Middletown Press (Alum Samuel Galloway featured in announcement on recent Neag School Alumni Award)

“A trauma-informed approach is critical for schools,” says Sandra Chafouleas, a professor of educational psychology at University of Connecticut who has researched the topic. She says the new push helps school staffs identify and provide counseling for the estimated one-half to two-thirds of students who, according to the Education Law Center, probably have experienced trauma.

Suzanne M. Wilson has researched teacher knowledge, curriculum reform, education policy, measures of
teaching effectiveness and professional development. As the Neag Endowed Professor of Teacher Education, Wilson has found PD to be most impactful and engaging when instruction connects to a district’s curriculum, assessments and leadership policies.

A Kaplan Test Prep survey finds that 76 percent of future college students are more interested in topics regarding politics, human rights, and activism than they were two years ago. Such data is no surprise given the current heightened political atmosphere, said University of Connecticut professor in human rights Glenn Mitoma.

On March 20, 2018, U.S. News released their rankings for best public graduate schools of education for 2019, placing UConn’s Neag School at number 17. This ranking is not exactly unexpected, as Neag has consistently placed within the top 20 schools for the past three years.

Students of color in UConn’s Neag School of Education are fortunate that their predecessors established an organization called Leadership in Diversity.

Almost five years ago, students formed the group to build a support system for future teachers of color at the university. It’s a mentoring program intended to give students the tools and networks that will enable them to succeed in their careers as educators.

According to research over the years, gifted identification is closely tied to income and race. Students from low-income families and students who are black or Latino are much less likely to be identified as gifted than more-affluent students and white or Asian students. “The key factor is poverty, to be honest,” said Del Siegle, a University of Connecticut professor in gifted education and director of the National Center for Research on Gifted Education. The groups that are likewise underrepresented in schools’ gifted programs — minorities and English language learners — often share the issues of poverty.

In addition, according to a study by Joshua Hyman, an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut, the test also uncovered low-income students who might have otherwise not applied to college: about 480 for every 1,000 who had taken the test before 2007 and had scored well.

The players, the years and the victories have rolled by, and on Tuesday the present-day Huskies presented Jim Penders with his 500th as UConn’s coach, a 4-0 victory at Boston College behind the pitching of Jeff Kersten.

“My name is Lara Hawley and I am currently serving as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in South Africa for nine months,” says Lara Hawley. “I arrived in January and will be here until October. This first month in South Africa has been a whirlwind, but I have loved every single second of it!”