Welcome back to another semester at UB! On Thursday, February 25th at 8:00pm EST, Honors Student Council will be hosting a Game Night over Zoom. We are super excited to hang out with all of you and we will have many games to choose from! Please make sure to sign up on the google sheet at this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11mM2wubExsfm4SWhtlh_PwMjVuxbtHOkopM6cg7QZ5o/edit?usp=sharing .
We are beginning a tutoring program with high school students from Buffalo Public Schools, and as such, we are seeking undergraduate-level tutors, particularly those in math and science.
Tutoring will be held Monday-Thursday between 2-5 p.m. We are asking that those who are interested commit to at least two afternoons per week.
Ideally, we are looking for tutors who could qualify for a Work Study program; that would allow them to be paid for their time. Otherwise, the tutors would need to work on a volunteer basis.
You can apply on Handshake and can certainly reach out to me directly with any questions.
Thank you for your consideration and help with this matter!
I hope that each of you are well and finding connection, support, and stimulation, in spite of the unprecedented circumstances affecting us all this fall. I have happy news to share.
The UB Center for Diversity Innovation Distinguished Visiting Scholars (DVS) faculty cohort has arrived in Buffalo for the 2020-21 academic year. Each member of the cohort will engage with UB’s students, faculty and throughout the fall and spring semesters. Programs with the Scholars, which will be open to all members of our community, will include public talks, art exhibitions, book clubs and film viewings, class visits, workshops, opportunities to chat on ZOOM, and various celebrations throughout the year. (Please check out www.buffalo.edu/cdi for ongoing posting of events and use the “contact us” form to add yourself to the email list for notifications.)
The breadth of the Scholars’ work and interests—anti-racist pedagogy; artistic depictions of migration; writing as a means to promote social justice; the empirical examination of different forms of racial inequity such as in health outcomes, policing and incarceration; contemporary Kenyan political history; women’s roles in historic rebellions; race and representation in romanticism; the influence of Black girls and women in shaping educational outcomes; the mapping of Indigenous communities and study of settler-colonialism—creates points of intersection with students, faculty and staff across all departments and units and the hope that members of the entire UB community will participate in Scholar events.
SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES TO CONNECT with THE SCHOLARS through MENTORING CIRCLES:
In addition to all of these larger, university-wide and departmental/program-level opportunities to meet the Scholars via class visits or other activities, a special component of this visiting scholar program is that each Scholar will lead two mentoring circles—one for 10 graduate and another for 10 undergraduate students.
These circles will enable students to have meaningful, small group interaction with the Scholars (even if that interaction is via ZOOM in the near-term) and meet other students with whom friendships can be formed and academic, personal and professional support exchanged, and a sense of community developed. Importantly, students in the circles will play a key role in welcoming the Distinguished Visiting Scholars to UB and Buffalo.
The group activities within the mentoring circles will vary—selected by Scholars in conjunction with students in the circles—but will enable you to meet with other students as well as the Scholars to have discussions about your experiences, interests, and goals.
ALL UB undergraduate and graduate students are eligible to participate. Because the circles must be limited in size to permit these small group interactions, students must express interest through a brief survey and statement.
The process is not time-consuming and this not a graded assignment. J The Scholars will be interested in learning about you in order to select students as part of their circles. And do remember that these circles will be only one of many means for you to “meet” and learn with the Scholars throughout the year. There will be many other opportunities.
I hope you will consider completing the survey and submitting a short statement indicating your interest. If you have questions, do not hesitate to consult a faculty member in your department/program (particularly the Director of Undergraduate or Graduate Studies) or others, as well as me: ub-cdi-scholars@buffalo.edu with your questions. (NOTE: The survey has been tested and does meet accessibility standards, but please reach out to accessibility services or to the Center, if you need assistance.)
DEADLINE TO SUBMIT YOUR INTEREST IN PARTICIPATING: Sunday, October 4th at 5 pm.
(Notification of selection by: October 11th.)
We all hope you will read about the Scholars on the Center website and consider being a part of this program which we think will greatly benefit you and be part of making each Scholar’s year at UB fun and memorable!
The Honors College is aware of the constraints that the Covid 19 pandemic has placed on some experiential learning opportunities many of you had hoped to complete as part of your Honors College Curriculum requirements.
In order to allow for more flexibility, we are removing the benchmarks previously in place (see highlighted text below) which limited the maximum credits per category to 9 credits and required 3 credits from non-coursework categories. Instead, students will need to complete experiences from a minimum of two categories listed. These changes are effective immediately.
Honors Experiences
In addition to Honors Colloquium and an Honors Seminar completed during your freshman year, prior to graduation students will select and complete a minimum of 16 credit hours of Honors Experiences from the following list:
Undergraduate Research*
Independent Study*
Internship or Practicum*
Study Abroad*
Undergraduate Supervised Teaching*
Accepted Honors Coursework
Graduate Coursework
Departmental Honors Thesis or Project*
Contract Honors Coursework
Honors Experience Petition
Additional Honors Seminar
Service Learning Coursework*
* Denotes non-coursework category
Benchmarks
You are allowed to complete a maximum of 9 credit hours per category. – this limit will be removed immediately
At least 3 credits must come from non-coursework categories, denoted with *. – this requirement will be removed immediately
Experiences must be completed from at least two of the above categories. – this requirement will be added immediately
Please make sure to adjust your Honors experiences plans as needed, and consult your Honors College advisor if you need assistance.
Honors College message about new
2020 S/U grading policy:
The Honors College will not
require students to receive or recover letter grades in order to meet Honors
College GPA eligibility requirements (3.3 overall undergraduate UB GPA freshman
year; 3.5 overall undergraduate UB GPA sophomore year through graduation). At
the conclusion of the spring 2020 semester we will evaluate all Honors students
based on their overall undergraduate UB GPA. At this time will be very mindful
of the unprecedented situation and its potential impact on students’ academic
performance.
If you are concerned about
grades or need support, particularly during this difficult time, please contact
your Honors College advisor; we are available and more than willing to help.
Here is a website with more
details about the new 2020 S/U grading policy and other important
student-related information. It is updated regularly, so please bookmark the
site and refer to it often: https://www.buffalo.edu/academicaffairs/academic-resources.html
Join us for a special Sip & Chat where we will hear from multi-disciplinary faculty on their unique project, with Computing for Social Good (C4SG @ UB), that WILL HAVE OPENINGS for Honors students to become involved and contribute. This is a great opportunity to earn Honors Experience credit!
Meet the staff:
Melanie Sage is interested in the use of technology in social work education and practice, the intersections of technology and child welfare, family engagement in child welfare and child welfare practice with indigenous families.
Kenneth Joseph is interested in the use of machine learning for social good from an applied perspective, and the ways in which people express themselves and opinions of others on social media.
Atri Rudra is interested in the use of machine learning for social good from a theoretical perspective (including identifying the pitfalls of its use).
Huei-Yen (Winnie) Chen is interested in human-machine interactions and how best to support operator performance in dynamic, complex systems, such as transportation and healthcare.
Varun Chandola is interested in the use of machine learning for social good from a data mining perspective, and who studies scalable anomaly detection and data mining for big graphs, temporal, and spatial data.
What this particular project is about:
There are more than 400,000 youth in foster care in the US, and each year more than 20,000 age out of foster care without reunifying with their families. The outcomes for these youth are poor. Fortunately, youth in foster care are potentially eligible to receive services, such as vocational training, that may improve their chances at positive life outcomes. However, caseworkers are typically only able to identify youth for these services after the youth experiences a relevant need or crisis. To address this problem, our final goal will be to provide a system that assists caseworks to identify youth in need of services before a crisis occurs. Developing this system includes surveying case workers in the field to identify their needs and then using this information use data visualization (and machine learning) tools to help them make better decisions.
Event Details:
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Don Schack Lounge
Please fill out the survey at this link to give us an idea of your interests and we will get back to you!
Please email Kenny Joseph (kjoseph@buffalo.edu) and/or Atri Rudra (atri@buffalo.edu) if you have more questions (but please do fill in the Google form above!)
The Impossible Project: Discrimination Friday, December 6, 2019 5:00-7:00 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Catering by Dapper Goose
Thirty two scholars, seven peer mentors, six faculty advisors, five film students and one impossible project.
Impossible Project: Discrimination, a daring pedagogical experiment developed in the Honors College where first year students are tasked with solving a world problem.
In Collaboration with UB’s Arts Collaboratory, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, University Honors College and Office of Inclusive Excellence.
Join us for our HSC Halloween Sip & Chat takeover! Stop by the Honors Lounge on Wednesday, October 30th from 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM for some spooky Halloween fun. We will be decorating mini pumpkins and eating fall-themed treats. You don’t want to miss this!
