Emily Tarconish is a Ph.D. candidate in Neag School’s educational psychology program with a concentration in special education. She is a survivor of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) she endured at the age of 15. With years of hard work and rehabilitation, Tarconish has relearned how to walk, speak, and regain basic life functions. Once she completes her Ph.D., she plans to pursue research focused in part on improving access to higher education for college students with TBIs.

It comes as no surprise that the way we consume information is changing. Increasingly, we are moving from text-based forms of information to visual ones, as evidenced by the popularity of visual social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest. Not all of these visual forms are vacuous as we might be inclined to think.

Olivia Singer, 22, of South Windsor, is a master’s student in the Elementary Education Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s Program at the University of Connecticut in the Neag School of Education. Originally published in the Hartford Courant.

Taylor Hudak, 22, of Guilford, Conn., is a master’s student in the Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s Program at University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education. She graduated with bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and secondary mathematics education from UConn in May. She wrote this commentary, which was published in the Hartford Courant.

“My experience in my teacher prep program included four clinic experiences, in urban and suburban placements, over 10 lesson observations completed and evaluated by teachers, principals and instructional coaches and more than 90 credits of education-focused courses,” says Olivia Singer. “From my perspective, these hands-on learning experiences with students, educators and renowned faculty at the University of Connecticut were of much more value to me than any multiple choice test I could have taken.”

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

“I was actually nervous before my first practice,” Pieper says. “I was scared. You know, the girls had high expectations, and they were all looking at me, when I was touching the ball, and I was like, ‘You know, I’m also just a hockey player just like you are. I’m not going to do anything different from you.’ I don’t know if that’s how it was, but that’s how it felt for me coming here. Once I started playing, I was just excited to see how the games were going to be.”

On the surface, this student is picture-perfect: Straight A’s, president of a club, athlete, 100 volunteer hours, works three jobs and fundraiser for numerous causes.

This was me.

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.