Approximately 70 school, behavioral health, community, and research leaders from across the state gathered at the University of Connecticut campus in Storrs on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2019, to discuss school and community responses to childhood trauma and how to align work around trauma-informed schools in Connecticut.

Hazing and heavy drinking have been taking place at American colleges and universities for decades. Death has been a constant companion. New fraternity members at U.S. colleges and universities have died at an average rate of one per year for the past 50 years. Ten have died in the past three years. At least six hazing deaths since 2017 were alcohol-related.

Neag School educational psychology faculty have secured more than $5 million in federal funding through the U.S. Department of Education’s Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act for two new research projects centered on gifted education.

Congratulations to our Neag School alumni, faculty, staff, and students on their continued accomplishments inside and outside the classroom. If you have an accolade to share, we want to hear from you! Please send any news items and story ideas to neag-communications@uconn.edu.

Each fall, the Neag School of Education welcomes submissions for several awards and funding opportunities. Submissions for each of these opportunities will close this year at 5 p.m. EST on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2019.

This past summer, the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) formally recognized Neag School Professor Jennifer McGarryas the 2019 recipient of its most prestigious honor: the Earle F. Zeigler Lecture Award. The Zeigler Award, the highest distinction one can earn in the academic field of sport management, acknowledges significant contributions to the field in terms of scholarship, research, leadership, and peer recognition.

Jaci L. VanHeest, an associate professor in the Neag School of Education, has been named UConn’s new Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR). The NCAA requires member institutions to have a FAR to serve as a liaison between the institution and its athletic department.

This past summer I had the amazing opportunity to travel abroad to Costa Rica, where I spent six weeks living with a host family and volunteering at a local PreK-12dual immersionschool, La Paz Community School.

This past academic year, UConn’s Neag School of Education, along with UndocuScholars at the University of California Los Angeles and the Association for the Study of Higher Education(ASHE) Presidential Commission on Undocumented Immigrants, co-sponsored a research brief dissemination serieshighlighting issues related to the undocu/DACAmented community.

As the number of Holocaust survivors worldwide continues to dwindle each year, the question of how to preserve the stories of survivors as a means of remembrance and education becomes ever more relevant. Alan Marcus, associate professor in curriculum and instruction, is working to answer that question through research on three-dimensional, interactive technology.