Author: slfrank

Call for Candidates

On April 12 – 15, 2021 the following offices will be filled through a general election of graduate students at UB:

PRESIDENT

VICE PRESIDENT

TREASURER

The stipends for each of these positions is currently $14,500, but this amount may be increased as part of the GSA Board of Directors’ approved budget for 2021-2022 (which will be voted on at the April 7^th Board of Directors meeting).  Elected officers must be present and available to serve in the duties of their office from June 1, 2021 until May 31, 2022.

Any student enrolled in a department that is currently represented by GSA, who is in good academic standing, and has attended one Board of Directors meeting in the past twelve months prior to becoming a candidate and attends the February 3^rd and March 3^rd Board meetings shall be eligible to run for office.

*Please note that international students holding an assistantship or any other employment will be restricted by federal work regulations and may not be eligible to run for office under United States Law.*

Petition packets for candidacy are now available by email request and are due back to the Election Committee Chair by Friday, February 26, 2021 at 4:30pm.  Absolutely NO late submissions will be accepted.

All prospective candidates must attend a mandatory meeting with members of the Election Committee where the Election Rules and Regulations will be handed out and reviewed.  Meetings will be arranged between prospective candidates and the Election Committee to occur between Thursday, March 4, 2021 and Thursday, March 11, 2021.

Please contact the Election Committee Chair, Daniel Duran (dduran@buffalo.edu) to request a petition packet, or to inquire about the details of the application procedure and formalities.

The UB Educational Design Collaborative (EDC) has coordinated a series of workshops in response to topics departmental instructional designers, academic technologists, librarians, and faculty mentors frequently get asked about. Below is the schedule of workshop events information and links to register for each session.

Register to receive a ZOOM link to join the webinar and a link to add the event to your calendar.

This series is targeted to faculty, GA’s Adjuncts, and is open to anyone who wishes to attend.
If you register and can’t attend, you’ll receive notification when the recording is available.
Questions may be directed to ubedc@buffalo.edu

Course Design Basics 
January 14th, Noon-1pm (EST)
Jessica Kruger and Derek Farkas, School of Public Health and Health Professions
This brief workshop will help you to organize your courses for the spring semester. During this course, expect to walk away with tips and tricks on ensuring your course is easy to navigate for students and is organized using evidence-based practices. This course will discuss how to self-evaluate your course for continued course improvement.

Authentic Assessments 
January 15th, 10am-Noon (EST)
Jessica Kruger and Derek Farkas, School of Public Health and Health Professions
Want to adopt or create an authentic assessment for your course? This workshop is hands-on, working in teams to create an assignment that you can utilize next semester. By attending this workshop, faculty will walk away with assessments that can be implemented, strategies to reduce time grading, and the confidence to try this new assessment type.

Tracking Student Progress: Blackboard Analytics 
January 18th, Noon-1pm (EST)
Jessica Kruger and Derek Farkas, School of Public Health and Health Professions
Want to ensure that your students are accessing course content to ensure their success? This workshop discusses strategies to help you track students’ progress through Bb analytics to support student retention or serve as an early warning system. By attending this workshop faculty will learn about statistical tracking in UBlearns, adaptive release functions, and how to utilize these analytics to help keep your students on track.

Virtual Worlds for Virtual Times 
January 19th, 2pm-4 pm (EST)
Various Presenters from across the SUNY System
This 2-hour webinar highlights SUNY faculty and staff using virtual worlds and simulations to develop authentic learning opportunities. We will also discuss tools and platforms currently used and ones that are on the horizon that are appropriate for virtual exchange and learning in general. This event was initiated through a conversation within the COIL and VR groups on SUNY Workplace. Info about speakers and topics is located here: http://bit.ly/vr-worlds-sim

Creating Engaging Instructional Videos using Adobe Spark 
January 20th, 1pm-2pm (EST)
Steven Sturman, School of Social Work
Adobe Spark allows you to easily create instructional videos using images, text, voice overs, and music.  This workshop demonstrates how to use this free app to create engaging course videos or slideshows.  This app may also be useful for students to creatively respond to many project assignments.

Reusing Panopto Content from one Semester to Another 
January 21st, 1pm-2pm (EST)
Beth Fellendorf, UBIT
If you’ve already made Panopto recordings, we’ll go over how to share those recordings with a new group of students.

Portable Lightboard 
January 22nd, 1pm to 2pm (EST)
John Pfeffer, UBIT
This session provides information on how to create your own portable lightboard which you can use to write out equations or diagrams for live classes or recordings.  This session provides a list of materials and step-by-step instructions.

Streamlining Assessments 
January 25th, Noon-1pm (EST)
Jessica Kruger and Derek Farkas, School of Public Health and Health Professions
Want to reduce the amount of time you spend grading but still provide quality feedback for students? This workshop provides strategies to help you think of new ways to grade students’ assessments without adding hours to your grading. By attending this workshop, faculty will learn about creating and using existing rubrics and methods to break-up assignments to reduce your assessment load.

Encouraging Student Camera Use – Policies & Recommendations 
January 26th, Noon-1pm (EST)
Cynthia Tysick, UB Libraries
Tips and strategies to encourage students to use their cameras during synchronous sessions.

Streaming LIVE using Zoom, Panopto and Social Media 
January 27th, 1pm to 2pm (EST)
Beth Fellendorf, UBIT and Caryn Sobieski-VanDelinder, School of Public Health and Health Professions
This session covers using your favorite pandemic lifelines: Zoom, Panopto and social media to live-stream. This practice could be useful when working with very large groups and to reach and engage broader audiences everywhere!

Integrating UB Libraries Library Liaisons, Research Guides, and Roadmaps into Your Course
January 28th, 1pm to 2pm (EST)
Bryan Sajecki and Tiffany Walsh, UB Libraries      
The Library offers information resources for incorporation into your Blackboard course to provide up-to-date information to students in the virtual learning environment. This session helps you learn how to incorporate research guides, roadmaps, videos, databases, permalinks, research tools, and how to integrate discipline-specific information with your library liaison directly within a UBlearns course.

Engaging Students in Large Classes (faculty panel) 
January 29th, 1pm to 2pm (EST)
Jeanne Myers, School of Management and Jay Stockslader, College of Arts and Sciences
Faculty teaching large classes will share their first-hand experiences and strategies such as participant engagement, effective host controls, course design, pre-recording content, using chat assistants and more.

The UB Education Design Collaborative (EDC) consists of individuals from the university instructional support community who are dedicated to the advancement and growth of teaching and learning initiatives across UB. We would like to thank our presenters and the event planning committee from UBIT, UB Libraries, College of Arts and Sciences, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, School of Management, School of Nursing, School of Public Health and Health Professions, School of Social Work, the Center for Educational Innovation, and also faculty and staff from across the SUNY system.

To learn more about the EDC, or to join us, check out the Education Design Collaborative Website.

Cheryl Oyer, Co-Chair UBEDC
Steven Sturman, Co-Chair UBEDC

The UB Center for Geohazards Studies is pleased to announce a research grant opportunity for graduate students to support research in any discipline that is related to natural hazards.

All application materials must be received by  March 1st at 5:00 PM EST. Funds are available for projects to start on July 1, 2021

Eligible individuals must be enrolled in a graduate degree program at the University at Buffalo and be a member of the Center for GeoHazards Studies

Looking for any students interested in serving on a group that will work along side the Student Life committee of department and organizational leaders to help collaborate on ways to improve student engagement across campus.  The group will bring together student leaders from a variety of offices and student governments to determine why students aren’t interested in current programming being offered and what they actually might want. We will then take the findings of our conversations to the larger group.

If you are interested in participating, please fill out the form here and Matthew Taboni will be in touch.

The GSA Winter Break Schedule will be as follows:

• GSA open remotely through Monday, December 14^th
• GSA closed Tuesday, December 15^th – Monday, January 4^th
• GSA on Summer Hours Monday, January 4^th – Friday, January 29^th
  • Open remotely Monday – Thursday 8:30am – 4:00pm, closed on Fridays
• GSA closed Monday, January 18^th for MLK Jr. Day (University Closed)
• Regular Business Hours resume Monday, February 1^st with the start of the Spring semester

Dear Member,

By now, you must have heard about the successful campaign at Stony Brook University against fees for graduate student employees. We want the same for our campus, and for UB graduate employees to not have to pay fees to be able to work here. If graduate student fees are eliminated at UB, it could potentially mean thousands of dollars in savings for each of us every year.

Therefore, we would like you to take 2 minutes of your time to fill out the UB GSEU Fees Survey. With your support and the information you provide, we will be able to make a better case in front of the administration to bring an end to graduate student fees at UB.

The MyUB Development Team is looking for current UB students to share feedback on a new platform: MyUB Beta. 

They are hoping to gather real student feedback to optimize the experience for all students using MyUB. Their feedback will be used to help improve the new platform before it’s released to all students. Would you be willing to share this information with the graduate students?

To participate in this limited pilot project, they should be:

• • A currently enrolled UB student that uses or has used MyUB
  • Willing to use the MyUB Beta (for the balance of the semester)
  • Willing to share their feedback on the new MyUB Beta

A limited number of students will be selected for this pilot. To register, please go to: https://buffalo.edu/ubit/myub-beta

Good fellow student leaders,

SUNY Board of Trustees will be holding a virtual public hearing to discuss  “University Issues”. There has not been a more important time than now to shake the table, hold SUNY and the BOT accountable to the students. We need your voices at the table, now more than ever. Here are some important information for you all about the hearing:

WHY IS THIS HEARING IMPORTANT:

During this pandemic when students are facing financial hardships, the Board of Trustees is looking to raise tuition, which may be up to $1,000. SUNY should not be unjustly placing the financial struggles of the institution on students’ backs and must seek state support instead, as a public university system.

This hearing is an opportunity for students to hold the Board of Trustees accountable to the students, and raise the alarm on the insurmountable hardships we have been facing: mental health, international student concerns racial justice, accessibility services, and difficulties encountered with online learning.

They are only giving each student 3 minutes to speak, but that 3 minutes can turn into 300 minutes with a massive student movement of diverse voices that will shake the table. Our time is NOW. 

This is THE MOST IMPORTANT opportunity to stop tuition increase and make our voices heard. This is our moment to make sure SUNY places students, first!

Hearing Date:

November 17, 3PM via zoom.

Due Date to Submit Registration to SUNY SA:

Monday, November 9, by 9PM. Via this >>>LINK<<<

Due Date to Submit Registration to Board of Trustees:

Tuesday, November 10, by 3PM

IMPORTANT: Each student that will be at the hearing, must email the Board of Trustees from their own email to “request” to be at the hearing. SUNY SA will send all students who have registered with us (by MON 9PM) a “template email”, to send to the Board of Trustees to confirm their attendance (before TUE 3PM), as well as the email address, this is why it’s important to register with us ASAP.

What can you do:

1) Push members of your cabinet and senate to attend, as student representatives this is their opportunity to represent their constituents at the most important table of SUNY

2) Gather coalitions from student organization presidents at multicultural organizations

3) REMEMBER: register with SUNY SA by Mon, 9PM, and keep an eye out for SA’s. email to register with the Board of Trustees by Tuesday 3PM.

NOTE:

We will meet as a group before Nov 17 hearing to discuss the testimonials.

From the bottom of my heart thank you all for being willing to fight this fight with us. Only together, we can.

Yours in advocacy and solidarity,

Eusebio Omar van Reenen
Vice President
He/Him
Student Assembly of the State University of New York
State University Plaza – Albany, NY 12246
Your Voice. Your Student Assembly.

Dear UB Student,

Please take a few minutes to complete this short, anonymous survey: Latinx, Latin American, Caribbean Student Experience.  We’re looking to build the foundations for a program and center for Caribbean, Latin American, and Latinx studies and students. We would very much appreciate your insights regarding your experience as a Latinx student on campus, and thoughts as to what you’d like or need to support your success, and that of Latinx communities at UB.

Hello!

My name is Brenna Butler, and I am a doctoral student inviting you to participate in a research study about the writing needs of international doctoral students (IDSs) whose strongest language is not English who are currently enrolled at institutions across the United States. This research study consists of a brief online survey asking about your writing needs during your PhD program that should take you between 15-20 minutes to complete. The data from this survey will be shared with higher education individuals that work with IDSs who make decisions regarding graduate student resources and policies.

There are minimal risks to this study and responses will be kept completely confidential by the researchers. All potential participants can enter a raffle for a chance to receive one of 20 books on scholarly writing (“The Dissertation Journey” by Carol Roberts or “Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks” by Wendy Laura Belchner), or one of 10 $15 Amazon gift cards. All potential participants can receive a scholarly writing guide that includes videos and a handout with resources developed by the researchers that provide tips on improving your scholarly writing skills.

Your participation is voluntary. If you wish to participate in this study, and/or enter the raffle for a scholarly book or gift card, and/or receive the writing guide, please click on the link below:

https://tiny.utk.edu/IDS

Do you know of an international doctoral student that might be interested in participating? Please feel free to pass this survey link along to them!

Thank you for your time!