UConn gifted education specialists have published the first study to demonstrate a link between student poverty, institutional poverty, and the lower identification rate of gifted low-income students.

“This is the first look at this issue in a significant way,” says Rashea Hamilton, a research associate in the National Center for Research on Gifted Education (NCRGE), part of UConn’s Neag School of Education. “We were able to make connections between higher proportions of free or reduced lunch students and availability of gifted programs and percentage of gifted students.”

Can we train an athlete to make them look like, seem like, act like a hummingbird? Probably not,” Jaci VanHeest said. But, she speculates, with some cellular or genetic tweaks, “can we get more than 4%? Maybe.”

Jaci VanHeest, Neag School associate professor of education, writes this piece originally published for The Conversation.

“As Fitbits and other wearable activity monitors change how regular people exercise and track their activity, they’re having similar effects on how Olympians train and recover between workouts,” says Jaci VanHeest, an associate professor in the Neag School of Education at UConn.

Joseph Cooper, an assistant professor  of sport management and educational leadership in UConn’s Neag School of Education, is a co-investigator with Drew Brown, assistant Africana studies professor at the University of Delaware, on a grant from the American Athletic Conference to study the topic of whether and how white coaches are fulfilling the cultural needs of black college athletes.

Associate Professor Thomas Levine in the Neag School’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction has been named an associate editor of Teaching and Teacher Education (TATE), an international, multidisciplinary journal concerned primarily with teachers, teaching, or teacher education

Thanks in part to the evaluation expertise of a doctoral student in the Neag School’s measurement, evaluation, and assessment (MEA) program, a recently released report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that about 1 percent of enrollments in federal health-insurance plans in 2015 were potentially improper or fraudulent.

Behind the artistry of today’s Olympic figure skaters lies some serious science. A new book by UConn professor Jaci VanHeest will make the research underlying elite skaters’ training accessible for the first time to coaches and athletes everywhere.

Behind the artistry of today’s Olympic figure skaters lies some serious science. A new book by UConn professor Jaci Van Heest will make the research underlying elite skaters’ training accessible for the first time to coaches and athletes everywhere.