Contact horstmath@buffalostate.edu with your good news
CTE Career Fair a Success!
Over 300 WNY superintendents, Board of Education members, teachers, and school district staff attended the CTE-sponsored Career Fair held at Roylaton-Hartland Middle School the evening of September 27. "It was great to see such collaboration...and to see our students interact and get involved with real-world applications," said Gary Bell, Royalton Hartland high school principal. Buffalo State students as well as teachers from Orleans-Niagara BOCES provided hand-on activities and career guidance and information on a host of technical careers.
Kathy Doody, EXE, featured in metroWNY
Autism workshop to touch base on possible changes in categorizing the illness
Thursday September 13, 2012 | By:Tiffany Monde, Tonawanda Source
Kathy Doody, assistant professor in Exceptional Education discusses a workshop on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
PDS Models Shared with SUNY Deans
Faculty, staff, and students from the Elementary Education and Reading department presented the Buffalo State Professional Development Schools national and international models to participants of the SUNY Education and Deans and Directors meeting, hosted by the Office of the Dean September 2012 at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Buffalo. Click to view the PDS: Overview and the PDS: Becoming a Global Teacher presentations.
Best Buddies - Buffalo State Honored as Outstanding College Chapter of the Year
(excerpt from press release: BLOOMINGTON, IN July 23, 2012) The Best Buddies chapter at Buffalo State College was presented with the 2011-2012 "Outstanding Chapter of the Year" award at Best Buddies International’s 23rd Annual Best Buddies Leadership Conference. Buffalo State was selected from more than 261 Best Buddies college programs throughout the world and15 College Outstanding Chapter applicants as the Outstanding College Chapter of the Year for its dedication to the Best Buddies mission.
Best Buddies is a nonprofit organization dedicated to establishing a global volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The leadership conference prepares student leaders to operate the Best Buddies chapters at their schools, which involves recruiting new members, planning group activities for their chapters, and promoting social integration for people with IDD.
The chapter at Buffalo State College, which has 55 participants, was started in 2001. Statewide, Best Buddies New York operates 66 chapters in middle schools, high schools, and colleges, impacting 34,370 people with and without IDD. The Buffalo State College Chapter is a United Student Government, Inc. funded organization which partners with People, Inc. to match approximately 25 college students with a corresponding number of individuals with disabilities according to their interests and personalities. All are required to attend once a month meetings on campus and be in contact with each other at least once a week. A friendship commitment is for one school year. Buffalo State Best Buddies sponsors at least one other activity on or off campus each month.
This award by Best Buddies International is based on a successful year under the leadership of Buffalo State students Kelly Farrell, President, Jonathan Pollino and Samantha Kalnitz, Co-Vice-Presidents, Rebecca Horne, Treasurer, and Patrick McKenna and Michelle Sommerstein, Co-Buddy Directors. Their faculty advisors are Mrs. Lynne Sommerstein and Dr. Lisa Rafferty. At Buffalo State Homecoming, Best Buddies won an award for Best Student Organization. Other noteworthy activities include partnering with Student Council for Exceptional Children to raise several thousand dollars for Special Olympics through the Polar Plunge in December in which over 75 BSC students plunged into Lake Erie to support this cause. In March, Best Buddies again partnered with Student Council for Exceptional Children for a campus-wide initiative to "Spread the Word to End the Word" in which many hundred Buffalo students, faculty and staff signed a banner and on-line pledge to not use the word "retard." Also in March, BSC Best Buddies held a Zumba exercise event to promote physical health. In April, BSC Best Buddies traveled to Albany to participate in the (New York State) (Capital Region) Friendship Walk.
"The outstanding chapters this year have not only mastered the art of running good and organized programs, but they are also key stakeholders and leaders in their communities. They are creating important and impactful change for people with IDD," said Senior Director of Programs, Abigail Harlan.
Wendy Paterson Named Dean of Buffalo State's School of Education
Posted: April 9, 2012 By Jerod Dahlgren
original post: http://newsandevents.buffalostate.edu/news/wendy-paterson-named-dean-buffalo-state%E2%80%99s-school-education
Provost Dennis Ponton announced last week that Wendy Paterson has been named dean of the School of Education at Buffalo State, effective July 1, 2012. Paterson has served as dean of St. John Fisher College’s Ralph C. Wilson Jr. School of Education since 2009.
Paterson spent 21 years at Buffalo State as a developmental and educational technology specialist, faculty member, and department chair before accepting the deanship at St. John Fisher three years ago. She is a two-time graduate of Buffalo State, with bachelor (1975) and master (1976) of science degrees in education.
"We welcome Dr. Paterson’s return to Buffalo State," said Ponton, "and we look forward to her leadership as dean of our School of Education and to the university’s engagement with schools and communities in Buffalo and Western New York."
Buffalo State’s School of Education is home to 1,100 undergraduate students, 700 graduate students, and 60 full-time faculty members in five departments: Adult Education, Career and Technical Education, Elementary Education and Reading, Exceptional Education, and Social and Psychological Foundations of Education. The School of Education also features an award-winning Professional Development Schools Consortium, a cutting-edge Literacy Center, and the Woods-Beals Endowed Chair in Urban and Rural Education.
"I am so pleased to be returning to Buffalo State, my alma mater and the nurturing place where I shaped my professional life," said Paterson. "It will be a joy for me to work again with the finest faculty in SUNY to chart the course toward a positive, productive future for education."
Paterson began her teaching career in 1976 as a reading specialist in the Kenmore-Tonawanda public schools and moved to higher education in 1983, as the coordinator of developmental skills and services to students with disabilities at Trocaire College. In 1988, she joined Buffalo State on a multimillion-dollar "Strengthening Institutions" federal Title III grant to promote student retention. Here she developed early programs in computer-assisted instruction for student support and instituted innovative programming for faculty development in teaching excellence.
After earning her Ph.D. in elementary education from the University at Buffalo (UB) in 1997, she became an assistant professor in Buffalo State’s Elementary Education and Reading Department. She was promoted to associate professor in 2001 and to full professor in 2009. Paterson was chair of the Elementary Education and Reading Department for two consecutive terms.
While pursuing her Ph.D., she began research on what would become an internationally acclaimed book on single mothers titled Unbroken Homes: Single-Parent Mothers Tell Their Stories (2003), selected for the Innovations in Feminist Studies series by Haworth Press. Her second book, Diaries of a Forgotten Parent: Divorced Dads on Fathering through and beyond Divorce, released in 2010 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, focuses on the inequities of divorce and custody from the father’s perspective, complementing her first book, which examines the same inequities through a feminist lens.
Paterson is an internationally recognized scholar with an eclectic list of publications that includes an award-winning article on instructional technology and early literacy published in Reading Research Quarterly; a comprehensive review of reading research presented at the 2006 Oxford Roundtable on Reading in Oxford University’s Forum on Public Policy Online; and a critical analysis of the negative effects of historical promotion and tenure practices on female faculty in the International Journal of Diversity in Organizations, Communities and Nations.
In 1996, SUNY honored Paterson with the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service. She was also named UB’s 2005 Distinguished Alumna of the Graduate School of Education.
Paterson replaces Paul Theobald, who has served as interim dean of the School of Education at Buffalo State since 2010. He recently accepted a similar position at Buena Vista University in Iowa.
"Gratitude is expressed from the campus community to Paul Theobald, Buffalo State Woods-Beals Endowed Chair in Urban and Rural Education, for serving as School of Education interim dean for the past two years," said Ponton. "We wish Paul continued success in the dean’s appointment at Buena Vista."
