Year of the City: October in Review

Clothing for preemies, volunteer collaboration with community agencies, and Halloween were just three of the avenues Buffalo State used to celebrate the Year of the City last month.

The campus community of 13,000-plus people is already intimately involved in the city through internships, student teaching, service learning, and faculty research across the campus. As part of the Liberty Partnership program, Buffalo State education majors tutor students attending Tapestry Charter School and McKinley High School in Buffalo. Liberty Partnership’s goal is to create a culture that promotes college attendance.

On October 13, the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center sponsored the annual fall community service day with a new twist: bringing along the family. "Many people have asked if their families and friends could join them," said Laura Hill Rao, coordinator of VSLC. "This year, we had 270 volunteers working on projects put forth by community agencies throughout Buffalo."

Meanwhile, hundreds of students and dozens of faculty members integrated coursework with city resources and institutions. Ten students donated 99 gowns they’d made for premature infants to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo. Lynn Boorady, associate professor of fashion and textile technology, assigned the project.

Students in the American Identity in Transition class, taught by Misty Rodeheaver, assistant professor of history and social studies education, worked on several projects relating to cultural diversity in Buffalo. Her students created a history kit that middle-school teachers can borrow from the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society when teaching about the refugee experience. Another Buff State class joined with theater students to create a Haunted House for older kids and teens on nearby 18th Street. And, once again, Buffalo State students are staging the Global Book Project at Wegmans on Grant Street every Saturday morning.

All told, this semester 45 courses are service-learning courses, which augment classroom study with community-related activities. Add to that number those students who are completing internships, student teaching, and clinical experiences throughout the city, and it’s easy to see that, as this semester reaches its halfway point, Buffalo State has once again woven itself deeply into the fabric of Buffalo life.

The October Year of the City lecture, “Buffalo, New York, and Hamilton, Ontario: Portraits in Rust and Recovery,” was presented by Bruce Fisher, director of the Center for Economic and Policy Studies and visiting professor of economics and finance to an audience enthusiastic about Buffalo’s future. A similar theme was presented on October 16 when Alan Ehrenhalt, the author of The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City, discussed that book’s premise—that some suburbanites are rediscovering the upsides of urban life.

Those upsides—diversity; creativity; synergy expressed in art, culture, poetry, and architecture; and a vibrant community life that reveals the face of tomorrow’s America today—have been part of the Buffalo State experience since it opened its doors to students in 1871. Right here in Buffalo.