EDLR Forum 2019 Attendees.

Annual Forum Features State Education Leaders

November 8, 2019

More than 60 Neag School alums, students, faculty, and administrators, along with education professionals from across Connecticut, gathered last month for an evening of networking, followed by a panel discussion at the Darien Community Association in Darien, Conn. This year’s forum, held for the first time in Fairfield County, was hosted by Neag School Dean’s Board of Advocates members James Degnan ’87 (CLAS) and Elizabeth Degnan ’87 (CLAS).



Students at Bowers Elementary School with their teacher, alum Aryliz Estrela.

10 Questions With 3rd-Year Teacher: Valuing Diversity in the Classroom

November 7, 2019

Aryliz (Crespo) Estrela ’16 (ED), ’17 MA is now in the midst of her third year of teaching after having completed the Neag School’s five-year Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s Program in 2017. Looking back, she shares some sage advice about what she learned during her first year in the classroom — one that she sums up in three words: “Fun. Insightful. Courageous.”


Olympian Karen Chammas

UConn Plays Host to International Sport Mentoring Program

November 4, 2019

There’s an Olympian spending time at the University of Connecticut right now and, if you think it’s a Husky basketball player, you are wrong.

The athlete is Karen Chammas, who represented her native Lebanon in the sport of judo at the 2012 London games, and she is spending late October and early November in Storrs as part of the Global Sports Mentoring Program.



Student plays game with young adult with developmental disabilities

Educating Educators to Help Children With High-Intensity Special Needs

October 30, 2019

Director of the UConn A.J. Pappanikou Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research, and Service (UConn UCEDD), Mary Beth Bruder has received a $6.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop a doctoral leadership program to train 28 future faculty. These trainees will then design and teach courses and programs of study designed to prepare teachers, social workers, and therapists to provide specialized interventions to infants and young children with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.





Devin Kearns uses Lightboard Technology. (Peter Morenus/UConn)

Meet the Researcher: Devin Kearns, Education

October 9, 2019

Devin Kearns began his career as a general education elementary school teacher for third-graders in Los Angeles, where he noticed many students had difficulty reading. The observation would lead to a dramatic shift in the trajectory of his work.