Join the PSS Sustainable Living Committee for our annual spring cleanup of the shore along Lake Lasalle prior to commencement. We provide the gloves and bags and just ask for an hour of your time (or whatever you can contribute) to beautify this picturesque part of the north campus.

This event is open to anyone in the UB Community that would like to pitch in.

Email tmnibbe@buffalo.edu with questions or to RSVP (not required)

If you started at UB between May 2023 and MArch 2024, you should have received an invitation on April 23rd from the Professional Staff Senate to attend the PSS New Employee Lunch to be held on June 4th. If you started at UB in the past year and did not receive the invitation and would like to attenf the luncheon, please email Ed Brodka at brodka@buffalo.edu to be send an invitation. 

UB PSS Mentoring Program: Mentors Wanted

• Have you ever wished someone assisted you with the challenges and opportunities you faced professionally?
• Do you wish you had the opportunity to gain some insight about UB’s culture or advancing your career at the university? please consider being a Mentor!

What is a Mentor? A mentor is an experienced and trusted person who gives another person advice, guidance or support, over a period of time.

The PSS Mentor Program needs qualified Mentors for a growing list of proteges. The goal of the program is to provide formal or informal mentoring to UB Professional employees. The program will match members of UB’s professional staff who have the experience, knowledge and insight that assists protégés in meeting their goals. These goals may be in career, leadership or professional development areas, skills and organizational development, project completion, community involvement, exploring issues such as interpersonal relationships or goal setting. Active mentoring supports employee goals and development, and ultimately, UB’s mission.

More information about the program can be found here! Download and complete the mentor/protégé questionnaire and send it to the committee to be matched with a colleague!

Questions? contact Travis Eisele at teeisele@buffalo.edu or Kimberly Krzemien at kkrzemie@buffalo.edu

The call for PSS Senator has open seats in many of the electoral areas. The call for nominations for senators will go out soon to the areas that have vacant seats. If you receive an email, then there are vacant seats in your area. Please consider nominating yourself or a colleague in your Area to serve as a PSS Senator for the term July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2026. Please be sure to ask a colleague if they accept prior to putting their name forward. Please forward the name of your nomination to the Elections Committee at kkrzemie@buffalo.edu.

The Deadline to nominate will be May 24, 2024. 

For more information on becoming a Senator, please click below:

This is the last PSS newsletter of the spring semester – PSS Communications will send out a listing of events or important dates throughout the summer as necessary- but we will take a “summer break” from the monthly publication and begin again with an early September edition. 

Please use the Project Request Form below and we will send out reminders as required. 

We hope you have a safe and enjoyable summer!

SUNY system administration has confirmed that the SUNY Telecommuting Policy, has been extended to June 30, 2024. Where applicable, employees and supervisors should discuss continuation of existing approved telecommuting plans. If an existing approved plan will be continued, a new telecommuting agreement is not required.

The land on which the University at Buffalo (UB) operates is the traditional territory of the Seneca Nation, part of the Haudenosaunee (Hoe-dee-no-SHOW-nee) Confederacy, which also includes the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Tuscarora Nations. Five nations of the Haudenosaunee people lived in the same place for centuries. The sixth nation to join this confederacy was the Skaruhreh, or Tuscarora, after they were forced out of the Carolinas in the 1720’s by colonists. The word, Haudenosaunee, translates to “people who build a house.” The six nations confederacy built their houses throughout the land that on July 9, 1776, became New York State. The state and federal governments took the native people’s houses and the land surrounding them. Many Haudenosaunee died and most of the survivors were forced to live on reservations.

As Americans, New Yorkers, and as professional staff members of the University at Buffalo, we can no longer claim ignorance of the atrocities to which indigenous people were subjected or of the origin of the land that we work and learn on today. Recognizing and acknowledging the harm done in the past, and working against the injustices which continue today, is how we create change. As one effort to achieve that goal, the Professional Staff Senate (PSS) adopted a Land Acknowledgment drafted by the PSS Inclusion and Diversity Committee with extensive consultation of Dr. Theresa McCarthy, Interim Department Chair and Director of UB’s Department of Indigenous Studies. PSS leadership has committed to using this land acknowledgement as appropriate and has been posted on the PSS website to be available for all PSS members to reference and use: