The Daily Bulletin

Every employee on campus will receive an invitation today to participate in a comprehensive study of our collective workplace, campus culture, and level of employee engagement and satisfaction.

While the survey is an extension of the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Great Colleges to Work for program, our intention in conducting the survey is different from that in past years. Buffalo State College will use the survey as part of an internal study to help the campus, administration, and newly appointed Institutional Innovation Advisory Council (IIAC) identify the following:

• What are our organizational strengths, and how can we leverage those strengths in new and innovative ways?
• Where are we falling short as an organization, and how can we improve in those areas?

The IIAC has incorporated an additional set of questions into the survey to provide a more comprehensive data set to accomplish these objectives.

Higher education is undergoing significant demographic and technological shifts, which will require us to change how our institution operates, how we collaborate across departments and divisions to solve institutional challenges (retention, enrollment, developing new revenue streams, etc.), and how we prepare our campus workforce to address the ever-changing challenges of the future. The results of this survey and our inclusive and transparent review of its results will better position us to address the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

The survey will be sent to all Buffalo State employees via e-mail today, February 3, and will remain open for responses until Monday, February 17. The survey will be administered and processed by ModernThink LLC, a research and consulting firm focused on workplace excellence. All responses will be anonymous and confidential. ModernThink will not provide any personally identifiable information when reporting results. All demographic questions will be optional, and any open-ended responses will be listed in alphabetical order by the first letter of the response to maintain anonymity. For additional information about the survey, please visit the Professional Development Center website for a list of frequently asked questions.

In May, the IIAC will present the survey findings to the campus community through a series of town hall meetings, providing an opportunity for the campus to ask questions about the data and survey results, while also initiating discussions that begin to address areas for improvement and ways to better leverage our strengths. In fall 2020, the IIAC will issue a written report to the campus community summarizing the survey results, campus feedback, and potential strategies to move the campus forward.

We encourage all members of the campus community to participate throughout the process, not only through the survey and town hall meetings, but also by engaging their colleagues and supervisors in discussions on how everyone can ignite innovation in his or her division or department. In addition to developing and analyzing the survey, the IIAC is concurrently developing a system and structure to cultivate further ideas from the campus community.

Thank you for your participation in the survey and in our collective efforts to move the campus forward. Together, we will ignite innovation and ensure that Buffalo State thrives in the future!

Sincerely,

Katherine Conway-Turner
President

Jonathan Hulbert
Chair, Institutional Innovation Advisory Council
Director, Leadership and Organizational Development

Joseph Marren
Chair, College Senate
Professor, Communication Department