The following piece originally appeared on the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)’s Ed Prep Matters blog, authored by Neag School Professor and Director of Research Sandra Chafouleas.

Working alongside fellow UConn faculty and administrators, Neag School assistant professor Blanca Rincón will serve as co-principal investigator and researcher on a new five-year, $3.5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant dedicated to expanding diversity in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

For Ph.D. candidate Thomas “TJ” McKenna, a love for science may not be enough; his mission, it seems, has become focused just as much on sharing his love for making science accessible to the masses.

Following an evening of networking among more than 130 educational leadership alumni, students, and colleagues, two notable Neag School alumni — school principal Alicia Bowman and superintendent Joseph Macary — took to the stage to share their program experiences and insights on leadership during Neag School’s Second Annual Educational Leadership Alumni Forum, held Nov. 1 at UConn’s von der Mehden Hall in Storrs.

Three Neag School students — Alexandra “Ali” Jabick ’16 (ED), ’17 MA, Cheyann Kelly ’16 (ED), ’17 MA, and Yizhi Wang ’16 (ED), ’17 MA — each in their fifth year of the Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s program with a concentration in elementary education, are currently spending the semester in Cape Town, South Africa, where they are working at Christel House School, which is run entirely on donations and where all students are on full scholarship.

Each fall, a select group of fifth-year students in the Neag School’s Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s Program (IB/M) spends the semester living, teaching, and researching in the heart of London as part of the Study Abroad Teaching Internship Program.

The Neag School’s aspiring teachers are each assigned to intern at a specific school, which range from a diverse, multifaith primary school in suburban London to a highly selective all-boys’ school in the northern part of the city.

Julia Lachut ’15 (ED), ’16 MA spent the fall semester of her master’s year in England as part of the Neag School’s Study Abroad Teaching Internship Program. In England, she taught students at Rooks Heath, a multicultural school in London with about 1,000 students ages 11 to 18.

The Neag School of Education hosted Jahana Hayes — an education spokesperson, teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Waterbury, Conn., and 2016 National Teacher of the Year — as the keynote speaker at this year’s annual Celebration of Diversity in Education event, held Sept. 28 at the Alumni Center on the UConn Storrs campus.

The Wallace Foundation has selected the University of Connecticut to participate in a national $47 million initiative to develop models over the next four years for improving university principal preparation programs and to examine state policy to see if it could be strengthened to encourage higher-quality training statewide. An independent study will capture lessons from the participating universities and their partners, to be shared with policymakers and practitioners across the country.

Thanks to a $30,000 Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship, 43-year-old Arthur Lerner is now advancing his education through the Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates at UConn’s Avery Point campus. The scholarship is helping to create a smooth transition for him as he goes from nonprofit work to pursuing a career as a biology teacher.