Graduate Student Association

To the UB student community,

At the University at Buffalo, there is nothing more important than the safety and well-being of our students.  As part of our commitment to maintaining a safe campus, the University has developed programming, policies, resources, and collaborative efforts to reduce the perpetration of sexual assault and to ensure that we address sexual assault reports in a fair, supportive, prompt and effective manner.  We know, however, that more can always be done.  I am asking for your help in assessing the UB campus climate in order to understand the extent to which students experience sexual assault at UB, and the effectiveness of our prevention and response efforts.

The University at Buffalo is one of five SUNY campuses that has been chosen to pilot the SUNY Sexual Violence Prevention (SVP) Campus Climate Survey this fall.  This survey is intended to gather information about the rate of incidents of sexual violence and knowledge of policies and resources available on campus.   The questionnaire takes about 20 minutes to complete.  Your participation is voluntary and you may choose to skip questions or stop responding at any point.

Your responses will be extremely helpful to our sexual assault prevention efforts.  Aggregate data from the survey will be available on UB’s websites, and we will use the results of the survey to identify areas where additional training, education, resources and assistance is needed.  We are committed to ensuring a safe, healthy, and nondiscriminatory environment for our students.

Your responses will also be strictly confidential and will be reported only in terms of groups of students rather than as individuals.  Because the survey seeks information to determine the extent to which sexual assault is underreported, some of the questions will ask about sexual and other personal information.  Some individuals might experience emotional discomfort while responding to this survey, and to assist in this regard, we have provided information about campus resources should you wish to talk to someone further.

UB Counseling Services:  (716) 645-2720

Wellness Education Services:  (716) 645-2837

Thank you for your honest feedback and responses. Your participation will help make our campus community a better place to live, work, and learn.

 To access the survey please click here. If the survey does not open automatically, please copy and paste the following link to your internet browser’s address bar:

http://studentvoice.com/p/?uuid=904917c2aa4141c1ad79fdca40577dc4

Sincerely,

Sharon Nolan-Weiss

Title IX Coordinator

Teach for India is part of the Teach for All movement and seeks to find students who are in their post-undergraduate years and are willing to serve as a Fellow for two years in a classroom in India. A large part of their work involves working to help students receive a quality education in a classroom in India. These Fellows do not have to have a strong teaching background. In fact a lot of people come from other backgrounds and interests such as engineering.

For more information, please visit http://apply.teachforindia.org/

The deadlines to apply are October 25th, December 13th, and February 7th. If you interested in this opportunity and would like to set up a personal meeting, or if you need help with your application, please contact Antara Majumdar: antarama@buffalo.edu or Avni Singhal avni.singhal@teachforindia.org.

The GSA is participating in Trick-Or-Eat, an annual food drive sponsored by the Office of Student Engagement for the Food Bank of WNY. Each year UB students dress up in their best Halloween costumes and “Trick-Or-Treat” for donations. We would love to see a great response from our North, South and Downtown campuses.  Donations can be made at the GSA offices anytime before October 31st at 2:00pm.

Any GSA member that donates to this cause will be entered into a drawing to win prizes such as VIP Distinguished Speaker Series tickets or GSA swag!

Preferred donations include the following: canned fruits and vegetables, canned chicken and tuna, cereal, dry whole grain pasta, canned or dried beans, peanut and other nut butters, baby food and formula, diapers and wipes, toothpaste and shampoo. All donations must be new and properly sealed.

SUNY SA Statement on Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Immediate Release: Sept. 10, 2016

Contact: Tyler McNeil, Tyler.McNeil@sunysa.org

Five months ago, the Student Assembly of the State University of New York passed with an overwhelming majority, a resolution calling for the State University of New York to recognize the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Today, we stand by that decision.

The State University of New York is an institution of higher education dedicated to the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Student Assembly of the State University of New York (SUNYSA) seeks a continued commitment to those values through the celebration and education of our students and communities about the rich history and culture of the Native Peoples whose ancestral homelands SUNY campuses now reside upon. In doing so, SUNYSA joins countless other institutions of higher education nation-wide in adopting and advocating for Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a day of recognition, celebration, and education of indigenous history and culture.

While this brief statement can only represent a limited perspective of the complex history and culture of Native Peoples, it reinforces the responsibility the State University of New York to consider where we stand within that complex history.

About the Student Assembly of the State University of New York

The Student Assembly of the State University of New York (SUNY SA) is an organization comprised of student leaders elected by their peers from across SUNY’s 64 campuses. Empowering students throughout the state, the SUNY SA is committed to student life and ensuring the representation of its members on the state and national level as well as throughout the SUNY system.

According to the most recent UB police report, there were twenty incidents of reported sexual and dating violence on our campus last year.

It’s On Us: The Student Assembly has partnered with It’s On Us, an organization which works to combat sexual assault and violence. Please go to sunysa.org/itsonus ASAP and click “take the pledge.” We want all of our SGA Presidents signed on to the pledge and need your help to do it. Once you’ve signed on, get your entire leadership team (including Senators and Executive Board Members) signed on as well. We set a goal of 10,000 signatures!

The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans is a merit-based graduate school fellowship for immigrants and children of immigrants who are 30 or younger as of the application deadline: November 1, 2016. Every year the program selects 30 Fellows, each of whom receives up to $90,000 over one to two years for full-time graduate study in any discipline or profession at a US graduate institution. Fellows also join an extraordinary community of past recipients that includes over 550 New Americans working at the tops of their respective fields. If born abroad, an applicant must be a naturalized citizen, a green card holder, or a DACA recipient. If born in the United States, an applicant’s parents must have been born abroad as non-US citizens. Applicants must be applying to graduate school or in the first two years of their graduate program as of the application deadline. More information and a link to the online application can be found at www.pdsoros.org.

The Office of Fellowships & Scholarships would be happy to assist you in applying for this fellowship.

Volume 7, Spring 2017

Chronika is an interdisciplinary, open access journal for graduate students studying the art and archaeology of the Mediterranean world. Chronika, like its parent organization the Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology (www.iema.buffalo.edu), encourages interdisciplinary dialogues and innovative approaches to the study of the past.

Call for Submissions

Chronika welcomes submissions from graduate students that address topics relevant to European and Mediterranean archaeology. Articles must be 3,000 to 4,000 words in length, should detail research at or above the Masters level, and may include up to ten images. To have your article considered for this year’s publication, please submit a 100 to 200 word abstract to chronika@buffalo.edu by Monday, October 31, 2016. You will be notified if your article is selected by November 7. The publication schedule will proceed as follows:

December 23     First draft of full article is due.

January 13        Article is returned to author with comments.

February 10     Revised article is due.

April 8             Chronika launches in print and online.

A hard copy is mailed to each author shortly after this time.

Thank you for your interest in Chronika, and we look forward to receiving your submission. Please direct any inquiries to chronika@buffalo.edu.

Britta Spaulding

Editor in Chief

Please visit Chronika on the web at www.chronikajournal.com