SUNY Niagara Receives SUNY Academic Innovation Grant!

SUNY Niagara has been awarded a collaborative grant through the SUNY Academic Innovation Grant (AIG) , which will result in the creation of the first Open Educational Resource (OER) course in culinary cannabis. The project will be led by Associate Professor of Culinary Arts Nathan Koscielski, and produce a fully interactive online version of CUL 250: Culinary Cannabis and Edibles, built in Brightspace and adapted for Coursera. This OER course will be freely accessible to all SUNY learners and available for adoption across the system. At SUNY Niagara, this will eliminate textbook costs for both CUL 250 and CUL 255: Culinary Cannabis Concentrates, Extracts, and Infusions by the close of the grant. We are partnering with the University at Buffalo through their Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research (CeCaR) in the final creation of this innovative course. This course will promote informed and responsible use of cannabis, and establish a new model for culinary and health-focused cannabis education within the SUNY system.

From Chef Nathan Koscielski CCE, Assistant Professor of Culinary Arts: “SUNY Niagara / Niagara Falls Culinary Institute has established itself as a visible leader in cannabis industry engagement. What distinguishes us from many of the other emerging cannabis programs is our interdisciplinary and experiential approach. Students train not only in professional culinary kitchens, but also in horticulture classrooms, greenhouse environments, and laboratory settings. This allows learners to understand cannabis from seed to finished edible product while developing competencies in plant biology, cannabinoids, terpene science, infusion methods, dosing accuracy, food safety, and the human endocannabinoid system.”

From Andrew Yeager, Instruction and Assessment Librarian: “Providing access to high-quality educational resources is what libraries do, and it is at the core of the SUNY Niagara Lewis Library mission. This collaboration with Chef K and our colleagues at UB is a natural for us and we are excited to create a product that will be available for free to all learners at SUNY and beyond.”

Congratulations to our team for winning this highly-competitive grant award!