“Think about the lost social skills, opportunities to practice using big emotions and understanding and naming emotions,” said Sandy Chafouleas, professor of educational psychology at UConn’s Neag School of Education. “So, all those things were going to come in the door — in a door that’s already stressed. Schools were already stressed.”

With that, they came up with an idea: partnering with UConn’s Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry to create “Feel Your Best Self” — a series of free, online YouTube videos hosted by a trio of puppets.

Feel Your Best Self: Educators, Puppets Unite to Teach Kids About Emotions

Dave DeLucia ’80 (CLAS) ’81 MA, ’83 6th Year has been collecting seashells since he was 12 years old. It all began with a trip to Boston with his sisters to buy seashells and, while his family and friends liked it, he loved it. Though originally retrieved from the depths of the ocean in countries like Japan and Portugal, the shells now reside in wooden cabinets and glass displays in his house where they are protected from the harsh rays of the sun.

Garrett Schlichte ’15 MA, an upbeat copywriter from San Francisco, has never backed down from a new adventure. So when he saw a casting call on Instagram for a new television cooking competition, he thought “Why not?” He was not only cast in “America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation,” but made it to the finale, beating competitors with such dishes as lemon ricotta dumplings and pavlova with key lime lemon curd.

These cases have not had far-reaching consequences because most states with voucher programs already allowed religious schools to participate. The rulings also did not speak to charter schools directly. But in one case Justice Stephen Breyer raised the issue in dissent. “What about charter schools?” he wrote, before pointing out that the court had no clear answer. Indeed some experts told Chalkbeat in 2022 that this would be the coming legal dispute. “Charter schools are the next frontier,” said Preston Green, a University of Connecticut professor.

“It looks to me like they’ve taken the CDC measure and whittled or changed it to fit the context of what the Florida political structure wants,” explained Dr. Sandra Chafouleas, a professor in educational psychology for the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut.

Chafouleas is not involved in Florida’s survey or the CDC’s YRBS. But she has spent her career studying and creating youth assessments. We asked Dr. Chafouleas to review Florida’s new survey for its strengths and weaknesses.

Fahd A. Vahidy ’95 (CLAS), ’98 MA and Monika Doshi ’99 (CLAS) know what it’s like to feel like an outsider at college. Both were raised by immigrant families and were newcomers to the American college experience at UConn in the 1990s. Both were grateful to find a home on campus at the Asian American Cultural Center. Since graduating, they have generously donated to and volunteered for the center, helping many students along the way feel less like outsiders. They’ve been mentors and lecturers, served on many student and alumni panels, and rarely miss an event.

Professor James C. Kaufman, author of Creativity 101 and the forthcoming Creativity Advantage, explains that by associating creativity with geniuses, we fail to recognize everyday creativity in ourselves and others. “We have certain fixed ideas about creativity. A lot of people . . . assume, well, Shakespeare’s creative, Einstein’s creative,” he says. “But there are all these gradations and levels of creativity. Creativity is not just about the arts; it applies to everything that involves the process of problem solving.”

There are more and more qualified and great non-white teachers who would love to help non-white students just like them because they went through the same experiences growing up. According to the NEAG School of Education at UConn, “the number of students of color has more than doubled in the Neag School’s Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates and increased by 33% in the Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s Teacher Education Program.” So there are more teachers who are graduating every year who are non-white. It’s not that there is a lack of diverse teachers, these teachers just aren’t being hired.

Climate change is here, and towns across the state and region are beginning to respond — when they can. When towns can’t start projects for sustainability or climate adaptation, limited resources are often to blame, says Emeritus Extension Educator Chester Arnold, but UConn students are stepping up to help.