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.

Neag School alumni Jamie S. Baker ’03 (ED), ’04 MA, and Ronall L. Cannada ’05 (ED), ’06 MA visited the UConn Storrs campus this past spring to attend the inaugural 2019 Black History Month Networking Night, held to connect students from UConn’s ScHOLA2RS House, led by the Neag School’s Erik Hines, with alumni and friends of the University. They each reflect here on the impact of the event, as well as on their careers in education since graduating from the Neag School.

Starring alums Karissa Niehoff ’10 Ed.D. and Jesús Cortés-Sanchez ’18 (ED), ’19 MA, plus appearances by music ed majors and Jonathans XIII and XIV, Neag School Commencement Weekend was full of Husky spirit.

Ronald Beghetto explains why all students need to be creative thinkers. He considers whether creativity is a generic skill, and how – or if – we should assess it in schools.

For the past four years, the Northeast Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Academy, an evidence-based professional development program in the area of social-emotional development, has been used across the state of Massachusetts. Administered by the Neag School of Education through its affiliation with the Northeast PBIS (NEPBIS) Network, a loose affiliation of state education leaders in the Northeast, the PBIS Academy has announced it will continue its partnership with Massachusetts through the spring of 2022, after a bid to renew its contract for four additional years was recently approved.

James Kaufman, a professor at the Neag School of Education, theorizes that creativity is both a widespread phenomenon and critical to human development. Rather than reserving the term “creative” for the favored few who produce globally acclaimed works of art or world-changing discoveries, he said, creativity is a label just as easily applied to the prosaic activities of everyday life — learning, problem-solving or making a junior high art project.

Many school districts across Connecticut hold Neag School of Education teacher education graduates in the highest regard for potential employment.Throughout the Neag School’s partner school districts, juniors and seniors in the Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s (IB/M) program get firsthand student teaching experience in urban and suburban classroom settings; during their fifth year in the program, students receive further preparation through various professional development offerings and on-site internships.

This spring, two longtime faculty members will retire from the Neag School’s Department of Educational Psychology and Department of Curriculum and Instruction. In addition, a new head has been named to the Department of Educational Psychology for the fall of 2019.

This town 2 miles from the Canadian border is home to five churches, a post office, an ATM but no bank, Mike’s family market, a hairdresser, and a nonprofit coffee shop that runs on donations. There is no stoplight.

It is also home to the second-best public high school in the entire country, according to new rankings from U.S. News & World Report.

The UConn AAUP honored Professor Sandra Chafouleas as the 2019 recipient of the Edward C. Marth Mentorship Award at a reception on Thursday, April, 25, 2019. Dean Kent Holsinger from The Graduate School at UConn presided over the ceremony and led the toast honoring her many contributions.