Category: Alumni


Read stories about Neag School of Education alumni.


Thomas Van Hoof, pictured on the right, receives the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) award from Aynsley Diamond, director of faculty outreach and engagement at CETL.

Neag School Alum Receives UConn Teaching Fellow Award

January 15, 2020

Neag School alumnus Thomas J. Van Hoof  ’92 MD, ’96 MA associate professor at UConn’s schools of nursing and medicine, has been recognized by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) as one of two 2019-20 University Teaching Fellows. The award, which honors full-time faculty who show a commitment to teaching, demonstrated knowledge […]




Here’s Why These 3 CEOs Joined Lamont’s Workforce Council

January 3, 2020

Vallieres was one of the architects of a manufacturing training program in eastern Connecticut to meet the workforce needs of submarine maker Electric Boat and other employers. Over the past four years, the Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative, which has mainly targeted workers with no prior manufacturing experience, has placed in jobs 1,500 workers — 15 of them with Vallieres’ companies.



What it Means to be UConn Thankful

December 2, 2019

Every year just before Thanksgiving, UConn Baseball Head Coach Jim Penders leads a run up the steep hill at New Storrs Cemetery on the northern side of campus. The destination is the Storrs family grave, which sits on top of the hill – always with a clear view of Storrs Congregational Church, as stipulated by the Storrs brothers’ will.



EDLR Forum 2019 Attendees.

Annual Forum Features State Education Leaders

November 8, 2019

More than 60 Neag School alums, students, faculty, and administrators, along with education professionals from across Connecticut, gathered last month for an evening of networking, followed by a panel discussion at the Darien Community Association in Darien, Conn. This year’s forum, held for the first time in Fairfield County, was hosted by Neag School Dean’s Board of Advocates members James Degnan ’87 (CLAS) and Elizabeth Degnan ’87 (CLAS).


Students at Bowers Elementary School with their teacher, alum Aryliz Estrela.

10 Questions With 3rd-Year Teacher: Valuing Diversity in the Classroom

November 7, 2019

Aryliz (Crespo) Estrela ’16 (ED), ’17 MA is now in the midst of her third year of teaching after having completed the Neag School’s five-year Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s Program in 2017. Looking back, she shares some sage advice about what she learned during her first year in the classroom — one that she sums up in three words: “Fun. Insightful. Courageous.”