[Academic-Affairs] AA Monthly Newsletter August 20, 2024 - Hello and Welcome Back to Fall Semester

Tue Aug 20 18:00:14 UTC 2024

TO: Academic Affairs Faculty and Staff

From: Marcus Tye, Provost & SVPAA

Re: AA Monthly Newsletter August 20, 2024 - Hello and Welcome Back to Fall
Semester

I hope faculty who have been away for the summer working on scholarship and
other activities are returning rested. As I write this I peer out from the
8th floor perch of Kehoe as a new Cardinal and admire the spires of
Plattsburgh to the east and to the south the forest and Saranac River. I’d
like to thank the SUNY Plattsburgh Provost search committee, community and
President Enyedi for the great privilege to serve as your Provost and
SVPAA, and the opportunity this affords to serve our students, faculty,
staff and the North Country and beyond in our mission. It’s been a
whirlwind since we closed on a home and moved to the North Country from
Brooklyn the last week of July, and my official start on August 1. I’ve
been incredibly grateful for the warm welcome everyone has extended to me
and to my spouse, and it’s heartening to see and hear the dedication
everyone at SUNY Plattsburgh has to our mission and commitment to our
students.

As I learn our community’s preferred frequency of communications from the
provost, I’m going to try a monthly Academic Affairs newsletter in Fall and
Spring to highlight just a few of the accomplishments within Academic
Affairs, as well as important announcements, to read at your convenience,
without adding too many emails to your queue. If you have any suggestions
for items to be included, please forward them to Sue Bartlett or your dean
by the first of each month, there will only be space for a few exemplars
from the many accomplishments of our faculty, students and staff, and with
the help of the deans I’d like to go a bit in depth to illustrate the
teamwork and time that goes behind successes.

STUDENT AND RECENT ALUMNI RECOGNITION, ACCOMPLISHMENTS (a small subset)

Kayler Grizzle (Marketing and Entrepreneurship) and Zachary Bushey
(Marketing) opened KAY’Z in July, 2024 on Clinton Street in Plattsburgh.
They serve boba, coffee, and smoothie bowls!

Keigo Kawai was asked by Tony Maglione, Regional Controller at Upstone
Materials in Plattsburgh to join him for a conference in Cincinnati, OH to
make a presentation attended by more than 100 professionals, Keigo traveled
to Cincinnati for an internship presentation with Tony and the other
interns. He presented in front of about 100 people from various companies.
Here is Keigo’s statement about his experience: “During the presentation, I
spoke about the projects I've been working on, what I have learned over the
past couple of months from both technical and non-technical perspectives,
and how I plan to apply these experiences to my future career. After the
presentation, I received many compliments from various people, and I was
especially honored to have conversations with their CFO and Vice President
of Finance. During these conversations, I received a lot of positive
feedback, which boosted my confidence and further fueled my eagerness to
work as a professional accountant.”

Lilian Gunderson, (Environmental Studies, ‘24), has moved to Germany to
work with a national environmental center in Europe.

FACULTY & PROGRAM / DEPT. RECOGNITION, GRANTS AWARDED (a small subset)

Congratulations to Co-Chairs of Chemistry and Biochemistry Dr. Karina
Ckless (PI) & Dr. Rajesh Sunasee (co-PI) on their successful NSF grant, RUI:
Exploring Mechanisms of Immunomodulation of Functionalized Cellulose
Nanomaterial: A Comprehensive Interdisciplinary Approach, which received
full funding of $468,731 in a highly competitive process. Grant writing can
be a daunting task for academics, and success at this level is a many-years
progression; I hope to explore ways for Academic Affairs to extend support
for externally funded scholarship and research. For the benefit of other
faculty, a brief history that I have learned: Dr. Ckless and Dr. Sunasee
have combined their areas of expertise to secure extramural funding for
their interdisciplinary research activities for several years. Dr. Ckless’
seniority played an important role in initiating this process. Dr. Ckless
and Dr Sunasee have collaborated on multiple smaller projects to build the
foundation of a major research proposal. After a couple of rejected grant
proposals, in 2017, they secured a major NSF-RUI grant of $329,997 to fund
their project on designing and testing nanocellulose-based adjuvants to
improve the efficiency of vaccines. They continued to seek funding from
both NSF and NIH and despite several grants being denied, they never gave
up in trying. In 2024, their efforts were rewarded by securing their second
major NSF-RUI grant to further gain insights into their interdisciplinary
research works on vaccine adjuvants.

Assistant Professor Sara Schaff was recognized with a 2024 NYSCA/NYFA
Artist Fellowship in Fiction. Schaff is the author of the story collections The
Invention of Love (Split/Lip Press 2020) and Say Something Nice About Me
<http://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9780988735583/say-something-nice-about-me.aspx>
(Augury Books 2016), a CLMP Firecracker Award Finalist in fiction, and a
2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist for short fiction. Her
writing has appeared in Catapult
<https://catapult.co/stories/sara-schaff-interview-with-artist-thuy-van-vu>,
Kenyon Review Online
<https://kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2020-mayjune/selections/sara-schaff-342846/>,
The Missouri Review,
<https://www.missourireview.com/west-lake-by-sara-schaff/>Yale Review Online
<https://yalereview.yale.edu/what-we-leave>, Michigan Quarterly Review,
LitHub
<https://lithub.com/when-your-characters-live-inside-your-childhood-home/>,
and elsewhere. Schaff is also executive editor at the Saranac Review. The
NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship makes unrestricted cash grants of $8,000 to
New York State-based artists working in 15 disciplines, recognizing five
disciplines per year on a triennial basis. This program is administered by
New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), with leadership support from the
New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), please click here for the full
announcement <https://bit.ly/NYFAFellows2024>.

STAFF RECOGNITION / ACCOMPLISHMENTS (a small subset)

We are happy to share that faculty member and Associate Professor Dr. Kelly
Theisen continues as Interim Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence
this academic year through the end of Spring 2025. AA looks forward to a
search for a permanent director to be underway in Fall semester with an
anticipated Fall 2025 start with broad participation from faculty and
staff, I will be working in September with Provost’s cabinet on crafting a
position description that supports our current portfolio of programs as
well as future growth in graduate and online education.

Over the past year, ITS has been diligently rewriting approximately 1,000
custom Banner SQR programs and processes in preparation for a mandatory
upgrade to our entire Banner technology stack, scheduled for Fall 2024.
These back-end programs are essential to the university's operations and
are integral to nearly every area on campus. With significant effort and
careful prioritization of other campus projects, this endeavor is now
nearing completion. Once finished, the rewrites and the technology stack
upgrades will ensure seamless business continuity and enhance our ability
to process future updates for critical student services such as financial
aid, registration, and more.

In addition to this major project, ITS has upgraded several teaching
spaces. Four classrooms in Sibley have been equipped with new Hyflex
technology and furniture, and new classroom technology training videos have
been developed. Many other areas have also received tech enhancements as
part of our ongoing sustainability planning.

We are also pleased to announce that live TV streaming is now available in
numerous common areas, including 12 residence halls, the college fitness
center, Angell College Center, Ausable Hall, and Feinberg Library.

ANNOUNCEMENTS / POLICY UPDATES FROM AA TEAM

Black Solidarity Day (BSD) this year is November 4, 2024, with “Be the
Change You Wish to See” as the theme chosen by Black Onyx. The Office of
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and I, along with the Faculty Senate Chair
Dr. Haina, encourage you to incorporate that day into your syllabus or work
schedule and for faculty to consider reassigning your classes to
participate in the event, as well as all faculty, non-teaching faculty and
staff in AA to participate. A reminder that according to the policy adopted
in Fall 2023 by the Faculty Senate, that BSD must be accommodated on your
syllabus, and, there should be no attendance or stakes assignments that
day. More info here
<https://www.plattsburgh.edu/plattslife/diversity/teach-in.html> including
links for the proposal form, student-led presentations, co-facilitated and
collaborative session proposals are welcomed, proposals due Friday,
September 30, and on the origins of BSD here
<https://www.aaihs.org/dr-carlos-e-russell-and-the-origins-of-black-solidarity-day/>.
Last year’s presentations’ and topics (on the theme of Social Justice
Teach-in) are here
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yl_tmMCr20tsNKEmHw3yLptSs4y3QRCmn3gaa0peIuQ/edit?gid=16208043#gid=16208043>
.

Student supports. Excellent curriculum and superb faculty are critical but
sometimes not sufficient for student success, and with student success we
all thrive. Belongingness and student support are best practices that we
all strive for, and the faculty and classes are the places where students
have by far the most contact with our institution. Working with Dr. Allison
Heard in ODEI and others, we created a folder with essential resources for
students
<https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12al17C9u3o1lVgBXkI4M-_YsL7M0h4Yk?usp=drive_link>:
they include syllabus statements that SUNY mandates. The folder also
includes resources that I’d like to personally encourage all faculty to
direct students to, whether you include a link to this folder on your
syllabus, in Brightspace, or copy all the documents to your course shells.
These include affirmations of support for religious diversity and
accommodating student observances of religious holidays, fostering
inclusion and civic discourse for all students in times that may be
contentious, and resources for students who may be facing food insecurity
or other basic needs.

I’d also like to personally encourage every faculty person to ensure they
have a course shell in our Brightspace LMS for each class, and your
syllabus posted, even if you are not going to use other LMS resources. This
is a best practice for accessibility and access to students. I remember my
own first semester as an UG in Fall 1985 when I left my physics book in the
library and lost it and the syllabus right before the final. I don’t recall
the grade I got, but still remember the loss of the text because I had just
had it autographed by Carl Sagan (he looked at me strangely as it was not
his book, but I didn’t have anything else on me when he came to campus and
I realized at the event that students could talk to him after his speech).
The next semester I changed my major to psychology (make of that what you
will). I offer this humble recollection in the sincere hope that all our
faculty will make appropriate resources available online for our students
regardless of your discipline. This is a small but important step to
facilitate our shared goal of helping our students succeed.

New regulations recently released by the US DOE on Title IX and new
guidelines from SUNY Administration on Title VI will mean important new
mandatory trainings for all faculty and staff, more to come from our
colleagues in HRS.

A FEW IMPORTANT DEADLINES IN NEXT 2 MONTHS

Nominations for distinguished faculty ranks are due to Provost’s Office by
Friday, September 9. Click here
<https://www.plattsburgh.edu/about/offices-divisions/academic-affairs/provost/professional-development/distinguished.html>
to learn more and to nominate a colleague.

Sabbatical applications for 2025-2026 due by October 11 in Watermark. Click
here
<https://www.plattsburgh.edu/about/offices-divisions/academic-affairs/provost/professional-development/sabbaticals.html>
to learn more. Contact Provost’s Office (withrogb at plattsburgh.edu) to apply
in Watermark.

I’d like to encourage faculty and staff to participate in the Alumni in the
Classroom Experience program run by Institutional Advancement. The program
provides grants for faculty - and staff - to bring alumni back to campus to
share their experiences and perspectives with students.  It is intended to
support student success, particularly for career prep, and has the added
benefit of building stronger relationships with key alumni. It was
developed initially to be in-person, but many ACE’s connect with students
virtually. The grants are micro-grants to support things like luncheons or
mixers for students to meet the ACE and/or very modest stipend for travel
expenses (for younger alumni). The grant application is here
<https://alumni.plattsburgh.edu/s/1603/bp19/interior.aspx?sid=1603&gid=1&pgid=1479#gsc.tab=0>
and runs on a rolling basis, at least 2 weeks before alumni are invited to
the classroom. Please use the link even if no funding is required. Paul
Leduc, Associate Director of Alumni Relations, is the liaison for the
program.
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