In celebration of SFA’s 102nd birthday tomorrow, we want to express our gratitude to the dedicated faculty and staff who have demonstrated unwavering commitment and played a vital role in shaping futures, fostering friendships and creating the lifelong Lumberjack spirit we all cherish. Thank you for helping build a legacy that continues to grow, and here’s to 102 more years of success and happy mem'ries!

Cake will be available for faculty, staff and students with meal plans or who purchase lunch tomorrow at Pineywoods Dining Hall or Food Hall 1923.

The Division of University Advancement invites you to give during the fifth annual SFA Giving Day tomorrow.

Join the effort to reach 3,500 donors. Every donation helps continue our legacy of excellence and makes an impact for future Lumberjacks. Funds raised will benefit all areas, from student success initiatives and scholarships to resource assistance for faculty and athletic programs.

To make a donation, visit the SFA Giving Day website.

Employee Wellness will host a flu shot clinic from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 30 in the Baker Pattillo Student Center, Regents' Suite B.

If you are a UT Select or UT Care insurance member, your flu shot will be billed to your insurance at no out-of-pocket cost to you. Bring a photocopy of your insurance card, driver's license and consent form with you to the clinic. Register for your flu shot and print your consent form before arrival.

SFA Gardens will host its annual Fabulous Fall Festival Plant Sale from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 4 at the Pineywoods Native Plant Center located at 2900 Raguet St.

Rick Buckland from Corebridge Financial Retirement Services will be on campus from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. today to answer questions.

Topics include:

• How TRS retirement benefits work
• How to enroll to save more for retirement
• Increasing your contributions
• What a 403(b) is and why you may need one
• Calculating contributions to meet retirement income goals

To meet with Buckland, schedule an appointment.

The Early Childhood Laboratory and SFA Charter School invite you to honor Mason Tutt by donating blood from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sept. 30 at the ECHL parking lot, 2428 Raguet St. Those interested can sign up for a timeslot through Commit for Life.

Dr. Jose Carbajal, associate professor in the School of Social Work, was awarded the 2025 EMDR International Association Ambassador Award during the organization’s conference in Anaheim, California.

The Center for Teaching and Learning invites you to the following sessions focused on technology. All sessions will be offered in person and via Zoom. Those interested can register for all sessions in MyTraining.

1 to 3:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19: Laura Osborne will host “Brightspace Express Foundations Part 2: Discussions, Dropboxes, and Quizzes.” This session will cover creating, replying to and grading discussions in Brightspace; creating and grading assignments using the Dropbox tool; creating common types of quiz questions; and constructing quizzes, including randomization and question pools, time limits, availability, questions per page and more.

1 to 2 p.m. Sept. 25: Theunis Oliphant will host “For Qualtrics 2025.” The session will discuss building surveys and quizzes in Qualtrics. During the session, Oliphant will walk through setting up a Qualtrics account, creating and launching a Qualtrics survey and analyzing and visualizing the data. This session is useful for faculty, staff, graduate students and assistants, and students using Qualtrics for in-class research projects.

Noon to 1 p.m. Oct. 2: Theunis Oliphant will host “Microsoft Tools for Teaching.” This is an online, two-part Microsoft Suite training, the first of which focuses on teaching, introducing faculty to five key applications that can enhance instruction in the higher education classroom. The session will provide concrete examples and hands-on practice to help faculty integrate M365 into their teaching to support student success.

September is National Preparedness Month, and SFA is launching a new initiative to promote preparedness and awareness across campus.

The ReadyJacks campaign will provide monthly themes, tips and resources aligned with national preparedness priorities and the International Association of Emergency Managers. Each month, students, faculty and staff will receive targeted preparedness information on topics ranging from severe weather and cybersecurity to holiday travel and fire safety.

September's theme is "Emergency Preparedness Starts with You." Everyone is encouraged to take three simple steps:

• Make a plan: Know how you’ll communicate with friends and family in an emergency.

• Build a kit: Gather essential items you may need during an emergency. Reference the graphic for a detailed list.

• Stay informed: Sign up for Rave Guardian and Jack Alert to receive timely emergency notifications.

For more information, follow SFA on social media and look for the hashtag #ReadyJacks.

Each year, institutions of higher education across the United States participate in federal data collection efforts through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. Administered by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, IPEDS surveys capture a wide spectrum of institutional data, including enrollment, graduation rates, financial aid, staffing and more.

Following the completion of each data collection cycle, IPEDS generates Data Feedback Reports for all participating institutions. These reports provide a detailed overview of institutional performance, benchmarked against selected peer groups, and are made publicly available on the NCES website.

The Office of Strategic Analytics and Institutional Research has conducted an in-depth analysis of the 2024 IPEDS Data Feedback Report for SFA. This analysis offers a comprehensive summary of SFA’s performance across key higher education metrics, contextualized through comparisons with three distinct peer groupings. These benchmarks help highlight areas of institutional strength and identify opportunities for strategic improvement.

The executive summary of the analysis is now available on the SAIR website under the section titled "Strategic Analytics - Additional Analyses." All faculty, staff, administrators and campus partners are encouraged to review the findings to support data-informed decision-making and continuous improvement efforts at SFA.

Join the Office of Research and Graduate Studies' Research and Sponsored Programs team for fall 2025 training sessions. The workshops are designed to help everyone navigate the grant lifecycle, from finding funding to managing awards to compliance areas.

September trainings include:

• 10 to 11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 19: “Find Funding and Grant Writing 101: Building the Skills to Fund Your Vision” will introduce you to resources like PIVOT, a comprehensive database of over 13,000 funding sources. The session will be held in Steen Library, Wyatt Room.

• 2 to 4 p.m. Sept. 24 and Oct. 29: “Introduction to Cayuse Fund Manager” introduces the new Cayuse module designed to help effectively monitor your external grant expenditures. The session will be held in Boynton Building, Room 108, and via Zoom.

• 2 to 4 p.m. Sept. 29: “How to Enter a Compliance Application and What Makes a Good Application” will guide you through submitting a strong IBC, IRB or IACUC application using the Cayuse and InfoReady platforms. The session will be held in in Steen Library, Room 102A.

To register, contact ext. 6606 or grants@sfasu.edu.

The Health and Wellness Hub will host the fall Wellness Fair from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 8 in the Baker Pattillo Student Center Twilight Ballroom.

The free event, open to the campus community, will provide resources and services from a variety of SFA and Nacogdoches organizations and businesses, including health screenings, product samples, refreshments, educational materials and giveaways. Faculty members are encouraged to inform their students about the event.

For more information, contact Jessica Waguespack, program director for student wellness, at ext. 1207.

Faculty and staff are encouraged to inform students about Counseling Services’ free and confidential group therapy sessions offered to students this semester.

The groups are designed to help meet students’ needs for connection, community and personal growth. Whether students are looking for support with grief, untangling a complicated relationship or hoping to make campus feel more connective, there's room for them at these sessions.

All sessions are held at the Health and Wellness Hub in the Tucker Building on the corner of Raguet and East College streets. Students do not need to preregister. For more information, call ext. 4482, email thehub@sfasu.edu or visit the Counseling Services website.

A new alert, Well-Being Coaching, is now available in Navigate360. Introduced at Camp CTL, it helps faculty and staff identify students who may be facing challenges like stress, burnout or time-management difficulties and connects them with timely support to keep students on track academically.

For more information about Well-Being Coaching, contact Jessica Waguespack at jessica.waguespack@sfasu.edu. For Navigate360 technical support or questions, contact Alison Reed at alison.reed@sfasu.edu.

Aviation sciences students can begin their piloting careers sooner because the university is now one of only four higher education institutions in Texas authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration to certify students are eligible for their Restricted Airline Transport Pilot certificate.

Montaña and collaborators from Texas A&M University published a new paper in Ecology of Freshwater Fish revealing how tiny parasitic catfishes in the family Trichomycteridae occupied the highest trophic positions in the food web of rivers of Guyana, South America.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, Montaña, SFA students and collaborators from TAMU traveled to the Rupununi River in Guyana to sample over 100 fish species, including three genera of trichomycterid parasitic catfishes. Findings from this study indicate that trichomycterid parasitic catfishes, which are the smallest catfish within this species-rich system, are top predators in aquatic food webs.

Killen will be the lecturer at the Sept. 21 Fred Talks — a new lecture series bringing faculty and staff to the stage at Fredonia Brewery. Killen's lecture, “What is Artificial Intelligence,” will cover one of the most talked-about technologies. This presentation will examine how traditional programming differs from AI systems that learn patterns from data.

The lectures will occur every third Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Fredonia Brewery. Lectures are free and open to the public.

For more information, visit fredtalksnac.com. If you are interested in speaking, email Julie Bloxson at bloxsonjm@sfasu.edu.