“Six months ago, we could not have imagined that our daily vocabulary would be filled with the p-word. And while perhaps we are getting tired of hearing the word pandemic, I can’t help but ask why we haven’t used it to bring urgency to confronting teen suicide,” says UConn Board of Trustees Professor Sandra Chafouleas. “The race to find a cure to the COVID-19 pandemic certainly is front and center, but that same sense of urgency does not seem to be evident for the unsettling rise in teen suicide.”
“We are building this course so that it is a starting point, not an ending point. We hope students coming out of this course will be interested in learning more and pursue opportunities available to them at UConn to learn from the phenomenal faculty teaching these modules as well as many other UConn faculty who focus on issues of racism, anti-Blackness, and other forms of oppression,” says Milagros Castillo-Montoya, an assistant professor of higher education and student affairs at the Neag School.
“Historical monuments are intended to be timeless, but almost all have an expiration date. As society’s values shift, the legitimacy of monuments can and often does erode,” say Alan Marcus, a professor of curriculum and instruction at the Neag School of Education, and Walter Woodward, an associate professor of history at UConn. “This is because monuments – whether statues, memorials or obelisks – reveal the values of the time in which they were created and advance the agendas of their creators.”
The good news is that significant research and data on how to effectively teach literacy already exist. In 2012, an initiative developed by the General Assembly’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus studied best practices in early literacy and resulted in the “CT K-3 Literacy Initiative,” a pilot program with the UConn Neag School of Education that established school-wide improvement plans for reading and intensive interventions and provided ongoing literacy professional development.
Doug Glanville is a former Major League Baseball player, and has been an analyst for a variety of networks and publications. He’s the author of a book, “The Game From Where I Stand” and teaches at UConn. He’s also a member of the Connecticut Police Officer Standards and Training Council, and has been active in police reform efforts in the state after a widely-publicized incident where he was racially profiled in his own driveway.
Congratulations to our Neag School alumni, faculty, staff, and students on their continued accomplishments inside and outside the classroom.
“Teachers and parents often hear about intervention programs through advertising and promotion,” says Devin Kearns, co-author of the article and an associate professor of special education at the Neag School of Education. “However, it can be difficult to judge whether these programs are supported by reliable research – especially for students with dyslexia.”
“Folks are going to be in really different places in terms of their own schedules and situations,” Sarah Woulfin says. “In the spring, a professor from another university posted an adapted syllabus for the COVID era, and one of the points was to have a class where we can get together for ‘intellectual nourishment,’ in his phrasing. I adapted that into my class as pillars for our work together. We’re here to learn, but know that there is a lot of other stuff going on in the world and our lives. So let’s be humane with each other, foster connection, and learn together during our time online.”
The Education Project is excited to welcome two keynote speakers Basiyr Rodney, Ed.D. and Glenn Mitoma, Ph.D. who will both be further engaging with The Education Project’s main focus; educational disparities, equal access to technology, and social justice in education at our official launch event.
“I think the results of our initial study provide confirmation — from a research standpoint — regarding the many news reports that we have seen about the increased expectation, without additional resources, faced by caregivers of children with disabilities,” says Sandra Chafouleas, co-director of the Collaboratory on School and Child Health and a UConn Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor. “The burden is real, and taking not only a toll on their children but caregiver well-being.”
