Each year, the Neag School co-sponsors a reading and writing contest known as Letters About Literature for Connecticut students in Grades 4-12. Students are asked to read a book, poem, or speech and write a letter to that author (living or dead) about how the text affected them personally. Prizes are awarded for top submissions.

Miguel Cardona ’01 MA, ’04 6th Year, ’11 Ed.D., ’12 ELP is President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to be the country’s top education official. If confirmed by the Senate, this would mark the first time a University of Connecticut alum has held a Cabinet-level position in the White House.

This fall, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) selected UConn’s Neag School of Education to join its Holmes Scholars Program, a nationwide network of higher education institutions seeking to support students from historically underrepresented communities enrolled in graduate programs across the field of education.

Beginning in Fall 2021, UConn’s Neag School of Education will be offering a new program in American Sign Language (ASL) education. Recently approved by the Connecticut Board of Education, the program is designed to prepare aspiring educators interested in becoming teachers of ASL.

Each of the Neag School’s 2020 Alumni Award honorees represent the best and brightest in their field. It is our privilege to celebrate all that they have accomplished through their careers and their service to the community.

In the months since Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were killed by police last spring, public outrage over anti-Black racism has inspired widespread protests, conversations and calls for reform. It is a movement with origins both recent and centuries old, and continues to spark in protest, as in the recent case of Jacob Blake, a black man shot by police in Kenosha, Wis. For students at the University of Connecticut, a new course will introduce them to the foundational history of systemic and anti-Black racism in the U.S. that underlies the current movement.

The University of Connecticut has been awarded a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to examine and strengthen gifted education opportunities for underserved populations through four studies. UConn’s National Center for Research on Gifted Education (NCRGE) will investigate strategies for recognizing and responding to untapped talent and explore the outcomes of gifted education services.

The Neag School is proud to announce for the 2020-21 academic year a number of new hires across each of its academic departments. In addition, the School announces several faculty promotions and new appointments for existing members of the Neag School community, effective Aug. 23.

Researchers from UConn and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies have been awarded a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation Research Traineeship Program to fund a new program to help train graduate students in risk analysis to build resilient landscapes in the face urbanization and climate change.

Neag School students completing the UConn Administrator Preparation Program (UCAPP) this spring presented their change projects — the program’s signature capstone assignment, in which students identify a need or opportunity for school improvement and work toward positive change — during the 6th Annual Change Project Day.