This Fall, the Experiential Learning Network is excited to offer our first Virtual Study Abroad trip, showing you this remarkable part of the world and introducing you to the places and people Dr. Huber, the instructor, has been working with for over ten years. The course will follow the same study abroad itinerary as the in-person trip and will feature: Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Musoma, Tarime, Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Moshi/Arusha, Zanzibar. By participating in virtual class “trips” and “meetings,” students will work on mentored group projects through the ELN Project Portal, collaborating with featured Tanzanian partners to support community development initiatives. Don’t delay! Email Dr. Huber to register for the class! Fall 2020 – PSY499 Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:35 – 10:50 a.m.
The UB Libraries Education Services Team has complied a guide about using the UB Libraries, for incoming students. This guide was created due to the fact that all orientations are online due to COVID-19. Please share with your students in the Honors College and with whomever else you think my benefit from it. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions!
The UB Libraries Education Services Team is ready and willing to assist your students with any research needs or help they may need. While we will come into your classrooms to instruct students face-to-face, with the fall semester not looking like it has in previous semesters, we can reach out to your students and faculty in a number of different ways. We can arrange for asynchronous or synchronous instruction via zoom or other applicable technology, create specific guides for specific courses that faculty and students can access at any time, provide links to online research roadmaps, and point them towards a multitude of other resources to guide their studies.
Expectations for the Course: Review and check the syllabus. Was it revised? What do you need to do? Make a list of required assignments, projects, homework and tests. If something is confusing you, ask your instructor for clarification.
Technical: Where will you be connecting? Where is the best Wi-Fi? Will you need a camera, microphone, etc.? Check with the libraries and other areas for support. Check UBIT website for technical updates. http://www.buffalo.edu/ubit.html. Notify your instructor if you are experiencing technical issues.
Dedicated Space: Designate a space where you can work uninterrupted. Make sure that it is an area where you can stay focused and not easily distracted. Check to make sure that your Wi-Fi connection is good. Make sure you’ve designated a space with a good academic atmosphere.
*We realize that some of you might not have a space you can identify in your homes that is conducive to academics, do the best you can. If a library is an option perhaps going there for a few hours a day to get some uninterrupted work done.
Make a Study Plan: Create a plan to succeed. Schedule your time for class and a time to study. Make “to do lists” and set time limits to work. Take large projects or assignments and break them down into small sections with your own due dates. Keep to a schedule by following the routine of your old schedule when classes were in person this allow you dedicated times for class. Remember to use the study success formula which states that for every one hour of class you need two hours of study outside of the classroom.
*Even though we are working remotely. We can help you create study plans and schedules to help keep you on track. Contact asktutoring@buffalo.edu
Check your Email and UBLearns: It is imperative that you check all communications modes often. You should be checking your email at least two times or more a day. Every day you should be logging onto UBLearns or whatever platform your course is using. You need to stay on top of your work so you are aware of any updates or changes.
*Yes! email has gotten overwhelming. Carve out time every day to review what you are sent, you don’t want to miss an important message or opportunity.
Ask for Help When Needed: If you are confused or unsure about your class, ASK FOR HELP!See your professor or TA during office hours. These hours could be virtual or in person. Create a group chat with other classmates in order to share questions and answers. Try academic support services such as tutoring or study groups. See the Tutoring & Academic Support Services website for our schedule or to make an appointment. https://advising.buffalo.edu/tutoring/index.php
Stay Motivated: It might be hard to stay motivated especially when your courses are all online. Keep a schedule, talk with other classmates and check in with your advisor. Review your academic goals and your life goals. Remember why you are in college.
What is participation and media in our digital age?
In “Participatory Media Art” students will focus on the history, theories, ethics, and aesthetics of participatory media art. Drawing from terms such as “social practice” or “community based art,” students will learn about participatory practices across media platforms. With a special emphasis on community engagement and design, students learn from a broad range of disciplines including sociology, history, critical theory, public health, media studies, and theatre. In doing so, we’ll explore how media can be participatory and interactive for social change. Through rigorous reading, writing, and discussion of academic articles and case studies, students will pose critical questions on participatory media art together. Topics explored include media representation, HIV/AIDS, incarceration, institutional critique, gender justice, and others. In addition, the course employs a practice-based component through workshops and in the creation of final participatory media projects, including a collective “syllabus take-over” in the last quarter of the course. Through multiple dimensions, students in “Participatory Media Art” learn about the possibilities of participation, community, and media critical for our digital age.
About the Professor
Margaret Rhee is a poet, scholar,and new media artist. Her participatory media projects includes The Kimchi Poetry Machine (Electronic Literature Collection) and From the Center, a decade long project of feminist digital storytelling and HIV/AIDS education in the San Francisco Jail. For this project, she was awarded the Chancellor’s Award for Public Service and a Honorable Mention for the Yamashita Prize for Social Change. As a poet and scholar, she has published widely. She received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in ethnic studies with a designated emphasis in new media studies. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Study at SUNY Buffalo where she co-leads Palah Light Lab, a creative space that fosters poetry, participation, and pedagogy through technology and equity.
UB’s Launch Summer Accelerator: June 15th – August 7th
Looking for an opportunity to use your summer with purpose while also competing for $10,000 in prizes? We’ve got you covered. Apply to the Launch Summer Accelerator and spend eight weeks ideating, creating and competing!
Accepted students and teams will spend 8 weeks accelerating their venture through weekly programming, workshops, mentorship and more. Apply by Sunday, June 7th for the chance network, collaborate with others students and use your summer with purpose. This is a virtual program and all undergraduate and graduate students are invited to apply as either a formed venture or as a free-agent, where they can work with a team. Application link & information: Bit.ly/LaunchSummer2020
Join the SUNY COIL Global Commons Program, July 6th to August 15th. As the COVID-19 pandemic impacts the entire world, we are reminded that global engagement, global coordination and global problem solving is more important than ever. Even with the extension of online instruction through summer and the cancellation of study abroad courses, SUNY is working to ensure global, hands-on learning is accessible to all students. We invite students from all SUNY campuses to participate in a new 6-week, 6-credit virtual program. You will join other SUNY students to take action on one of six selected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in partnership with a community based or non-governmental organization (CBO or NGO). International Perspectives on Poverty International Perspectives on Gender Equality International Perspectives on Climate Action International Perspectives on Sustainable Cities and Communities International Perspectives on Reducing Inequalities International Perspectives on Good Health and Well-being While gaining personal skills in storytelling, intercultural communications, and collaborative project development, the projects you complete with these organizations will give them materials they can use in their work, right now. Learn more online or fill out an interest form.
If you’ve been reading our newsletter, you know that the Arts Collaboratory has been offering cash micro-grants and honorariums to UB and Buffalo artists who contribute to our new Live Your Art (At Home) program.
This week, we’re asking you to spread the news! Encourage UB and Buffalo-based artists to SUBMIT their work at ubcfa.org/lya. Projects of any size are welcome, and collaboration is always encouraged. Then reach out to your fellow art lovers, and ask them to FOLLOW our Instagram @artscollaboratory. Every visit makes a difference!
Forward this newsletter, share our links, and help us keep Buffalo’s art community together in spirit.
Major support provided by M&T Bank. Additional support provided by Savarino Companies.
Introducing UB’s Master’s degree in Biomedical Informatics! The attached brochure provides an overview of the program and a description of each of the courses they offer.
What is at stake in choosing to be on the side of the Thing, that bit of the real at work in the body, seeking expression? In this paper, Shanna de la Torre proceeds from the premise that femininity is a work, a work at, in the words of Willy Apollon, articulating the drive within us with aesthetics. With the intention of drawing out some of the links among unconscious desire and the work of the Thing both in the body and at the level of the social, she will consider a set of examples drawn from art, film, and clinical case studies. Arguing that these examples give aesthetic expression to distinct moments in the kinds of problems a feminine subject may encounter in engaging in the work of femininity, she points to ways in which these examples risk taking the side of the Thing—rather than the side of repression—in engaging with questions germane to any subject of the drive. She further argues that these examples—which are, themselves, aesthetic expressions offered to the public—make a creation for others out of those sites of impasse, thereby potentially mobilizing others’ desire.
Dr. Shanna de la Torre is an alumna from the Cornell Romance Languages Studies PhD program and current practicing social worker in Minnesota. Her research explores the relationship between feminist, queer and psychoanalytic theories, and her writings have appeared in a variety of reputable journals such as differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies and The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. As part of this research she has published Sex for Structuralists: The Non-Oedipal Logics of Femininity and Psychosis.
If you wish to join us, please email me by Wednesday at 2 PM at fnegrete@buffalo.edu.
