Former UConn forward Batouly Camara’s vast off-court contributions were recognized Sunday night when she was named one of seven recipients of the Billie Jean King Youth Leadership Award during the ESPYs.
The award honors the efforts of young people who use sports for good in their communities. Camara, who just completed her redshirt senior season in Storrs and earned her master’s degree in sports management, started her own nonprofit (Women and Kids Empowerment or W.A.K.E.) in 2017 to empower girls and women in the U.S. and across the globe.
Twins Austin and Braden Frandino (along with their trumpet professor, Dr. Louis Hanzlik from UConn) submitted a surprise performance for their dad – and Sunday Morning editor, Joe Frandino.
Tamika P. La Salle, an associate professor of educational psychology with the University of Connecticut’s
Neag School of Education, said immigrant families tend to come with much more of a group mentality.
“It’s not just doing better for them, it’s doing better for their families and making their family proud. A lot of them have this collective identity,” said La Salle.
“I have worked hard to be a leader with the knowledge, skills and disposition to meet the complex issues of schools today. In my role as the instructional leader at the district level, I hold firm to my vision and conviction to lead this high performing school district that embraces the belief set that all students deserve an equitable educational experience,” said Erin Murray, assistant superintendent for Teaching and Learning for Simsbury Public Schools.
The Neag Foundation has provided the UConn Collaboratory on School and Child Health, co-directed by Neag School’s Sandra Chafouleas, with a two-year grant to facilitate work in the Think about the Link Project.
“The children they serve, have simply never been given a fair shot at obtaining the resources needed to achieve the common outcome goals with their peers in the surrounding districts. As these districts have become increasingly Latinx, they have become even less able to meet their students’ needs and compete with neighboring districts for high-quality teachers and staff, “ wrote Baker and Robert Cotto, Jr., a Ph.D. student at UConn’s Neag School of Education and former school board member in Hartford.
“Many white families in America want to live in a certain type of community and want their kids to be educated in a certain type of school,” says Casey Cobb, the Neag Professor of Educational Policy. “It’s often not malicious, not overt, and not articulated. It’s just the broad pattern of how white Americans move about this land, and perhaps that’s the definition of a privilege that is increasingly being called out.”
“We had had a concerted effort to work with more urban districts in the state,” said Casey Cobb, professor of educational policy at the University of Connecticut, who helped reorient UCAPP’s approach to district partnerships. “But we never had formal partnerships beyond one with the Hartford School District. The Wallace initiative gave us the opportunity to reach out to districts to support their leadership development pathways.”
“It is an opportunity for baseball to give back, not only in a way to entertain, but to bring us back to a place of engagement as a team. Although baseball is non-essential, what we’re missing is that spirit of team and we could use that not only on the field, but also for our country and to figure out how we can address these issues in our country,” Glanville said.
“As a parent, it is a daily struggle not to get swept up in the sadness of the losses forced by COVID-1,” writes Sandra Chafouleas, a UConn Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor. “As a school psychologist, I am trying my best to heed what I know about coping and promoting resilience. Life is supposed to present us with bumps — bumps can help us grow if the right supports are available to brace for them. But the intensity of the current global situation means that we need to identify and draw on positive coping resources more purposefully.”
