Samy Garas Instructor Spotlight
SUNY Plattsburgh
About Professor Garas
Professor Samy Garas specializes in Data Analytics and Interrogation, with a focus on helping professionals translate complex data into clear, actionable insights. His work emphasizes effective communication, ethical data use, and practical application across a range of institutional contexts.
Course Taught
Storytelling with Data
Why Take This Course?
Storytelling with Data equips participants with essential skills for communicating effectively with diverse stakeholders, including leadership, committees, students, and external partners. The course emphasizes tailoring messages to specific audiences, building practical visualization skills using tools like Excel, Power BI, and Tableau, and developing hands-on experience through weekly practice. Participants also learn to recognize and avoid misleading or unethical data representations—an essential skill for reporting, assessment, student success, compliance, and strategic planning.
What to Expect
Participants can expect a highly practical, applied learning experience. By the end of the course, they will have developed a complete, executive-ready data story tailored to a specific audience and goal. The course strengthens participants’ ability to choose visuals intentionally, structure compelling narratives, and communicate insights with clarity and confidence. Emphasis is also placed on ethical and accurate data communication.
Instructor Reflection
Teaching this course has reinforced that the biggest barrier to effective data storytelling is rarely technical—it is clarity of purpose and focus on the audience. When participants move away from trying to “report everything” and instead define a single decision, audience, and takeaway, the quality of their work improves significantly.
Another key insight is that professionals across roles are often data-rich but time-poor. The most effective projects translate complex information into concise, actionable messages for busy stakeholders. Particularly impactful are the moments when participants realize how small design choices—such as chart titles, ordering, scale consistency, and clear definitions—can dramatically influence interpretation. Watching this shift from simply “making charts” to communicating with meaning and integrity remains the most rewarding part of the course.
Why He Teaches for SUNY CPD
Professor Garas values teaching for SUNY CPD because it allows him to support faculty and staff across the system with skills they can immediately apply in their work. He appreciates the course’s practical focus, where participants bring real challenges and leave with usable deliverables for meetings, reports, and decision-making contexts.
What he enjoys most is seeing participants shift from “sharing data” to communicating clear, decision-ready messages. As they learn to define their audience, focus on what matters, and present information ethically and effectively, their confidence grows and their impact increases.