs—must be senators who will be in office for the 2021–2022 academic year. Candidates should be present at the caucus to announce their candidacy. Alternatively, an email indicating your interest in serving as a committee chair may be emailed to Ramona Santa Maria, chair of the bylaws and elections committee, by 11:00 a.m. Friday, May 14. If you are interested in chairing a standing committee and you are emailing your notice, you must specify which standing committee you are interested in chairing. If there is a need to run an election for a contested chair seat, one will be held expeditiously after the caucus.

From the Chair of the College Senate
The final meeting of the College Senate for the spring 2021 semester will be held Friday, May 14, at 2:00 p.m. via the videoconferencing platform Zoom.

Zoom meeting link
Meeting ID: 876 1123 5977
Passcode: 379389

The new OUCH! Newsletter is all about how to handle socially engineered phone scams.You may wish to share this with those you care about, and anyone who has information about you.

When issuing a student a non-passing grade, including an E, F, U, I, or N grade, please also report the student's last date of attendance when entering the grade online. This assists the Financial Aid Office in determining whether a student unofficially withdrew and whether the student is able to retain the aid that he or she received.

The last date of attendance is the last date the student participated in class, took an exam, handed in homework, or actively engaged in an online course. If assigning an I or N grade, the last date of attendance is the last date you met with the student to discuss progress in the course. If you have no record of the student's attending, do not enter a date. Instead, use the grade of EV, which indicates that the student never attended the course.

Questions regarding this policy or procedure should be referred to the Financial Aid Office, 878-4902. The grading guide (PDF, 162 KB) may also assist you.

The Buffalo State College community is saddened by the death of Charles R. Lefcourt, associate professor emeritus of English, who died May 4, 2021. Dr. Lefcourt joined the college in 1964 and retired in 1993. He is survived by his wife, Renata; two children; and three grandchildren. A graveside service will be held today, May 6, at 11:00 a.m. at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo. More information is available online.

The President’s Institutional Innovation Advisory Council invites the campus community to an open forum to learn more about the findings from the Campus Culture and Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Study that President Conway-Turner announced earlier this week. Please register for one of the open forums listed below.

Thursday, May 6, 12:30–1:30 p.m.
Friday, May 7, 9:00–10:00 a.m.
Tuesday, May 11, 3:00–4:00 p.m.

The open forums will allow faculty, staff, and administrators to ask questions about the findings and provide an overview of next steps in the process. Members of the campus community can also ask questions to identify how the findings can be leveraged for strategic planning efforts in their units. The Campus Culture and Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Study report is available online (employee log-on required).

Please join us for the next presentation in the Data Science and Analytics Spring 2021 Seminar Series, "The Power of AWS for Buffalo State College," presented by Tara Madhyastha, principal research scientist at AWS and affiliate faculty in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington; Dolica Gopisetty, AWS solutions architect; and Shane Kalil, AWS account manager, on Thursday, May 20, at 6:00 p.m. via Amazon Chime.

Talking Points

• The key tenets of the cloud
• Why academic institutions throughout the United States and internationally are moving workloads to the cloud and AWS
• Real-world case studies across higher education showing how researchers, scientists, professors, and students have unlocked the power of AWS to solve various challenges

Join the Amazon Chime meeting.
Meeting ID: 5627 52 6124