Author: slfrank

We are pleased to announce that the UB Student Union Ticket Office is back up and running as normal. You may begin to send in your event/ticket requests as you have done in the past.

Over the last month, UB student governments representatives have worked with the Ticket Office and the UB Information Security Office to ensure the software system that the Ticket Office uses has been properly secured and that all possible threats have been addressed.  The recent AudienceView security breach was caused by an employee with credentials who entered a malicious code into the system. This employee no longer works at AudienceView and Mandiant (a third-party remediation vendor) has confirmed that the code is no longer running.

According to the UB Information Security Office, there is little AudienceView could have done in ways of an insider threat and that a rouge employee can introduce this issue. We are happy to know that AudienceView did not have a vulnerability that was exploited or an unpatched system that was taken advantage of.  Because of this, we feel as though there is no valid technical reason not to continue to move forward with the AudienceView software at this time.

I would like to thank you all for your patience and understanding during this incident to ensure that all your personal information was safe and secure.

The URL for the full background is as follows: https://www.buffalo.edu/studentlife/who-we-are/announcements.host.html/content/shared/www/studentlife/gateway-wide-content/announcements/current/su-ticket-office-advisory.detail.html

John Kisker
Interim Director
Student Unions
Student Life, University at Buffalo
228 Student Union  /  (716) 645-3077
https://www.buffalo.edu/studentlife/who-we-are/departments/student-unions.html

Registration is now OPEN for UB’s May 4^th Inclusive Excellence Summit!

Highlights of this FREE summit include:

• A thought-provoking keynote: “Confronting Ourselves: Promoting Diversity, Cultural Competence, and Inclusive Excellence,” delivered by nationally renowned scholar Dr. Derek Greenfield.
• Dynamic workshops and panels that spotlight practices, research, and initiatives across the university that support belonging, diversity and inclusion, presented by UB students, staff, and faculty.

Visit the Office of Inclusive Excellence website to learn more about the summit and register TODAY! The registration deadline is April 21.

UB’s Inclusive Excellence Summit is sponsored by the Office of Inclusive Excellence, the LGBTQ Faculty Staff Association, the Minority Faculty and Staff Association (MFSA), and the Professional Staff Senate Inclusion and Diversity Committee. Please contact the Office of Inclusive Excellence at vpix@buffalo.edu or 716.645.6200 with any questions.

We are pleased to inform you that the University at Buffalo’s Institutional Membership with the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD) has been renewed! The NCFDD is a nationally recognized, independent organization that provides online career development and mentoring resources for faculty, post-docs, and graduate students. For more information, see UB’s NCFDD webpage.

The NCFDD provides a variety of virtual programs and resources including:

• Weekly Monday Motivator        
• Monthly Core Curriculum Webinars
• Monthly Guest Expert Webinars
• Access to Multi-Week Courses
• Access to Dissertation Success Curriculum for graduate students
• Private Discussion Forum for peer-mentoring, problem-solving, & moderated writing challenges
• Monthly accountability buddy matches
• Access to 14-Day Writing Challenges
• Access to the Member Library that includes past webinar materials, referrals, and readings.

To claim your free Institutional Membership, complete the following steps:

1. Go to http://www.facultydiversity.org/join
2. Choose University at Buffalo from the drop-down menu.
3. Select “Activate my Membership”.
4. Complete the registration form using your institutional email address (@buffalo.edu).
5. Go to your UB email to find a confirmation/welcome email. Click “Activate Account” in the email.

If you have questions about the membership, please contact the Office of Inclusive Excellence (vpix@buffalo.edu). If you have any technical questions, please email NCFDD at Membership@FacultyDiversity.org.

Thank you to those who were able to attend the III’s launch event on Wednesday!

We are excited to announce our inaugural healthcare innovation speaker series, which will take place on March 28 and March 29 from 6:00-7:00pm (with dinner and optional networking to follow). The location of the events will be sent to registrants next week.

• On Tuesday we will be joined by our lead faculty advisor Dr. Kenneth Snyder, an associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Chief Physician Quality Officer at Kaleida Health, as well as Dr. Peter Winkelstein, Executive Director at the Institute for Healthcare Informatics and Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Kaleida Health.
• On Wednesday we will hear from the CEO of Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Matt Enstice, and Dr. Ryan Hess, a PGY-5 Neurosurgery Resident at UB and Duke MBA Candidate.

Please sign-up here (as opposed to the links in the fliers).

We hope you will join us to hear from these amazing thought leaders about the hottest topics in medical innovation! Additionally, students who attend both talks will be shortlisted to participate in projects with the III, following a structured “Bench to Bedside” curriculum. There will also be other special opportunities such as site visits to the futuristic JI.

Please reach out directly if you have any questions or if you’d like a recording of our launch event on Wednesday.

Best wishes,

III Leadership

We’re excited to announce that the launch event for the Institute of Ideation & Innovation (III) will be taking place on March 22 at 6PM in The Jacobs School room 2220 A with free food included. Room location is subject to change based on student interest.

Join us to become a part of III’s inaugural pilot program. Attendance at our events will provide you close access to:

• Our mentorship pool (check out the attached slide!) with whom you could work closely with and grow your idea
• If you don’t have an idea yet — A curated list of clinical needs as produced by our own residents/trainees as well as Sling Health/The American Medical Association
• Tools to launch an interdisciplinary organization/initiative/startup
• Exciting opportunities, such as site visits to The Jacobs Institute and other exclusive local programming

Please sign-up here
(Although we are having these events in-person to foster a sense of community, we’ll be sharing a zoom link to those students who are on Spring break/have another conflict).

We hope you’ll join us at this event, and stay tuned as we announce the rest of our didactic series, tentatively scheduled for a few days after our launch event. Please reach out to gbocobo@buffalo.edu with any questions in the meantime.

Best wishes,
III Leadership

The University at Buffalo Graduate Student Association (GSA) stands in solidarity with transgender students and other members of the LGBTQIA+ community at UB. While we vehemently support students’ right to a freedom of speech, we strongly condemn the hateful views of Mr. Knowles and the inflammatory rhetoric he will bring to campus. All students deserve to be safe on campus, regardless of gender identity, and we question the University’s commitment to the safety of marginalized groups on campus. We are once again disappointed with the University’s decision to continually give a platform to speakers who will cause harm to members of the university community.

We call on President Tripathi and other University administrators to ban the targeted harassment and pervasively hostile environments created by giving space to speakers like Mr. Knowles (and others in the past such as Allen West and Ben Shapiro). We expect the University to help create diverse dialogue and spaces without allowing members of our community to be targeted.

We stand in solidarity with transgender students and members of the LGBTQIA+ students at the University at Buffalo, as well as any other members of historically marginalized student groups on campus. Students, faculty and staff have a right to learn and to work in an environment that is free from transphobia and other forms of bigotry.

J Coley, President
Jennifer Schechter, Vice President
Joshua Joseph, Treasurer

If you purchased tickets online from the Student Union Ticket Office between August 2022 and February 2023, your credit/debit card information may have been compromised.  Online ticket services are currently unavailable due to a third-party data breach.

 Learn more:  https://www.buffalo.edu/studentlife/who-we-are/announcements.host.html/content/shared/www/studentlife/gateway-wide-content/announcements/current/su-ticket-office-advisory.detail.html

 Advisory: Student Union Ticket Office

 March 3, 2023

As you may know, the third-party vendor, AudienceView, used by our Student Government Associations to sell tickets through the Student Unions Ticket Office (221 Student Union) experienced a security breach last week, potentially compromising the personal information of customers, including credit card numbers and billing addresses. This breach has affected a number of other colleges and universities that use AudienceView as a vendor. It should also be noted that customers who bought tickets through the Center for the Arts have not been impacted by this breach, as originally believed.

The vendor is in the process of issuing emails to those potentially impacted; please watch your email for the subject line: Notice of Security Incident, from Campus Student Data.

While the vendor informed the university the breach was limited to those who purchased between Feb. 17 and Feb. 21, our IT Information Security Team has investigated further and believes the problem could be more widespread. Some UB students who made purchases outside that period of time have reported unauthorized transactions on their accounts.

As a precaution, we are asking all customers who made online purchases through the ticket office since the start of the academic year monitor their credit or bank statements. If you believe you have been the victim of fraud, please reach out to your financial institution immediately to report your concerns:

• Credit cards: please reach out to the credit card provider or
• Debit cards: please reach out to the bank that issued your card.

In both instances, please ALSO reach out to AudienceView to notify them directly by email at privacy.audienceview@audienceview.com.

 The vendor will be offering free credit-monitoring services for customers potentially impacted so it’s important that you report issues immediately.

In the meantime, officials with the university and student government are reaching out to representatives of AudienceView to determine their next steps for addressing the compromised data and financial loss some students have already incurred.

Out of an abundance of caution,  AudienceView has disabled ticketing services until they can determine if the security risk has been eliminated. UB is working with student governments on a temporary solution so students can continue utilizing the ticket office in support of their programs and events. Service with the vendor will not resume until the Student Governments Associations are satisfied with their remediation success.

We will keep you informed of further developments as more details become available on the following webpage:

https://www.buffalo.edu/studentlife/who-we-are/announcements.host.html/content/shared/www/studentlife/gateway-wide-content/announcements/current/su-ticket-office-advisory.detail.html

Your student governments,

Undergraduate Student Association (SA)
Graduate Student Association (GSA)
Medical Student Polity (MSP)
American Student Dental Association (ASDA)
School of Pharmacy Student Association (SPSA)
Student Bar Association (SBA)
Graduate Management Association (GMA)

Are you developing new infrastructures? Tackling environmental issues? Turning ecosystems into art? Researching new ways to cure disease? Studying the history of video games, dance or music? Identifying racial disparities? Looking at food relationships? Building robots?

The Art of Research competition celebrates the extraordinary research of University at Buffalo graduate students and postdoctoral scholars through a showcase of original images highlighting the inherent beauty in research.

This competition provides a unique opportunity for you (or your research team if a group submission) to convey your work through the images you capture. From photographs, illustrations, data plots, art, poetry, 3-D renderings, mathematical visualizations, maps, microscope photographs, etc. You can submit anything produced in the course of performing your research.

Compete for prize money, discuss your research with others and get recognized at a celebratory event on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, from 6-8 p.m., at the Buffalo Museum of Science, where winners will be announced and your photo will be on display.

For more information, visit the Art of Research competition webpage. The deadline to submit is Wednesday, March 1, at 5 p.m.