In 2013, Neag School alumnus and current educational psychology doctoral student Amit Savkar ’07 Ph.D., ’17 MA, also a UConn associate professor in residence of mathematics, began looking into the reasons why so many students were dropping out of or failing math classes early in their college career.

Through a collaboration with Lehigh University, Neag School of Education associate professor Jennifer Freeman will develop an intervention to improve college and career readiness for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. This $500,000 grant is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). Freeman is a Co-PI with Lee Kern and Chris Liang at Lehigh University.

A group of researchers from the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education and UConn School of Medicine have received a $1 million grant from the Office of Special Education Programs to develop training for master’s students to address this problem. Professors Lisa Sanetti, Sandra Chafouleas, and Mary Beth Bruder have developed Interdisciplinary Preparation in Integrated and Intensive Practices (I3-PREP). The project is a multidisciplinary effort supported by UConn’s Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP), the Neag School of Education, the UConn School of Medicine.

The University of Connecticut has been awarded a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to examine and strengthen gifted education opportunities for underserved populations through four studies. UConn’s National Center for Research on Gifted Education (NCRGE) will investigate strategies for recognizing and responding to untapped talent and explore the outcomes of gifted education services.

Clewiston Challenger never intended to be a researcher. When he was young, Challenger wanted to be a police officer. As an undergraduate at the University of Connecticut, he originally majored in biology with the aim of becoming a scientist.

Devin Kearns began his career as a general education elementary school teacher for third-graders in Los Angeles, where he noticed many students had difficulty reading. The observation would lead to a dramatic shift in the trajectory of his work.

Devin Kearns began his career as a general education elementary school teacher for third-graders in Los Angeles, where he noticed many students had difficulty reading. The observation would lead to a dramatic shift in the trajectory of his work.

Editor’s Note: This piece originally appeared on UConn Today, the University’s official news website. As of 2013, only 20 percent of school administrators were people of color and only 50 percent were women, despite women representing almost 80 percent of teachers. The number of black female principals is even harder to assess, though research suggests […]

Segregation in schools was abolished in 1954 in the Supreme Court’s historical decision in Brown v. Board of Education. But this decree from the court did not magically wipe segregation or racial prejudices and tensions away. There are a variety of models schools around the country used to deal with student behavior problems, and while they have been successful in many cases, these models fail to account for specific issues caused by race-related behavioral problems.

In a collaborative grant from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities for the University of Connecticut and the University of Alabama, assistant professor of the school psychology program in the UConn Neag School of Education Tamika La Salle and Sara McDaniel, associate professor of psychology at the University of Alabama will work to look at ways to address this gap.

Joseph Cooper, an assistant professor  of sport management and educational leadership in UConn’s Neag School of Education, is a co-investigator with Drew Brown, assistant Africana studies professor at the University of Delaware, on a grant from the American Athletic Conference to study the topic of whether and how white coaches are fulfilling the cultural needs of black college athletes.