Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Scott Brown has been named head of the Department of Educational Psychology (EPSY) at the Neag School.

A 2013 Pew report found that 62 percent of people in the U.S. now get their information from social media, and 47 percent of Facebook users go there for news. Today, every person is both a reporter and a consumer of online information. As a result, each of us is potentially the problem — as well as the solution — to the altered landscape of fake news and false information in an online world.

Congratulations to our Neag School alumni, faculty, staff, and students on their continued accomplishments inside and outside the classroom.

“I was deeply dismayed by her performance in her confirmation hearing. It was, in a word, disqualifying,” says Robert C. Pianta, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.

Despite the education community’s clear polarization over the appointment of Betsy DeVos as the next U.S. secretary of education, there may be a silver lining in her confirmation—specifically, for those in the career and technical education (CTE) community.

Ask any group of high school teachers, and they will report that the most frequently asked question in their classrooms is, “When are we ever gonna use this?” In a traditional college prep program, the honest answer is usually, “Maybe when you get to the university.” But in the real world? Depending on the class, students may not find their learning as useful.

The University of Connecticut and the Neag School of Education is honoring North Branford’s Jerome Harrison Elementary School Principal Carter Welch as their 2017 Outstanding School Administrator.

She’s only 38, but alum Alison Burdick has already been the principal of Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School in New London, Conn., for some seven years. Meet the best and brightest of Generation Next — people under the age of 40 who are excelling in their fields, leading and influencing others, and making a difference, named to Connecticut Magazine’s 2017 Class of “40 Under 40.”

The following PBIS Practitioners Guide — titled National Climate Change: 5 Ways Schools Can Positively and Proactively Support All Students — originally appeared on the OSEP Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports website and is authored by Neag School faculty Brandi Simonsen, George Sugai, Jennifer Freeman, and Tamika La Salle.

Professor emerita Alexinia Young Baldwin ’71 Ph.D. of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, died on Jan. 21, 2017. She was 91.