The University of Connecticut is serving as one of the lead institutions on a $32.6 million U.S. Department of Education grant supporting schools and districts throughout the nation to implement empirically based practices to increase student success.

Maryland college football coach DJ Durkin was ultimately fired after the death of a player during practice – and findings that his players were bullied and abused by coaches and staff over the course his three-year tenure. However, his 11th hour ouster on Oct. 31 is evidence of how much the culture of college football still needs to change.

This culture encourages players to ignore signs of physical or mental exhaustion and is present across the college football landscape, not just at Maryland.

Alumni, students, faculty, and administrators from the Neag School of Education joined education professionals from across Connecticut last week for an evening of networking, followed by a panel discussion, at Hartford’s Spotlight Theatre. It was the fourth annual Educational Leadership Forum.

Scholarships undoubtedly remain an essential source of support for individual students, but in fact they can also set into motion a wealth of other positive outcomes beyond funding an individual’s educational journey. One such student scholarship is the Vivienne Dean Litt Memorial Award — established in memory of the late Vivienne Dean Litt, former assistant director of the University Program for Students with Learning Disabilities (UPLD) at UConn.

Each year, the U.S. Department of State, the Center for Sport, Peace & Society at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, and espnW co-sponsor the Global Sports Mentoring Program’s (GSMP) Empower Women Through Sports Initiative.

The Neag School Department of Educational Leadership’s Laura Burton, Danielle DeRosa, and Jennifer McGarry were selected to serve as mentors to an emerging leader from Vietnam, Tra Giang “Jane” Nguyen.

Like most kids heading into seventh grade, Jesús Cortés-Sanchez was not yet thinking ahead to a future career. What mattered most then was enjoying time with his friends. Even into his high school years, the idea of going to college was not on his mind. An undocumented student ineligible to apply for federal student aid, he viewed college as an unrealistic, financially impossible feat.

All of that would start to change when a recent Yale School of Music graduate named John Miller began recruiting students to a new band program he had established at Cortés-Sanchez’s middle school in New Haven, Conn.

Two research projects co-led by professors in the Neag School of Education have recently been awarded a total of more than $2.5 million in federal funding, made available through the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Editor’s Note: This month, Teach.com — an educational web resource for information on becoming a teacher — features Neag School alumna Natalie Curran ’11 (ED), ’12 MA in its “8 Questions” series, which showcases teachers who have transitioned their classroom skills into new and exciting careers in, and beyond, the field of education.

Professor James Kaufman, the author/editor of more than 35 books, is interviewed in this piece focused on books and reading, which originally appeared on The Readings Lists blog. 

Congratulations to our Neag School alumni, faculty, staff, and students on their continued accomplishments inside and outside the classroom.