Thanks to a $30,000 Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship, 43-year-old Arthur Lerner is now advancing his education through the Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates at UConn’s Avery Point campus. The scholarship is helping to create a smooth transition for him as he goes from nonprofit work to pursuing a career as a biology teacher.

This past summer, the Neag School of Education welcomed Professor Gladis Kersaint as dean. Dean Kersaint most recently served as professor of mathematics and associate dean of academic affairs and research for the College of Education at the University of South Florida. Here, she sits down to share insight into her background as well as her vision for the Neag School going forward.

The principles and practices of Guilford public education are making their way across the globe—all the way to Jordan. Through a partnership between the University of Connecticut and the non-profit Queen Rania Teacher Academy (QRTA) in Jordan, four sitting superintendents across the state have or are traveling to Jordan to work with principals in the country and one of those superintendents is Guilford’s Dr. Paul Freeman.

Imagine a school where students, ranging in age from 13 to 19 years old, do not regularly show up for class every day. Those who do attend may abruptly walk out in the middle of a lesson. And just outside this school’s entrance is a short, paved path that leads to an on-premises, partner hospital clinic, where most of the school’s adolescent students, facing a wide range of mental health challenges, have been admitted as patients for treatment for anywhere from two weeks to a year. Each fall, it is here — at Northgate School in North London — that several of the Neag School’s aspiring teachers arrive to intern as part of the London Study Abroad Teaching Internship Program.

Asking better questions can open doors for students, promoting mathematical thinking and discourse. A set of 100 questions that can be incorporated into mathematics instruction — created by the Neag School Dean Gladis Kersaint, who serves as an advisor for Ready® Mathematics — have been made available online as free infographics.

Current UConn student Reuben Pierre-Louis ’17 (ED), ’18 MA is set to begin his senior year in the Neag School’s five-year Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s (IB/M) program with a concentration in special education. In addition, he will be serving as a resident assistant this coming academic year in UConn’s new ScHOLA²RS House Learning Community.

After almost 20 years in a variety of positions at the University of Connecticut, Joseph Madaus, professor of educational psychology, has returned to the Neag School to serve as the new associate dean for academic affairs.

Catch up on some of the Neag School news highlights you may have missed this past summer with these quick links.

Middle and high school teachers are on campus this week learning how to use genocide and human rights education to address complex historical and current issues. The program – The Upstander Academy: Intellectual Humility in Public Discourse Summer Institute – was developed by the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center and the Upstander Project, with assistance from secondary educators in Connecticut.

Like other programs, our teacher preparation program at the University of Connecticut Neag School of Education has long struggled to recruit as many students of color as we’d like. That’s why we joined AACTE’s networked improvement community (NIC) in 2014 to collaborate with other institutions on strategies to bring more Black and Latino men into our programs. Already, we have nearly doubled the percentage of students of color in our program, going from roughly 12% of students to 20% of our entering cohort this fall.