Despite this chaotic, hard year, we want to know what you’re thankful for this year.

Teachers and professors can play a huge role in supporting students at this time said Sandra Chafouleas, distinguished professor in the Neag School of Education at UConn. Just checking in can be very impactful.

Jamelle Elliott figured she was done with coaching. At least for the foreseeable future. She’d spent more than two decades in the industry — first as an assistant with her alma mater UConn (1997-2009) and then as the head coach at Cincinnati (2009-18) — before deciding that, at age 43, it was time to change paths and pursue another passion of hers. Then came an opportunity to get back into basketball.

Guilford Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Paul Freeman was named superintendent of the year by the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents (CAPSS).

The Provost’s Distinguished Speaker Series, now in its third year, fosters intellectual, professional, and personal growth and collegiality among the UConn community. This series provides an opportunity for the most recently inducted Board of Trustees Distinguished Professors and Endowed Chairs to share advances in their expertise and engage in thought-provoking discussions. Neag School’s Sandra Chafouleas presents on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020, on the following topic “Well-Being in School, Child, and Community: Advancing the Whole, Not the Sum of Its Parts.”

“The typical holiday season can bring forth any number of emotions, from anger and sadness to joy and awe. Family traditions – those repeated and symbolically meaningful holiday rituals – play a big role in shaping your feelings throughout the season. Family traditions can buffer conflicts, boost positive feelings, and bring people closer together,” writes Sandra Chafouleas, a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor in the Neag School of Education.

Professors Lisa Sanetti, Sandra Chafouleas, and Mary Beth Bruder have developed Interdisciplinary Preparation in Integrated and Intensive Practices (I3-PREP). The project is a multidisciplinary effort supported by UConn’s Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP), the Neag School of Education, the UConn School of Medicine.

Julie M. Wood ’71 (ED), ’72 MA, a renowned educational consultant, decided to leave a planned gift to UConn to support research in an area close to her heart: children’s literacy. She has set up an endowment that will generate funding every year for a faculty member in the Neag School of Education to conduct research in effective practices to support children’s literacy development.

More recently, research in academia this year led the authors to conclude that “we contend that women’s friendships allow women to thrive by meeting core psychological needs that are threatened in a marginalized work environment.” The role of a female academic’s female friendships are crucial in helping them counter and navigate the masculine culture of academia.

UConn researchers, including Neag School’s Devin Kearns, collaborate with schools across the country to help identify kids at risk of dyslexia. The AppRise project uses a free, game-like app to help teachers assess kids as young as five and get them the help they need to learn to read.