SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador 2022: Buffalo State – Andrea Nikischer

Andrea Nikischer is an adult educator with over 20 years of experience providing crisis intervention and violence prevention workshops to schools, businesses and community groups. Dr. Nikischer is currently an Associate Professor and the Interim Chair of the Department of Social and Psychological Foundations of Education and Adult Education at SUNY Buffalo State. She has taught 100% online asynchronous for over 10 years and is the first 100% online faculty member at Buffalo State to receive tenure. Dr. Nikischer began her career as a Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Victim Advocate at Crisis Services of Western New York. She went on to become the Education Director of the Citizens’ Committee on Rape, Sexual Assault and Sexual Abuse (CORSA), and she served two terms as the Chairwoman of the Erie County Coalition Against Family Violence.

During her time as an online educator, Dr. Nikischer has produced a variety of scholarly presentations and publications on issues directly related to online teaching and learning, including “Naked teaching online: Privileging touch over tools in online courses,” “Teaching sensitive topics online: Using ‘low tech-high touch’ personal journal writing to connect student experiences with course content,” “Getting HIP online: Adding collaborative learning experiences to an online research methods course,” “Increasing Engagement and Retention by Adding Gamification to an Online Graduate Course” and “Universal Design for Trauma.” She was selected to participate in the Buffalo State Fostering Innovation in Teaching with Technology (FITT) Academy and she has provided a number of faculty development and peer education sessions to faculty at Buffalo State and across the SUNY system.

As a member of the Buffalo State faculty, Dr. Nikischer wrote two new online asynchronous courses, ADE 575: Family Violence and Adult Education and ADE 660: Grant Writing for Education and Training, developed three undergraduate (face-to-face) to graduate (online) 4 + 1 pipelines, formed an accelerated version of the online Adult Education M.S. degree program and created three new 100% online microcredentials: Grant Writing, Human Resource Development and Online Teaching. She has been a member of the Buffalo State Online Oversight Committee for eight years and she coordinated the development of the School of Education’s Online/Hybrid Course Review Process.

Dr. Nikischer was previously designated an “Open SUNY Exemplar Coach and Mentor” and “Open SUNY Experienced Online Practitioner.” She has received awards for her work in violence prevention education from the Erie County Coalition Against Family Violence and the National Organization for Women. Dr. Nikischer has a PhD from the University at Buffalo in Educational Culture, Policy and Society.