The University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education collaborated with UConn Women and Philanthropy this past Thursday to host “ELLEvate: Supporting Women in Leadership,” a panel discussing women’s experiences in leadership roles.
The panel, led by Laura Burton, department head and educational leadership professor at the Neag School, included Fany DeJesus Hannon, director of the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center (PRLACC) at UConn; and Vonetta Romeo-Rivers, director of teaching and learning for Regional School District 10 in Connecticut. Both Hannon and Romeo-Rivers are alumni of the Neag School.

Mansfield Public Schools (Neag School alumnus Peter Dart was named superintendent for Mansfield Public Schools)

As UConn’s director of the H. Fred Simons African American Cultural Center (AACC) and affiliate faculty with the Africana Studies Institute, Willena Kimpson Price ’90 Ph.D. has been instrumental in supporting UConn African American students’ higher education experiences for the past three decades. Price has steered the AACC to be recognized campus-wide and throughout the United States as a university center that promotes an understanding and appreciation of the culture, history, and traditions of people of African descent.

Connecticut Education Association President Kate Dias ’97 MS, 6th Year is focusing her attention on the educational workforce, and hopes the session will yield approvals of public acts addressing educators, namely better working conditions and recruitment and retention of teachers.

The group started reaching out to legislators weeks before the session, Dias says, offering itself as a resource for questions or topic temperature checks in advance of any bill packages that may come out over the next few weeks.

This week, we welcome Fany Hannon, Neag School alumna a director of the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center, which is celebrating its golden anniversary this year. Fany talks about how the Center emerged from the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, what it’s been like trying to keep a student-oriented organization running during a global pandemic, and why so many generations of Latinx Huskies consider PRLACC a home away from home.

“Somehow, during that relatively short period of time, in early Covid, he put Connecticut on the map — and before you know it, he’s a potential candidate for secretary of education,” said Robert Villanova, an education professor at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education. “His aspirations are nothing but pure. I would guess that during his time as commissioner, becoming secretary of education was his last thought.”

The expansion of a program to allow urban students in Danbury and Norwalk to attend suburban schools in Fairfield County has met a variety of challenges as the wealthier surrounding towns debate whether to enroll the students. In 2021, the state legislature set aside $1.175 million over two years to expand Open Choice – a program that currently serves children in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford – to include Danbury and Norwalk.

When Linda Pescatello began her career as an exercise science researcher, the field was a marginal part of the medical sciences. Over the course of her decades-long commitment to continual learning and research, Pescatello’s work has risen to prominence, making her an internationally recognized expert in exercise prescription and post-exercise hypotension.

When Linda Pescatello began her career as an exercise science researcher, the field was a marginal part of the medical sciences. Over the course of her decades-long commitment to continual learning and research, Pescatello’s work has risen to prominence, making her an internationally recognized expert in exercise prescription and post-exercise hypotension.