With $2.5 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs, special education faculty at Boston University and the Neag School, co-led by Devin Kearns, will partner on a project that will fully fund five doctoral students at each institution over the next five years.
The U.S. Department of Education has awarded $2.5 million in funding through its Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) to special education faculty at Boston University (BU)’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development and UConn’s Neag School of Education for a project that will fully fund five doctoral students at each institution over the next five years.
To understand interventions in literacy, social and behavioral skills, and transition,
To understand the complex educational systems that support students with disabilities, and
To conduct rigorous research related to these foci.
LINC Scholars, who will be recruited into the program for a fall 2020 start, will receive full tuition support from their institution, along with stipend, insurance, and financial resources for travel and other expenses related to the LINC project.
“We look forward to partnering with BU’s Wheelock College on these efforts and, ultimately, to seeing 10 stellar doctoral students advance from our institutions to serve as leading scholars in this critical shortage area.”
— Dean Gladis Kersaint
The project places intentional emphasis on scholarship and activity, which supports cross-site collaboration within the cohort. Scholars will engage in seminars, online learning, and professional conferences that support their success within the program, while completing course- and fieldwork that prepares them to conduct rigorous research.
Elizabeth Bettini, assistant professor at BU Wheelock, is one of Project LINC’s organizers, with Devin Kearns of the Neag School. (Mike Spencer/Boston University)
“This is such a great opportunity for BU and UConn to be training the next generation of scholars,” says Elizabeth Bettini, assistant professor at BU Wheelock and one of the project’s organizers. “It is a pretty incredibly opportunity for doctoral students to be mentored by faculty with a wide range of expertise and skill.”
Project organizer Devin Kearns, associate professor at UConn’s Neag School, concurs: “My colleagues and I at UConn are excited to welcome scholars who want to do work in literacy, positive behavior intervention and supports, or postsecondary transition with leading researchers in the field, scholars who also want to learn from the exceptional BU faculty about other systems that help students with disabilities succeed.”
“The Neag School is motivated and excited by this new federally funded leadership grant focused on growing the number of experts in the special education field,” says Neag School Dean Gladis Kersaint. “We look forward to partnering with BU’s Wheelock College on these efforts and, ultimately, to seeing 10 stellar doctoral students advance from our institutions to serve as leading scholars in this critical shortage area.”
Unique faculty expertise will inform the experience of scholars at each institution. BU faculty, who hold expertise in educational, policy, mental health and family systems serving students with disabilities, will guide scholars in developing expertise in those systems and in the systemic factors shaping the experiences and outcomes of students with disabilities and their families. Those faculty include:
Elizabeth Bettini, who researches factors that contribute to inequities in students’ access to skilled special educators. She has expertise in special educators’ working conditions and attrition, particularly among beginning teachers and those serving students with emotional/behavioral disorders.
Jennifer Grief Green, who researches school-based mental health service provision, especially for students with emotional/behavioral disorders, racial/ethnic disparities in mental health service access, and bullying prevention.
Nathan D. Jones, who researches educator development systems, including teacher quality and teacher development, with a focus on the use of measures of teacher effectiveness in evaluation systems.
Zachary Rossetti, who studies experiences of families with children with and without intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorders, focusing on family engagement in education, home-school collaboration, community participation, and sibling roles and relationships.
UConn Neag School faculty, who hold expertise in implementation of literacy, socio-behavioral, and transition interventions and intervention systems for students with disabilities and their families, will support LINC scholars in developing expertise in those interventions and in studying interventions that improve the experiences and outcomes of students with disabilities. They include:
Devin Kearns, who researches reading disability — including dyslexia — and reading interventions for elementary- and middle school-age children.
Michael Coyne, who has expertise in beginning reading and early vocabulary intervention, school-based experimental research, multi-tiered systems of support, and effective practices for students with learning disabilities.
Allison Lombardi, who studies transition from adolescence to adulthood, with a particular focus on college and career readiness and higher education experiences of underrepresented groups, including students with disabilities.
Jennifer Freeman, who studies the effects of multi-tiered systems of support, such as PBIS, on outcomes for high-risk student groups, including students with disabilities. She also studies professional development methods for improving teacher’s use of evidence-based classroom management strategies.
Potential applicants to the program are encouraged to seek further information about Project LINC by reaching out to the project’s faculty leaders, Bettini and Kearns. Each institution will host applicants for a recruitment weekend this spring. The project team welcome applications from professionals in education and related fields (e.g., social work, counseling, mental health) who have worked with students with disabilities in applied settings, such as schools, for at least three years. Applicants must hold a masters degree, preferably in a related field (e.g., education, special education, social work, school counseling, cognitive science). Learn more.
A new app developed by professors at UConn and partner universities could help teachers identify young children at risk for dyslexia. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)
Editor’s Note: The following piece was originally published on UConn Today.
Dyslexia makes reading a struggle for millions of people, but the learning disability is rarely diagnosed before age 7. Now, a team of educators and scientists led by UConn professors has made a game-like app that could help teachers identify younger kids at risk.
The longer it takes to identify dyslexia, the more time a child spends struggling to read and the more time must be invested to get the same level of improvement in reading skills, says Fumiko Hoeft, director of the Brain Imaging Research Center at UConn.
“It’s never too late to identify dyslexia … but for every year after pre-kindergarten you wait, the effect of the intervention goes down by 25-50%,” says Hoeft.
So Hoeft, Devin Kearns of UConn’s Neag School of Education, and colleagues from University of California, San Francisco, and MIT, have designed an app — a mobile device application — that teachers can use to test children whom they are concerned about. The researchers worked with Boston-based nonprofit Curious Learning to make the app like a game, with colorful little animals that need to be fed by the correct answers and tasks that test skills such as decoding and working memory.
“It’s never too late to identify dyslexia … but for every year after pre-kindergarten you wait, the effect of the intervention goes down by 25-50%.”
— Fumiko Hoeft, Director, UConn Brain Imaging Research Center
Dyslexia is common enough that most people in the U.S. are familiar with it, but it’s not a straightforward disability. Broadly defined, dyslexia means a person has more than usual difficulty reading. But the ways it manifests can be diverse and subtle. Many people with dyslexia have difficulty processing sounds and matching them with the right letter; they may replace one sound with another (b with c so that ‘bat’ becomes ‘cat’, for example); or they may have difficulty understanding rhyming.
One of the reasons dyslexia takes so long to identify in children in the U.S. is that English has a complex orthography. That is, the rules of spelling and representing sounds in English are not straightforward. Other countries that speak languages with simpler orthographies identify dyslexia at earlier ages.
It takes English speaking children years to learn to read and at least a couple of years for the educational system to show that a child is significantly lagging his or her peers in reading. It’s called the “wait to fail” model, and it causes many children’s dyslexia to not be diagnosed until ages 8 to 10, so that they lose a significant amount of educational time.
Once a teacher or parent identifies a child as being at risk for dyslexia, a neuropsychological evaluation can zoom in on the child’s specific deficits. But such an evaluation is a lengthy process, usually requiring three half-days of testing and costing around $2,000 in Connecticut. It’s impractical to do that for every kindergartner.
“English is a logical system, but to understand it takes time. In other countries, kids with dyslexia are more often identified by reading fluency,” says Kearns, an associate professor of educational psychology.
So far, researchers have tested the app on 270 kids in nine Connecticut schools: Union, Bozrah, Windsor, Willmer Woodson, Hebron, Brooklyn, Woodstock, Willington, and Franklin. This year, they’ve broadened out to work with schools in New Hampshire, New Jersey, Florida, Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma and California. They are actively looking for partners in other regions of the nation, particularly the Midwestern states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.
The goal is to have more than 2,000 kids participate — from all regions of the U.S. and from diverse schools in urban, suburban, and rural communities.
“The data will allow us to norm the test and be confident that we give schools scores that compare kids across the entire country,” Kearns says. Ultimately, the team would like to get something accurate and freely available to the public by the end of 2020-2021 school year.
The project is called APPRISE, and teachers interested in participating can reach out directly to Kearns and Hoeft through the website.
Congratulations to our Neag School alumni, faculty, staff, and students on their continued accomplishments inside and outside the classroom. If you have an accolade to share, we want to hear from you! Please send any news items and story ideas to neag-communications@uconn.edu.
In addition to the Dean’s Office and Department achievements, explore this edition’s list for Accolades from the following: Faculty/Staff; Alumni; Students; as well as In Memoriam.
The Neag School, in partnership with benefactor and Dean’s Board of Advocates member Katie Fuller, curator of the Race and Revolution series, hosted an exhibit “Race and Revolution: Reimagining Monuments” at the Old Stone House in Brooklyn, N.Y., in June. Check out photos from the Race and Revolution event.
Dean’s Board of Advocates member Katie Fuller, left, and Dean Gladis Kersaint gather at the “Race and Revolution” exhibit this past June. (Caitlin Trinh/Neag School)
Department of Curriculum and Instruction (EDCI) and Teacher Education
Amy Fosse, a student in the Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates, works with a student at Norwich Free Academy this past summer. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
Middle-school teachers from across Connecticut converged on the Storrs campus in August to participate in the “Ant U” Professional Development program offered by Todd Campbell; Tori Schilling ’16 (ED), ’17 MA, science teacher at Ellington (Conn.) Middle School; and Tamashi Hettiarachchi, science education major in the Neag School; in collaboration with Janine Cairo, Ant U director of Academic Partnerships and Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; and Jane O’Donnell, manager of Scientific Collections at UConn. Check out photos from the Ant U program.
Neag School students in the Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates (TCPCG) got firsthand experience working with the middle-school students this past summer as part of a free summer STEM academy for grades six through eight offered by the Norwich Free Academy in Norwich, Conn. Check out photos from the summer STEM academy.
Kate Roberts gives remarks during the Literacy Program alumni event. (Frank Zappulla/Neag School)
The Neag School hosted an alumni networking event for the Literacy Program at the UConn Storrs campus in June. The event featured guest speaker Kate Roberts, a national literacy expert. View photos from the Literacy Program alumni event.
Michele Femc-Bagwell, director of the Teacher Education Program, gives welcome remarks during the networking event earlier this month. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School
Students from all Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s (IB/M) and Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates (TCPCG) cohorts came together for a networking event on the Storrs campus earlier this month September. Check out photos from the welcome event.
Department of Educational Leadership (EDLR)
Gerardo Blanco is serving as interim director of the Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) program.
The sport management program hosted a networking event for alumni and sports industry professionals at the Salute Restaurant in Hartford, Conn., in August. Check out photos from the sport management networking event.
The University of Connecticut Administrator Preparation Program (UCAPP) hosted a Wallace Foundation site visit in September in Hartford, Conn., focused on social and emotional learning and parent/community engagement for aspiring school leaders. Participants from across the nation learned from the work of Florida Atlantic University and UCAPP.
This past academic year, the Neag School, along with UndocuScholars at the University of California Los Angeles and the Association for the Study of Higher EducationPresidential Commission on Undocumented Immigrants, co-sponsored a research brief dissemination series highlighting issues related to the undocu/DACAmented community. H. Kenny Nienhusser coordinated the series. Read more about the #Undocedu series.
Department of Educational Psychology (EPSY)
Scott Brown gives closing remarks during his retirement celebration in September. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology Scott Brown retired from the Neag School in August after 39 years in faculty and administrative roles. Read reflections from fellow colleagues and former students. He also co-wrote “Applying the Concept of Chunking to Tennis” for the April issue of Coaching and Sport Science Review.
Neag School educational psychology faculty members including Michael Coyne, Jennifer Freeman, Devin Kearns, Allison Lombardi, D. Betsy McCoach, Brandi Simonsen, and Hariharan Swaminathan were collectively awarded $6.9 million from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) for three research projects related to special education. In addition, Sandra Chafouleas is co-principal investigator on a five-year, $3.9 million grant project administered by the University of Kansas.
Two students from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s Young Scholars Senior Summit examine computer data as part of their research project. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
The Renzulli Center for Creativity, Gifted Education, and Talent Development hosted 68 high school students from across the country for a three-week, hands-on research experience at the UConn Storrs campus as part of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s three-week Young Scholars Senior Summit (YSSS) program, a national scholarship initiative for students in grades eight through 12 who demonstrate exceptional academic abilities, unique talents, and persistence. Check out photos from this July’s YSSS program.
A Confratute participant examines small fish as part of a hands-on science workshop. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
In addition, the Renzulli Center welcomed more than 400 educators from around the world this July for Confratute at UConn Storrs. Celebrating its 42nd anniversary this year, Confratute has attracted more than 30,000 educators worldwide for a highly acclaimed, enrichment-based program. The weeklong program is geared toward providing educators with research-based practical strategies for engagement and enrichment learning for all students, as well as meeting the needs of gifted and talented students. View photos from this year’s Confratute program.
The Summer Behavioral Institute, sponsored by the Neag School’s Center for Behavioral Education and Research (CBER) and the Northeast Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (NEPBIS), hosted a four-day event at UConn Storrs designed to increase school practitioners’ understanding of behavioral science theory. Check out photos from the Summer Behavioral Institute.
Laura Burton and Monique Nia Golden, a graduate student in educational leadership, co-presented at the North American Society for Sport Management’s (NASSM) national conference in New Orleans, La., in June. Burton also co-wrote an opinion piece, “The War on Women Coaches,” for The Conversation.
Morgaen Donaldson, educational leadership doctoral student Jeremy Landa, and former faculty member Kimberly LeChasseur co-wrote “District Micropolitics During Principal Professional Learning” for the July issue of Educational Management Administration and Leadership. Donaldson also co-authored “Teacher Evaluation as Data Use: What Recent Research Suggests” for the June issue of Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Accountability.
Justin Evanovich was awarded a seed grant by the UConn Office of the Vice President for Research for his research project “Experiences and Impacts of Critical Service Learning Course.”
Allison Lombardi presented on “Universal Design and Inclusive Instruction” at the “Inclusion at Universities and Barrier-Free Bavaria” event in Munich, Germany, in May.
A Holocaust survivor is filmed as part of The Forever Project. (Photo courtesy of The National Holocaust Centre and Museum)
Alan Marcus, along with a team of researchers including Ian McGregor, a doctoral student in curriculum and instruction, and Rotem Maor, a former curriculum and instruction postdoctoral student, and faculty from other universities, has embarked on “The Forever Project: The Benefits and Dilemmas of Using Virtual Interactive Survivor Testimony” to capture stories of Holocaust survivors.
Adam McCready published Relationships Between Collective Fraternity Chapter Masculine Norm Climates and the Alcohol Consumption of Fraternity Men for the October issue of Psychology of Men and Masculinities. He was also named vice chair for scholarship and research for the American College Personnel Association (ACPA)’s Coalition on Men and Masculinities.
Sally Reis and Joseph Renzulliwrote an original commentary about New York Public Schools’ controversy on eliminating gifted education programs for the New York Daily News. Renzulli also was recognized by the Mensa Foundation with a 2018-19 senior investigator award for Excellence in Research.
Christopher Rhoads is a co-principal investigator on a project entitled “Investigating Whether Online Course Offerings Support STEM Degree Progress,” which has received$2.5 million NSF grant to investigate whether online courses provide increased access to STEM college degrees, particularly to students underrepresented in STEM fields.
John Settlage co-edited the third edition of Teaching Science to Every Child: Using Culture as a Starting Point (Rutledge, 2019). He also co-wrote “Developing as a College Science Teacher: Using Identity to Examine Transformation” for the May issue of International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
Brandi Simonsen was a panelist on “Addressing the Needs at the Top of the MTSS Triangle: Implementation Lessons From the Field” for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services 2019 Leadership Conference in Arlington, Va., in July.
Megan Staples co-presented “Inservice Teachers’ Evaluations of Students’ Arguments” for the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics Conference in Birmingham, U.K., in June.
George Sugai co-published “Sustaining and Scaling Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports: Implementation Drivers, Outcomes, and Considerations” for the July issue of Exceptional Children.
Jennie Weiner, Laura Burton, and Daron Cyr, a doctoral student in educational leadership, co-wrote “Microaggressions in Administrator Preparation Programs: How Black Female Participants Experienced Discussions of Identity, Discrimination, and Leadership” for the June issue of the Journal of Research on Leadership Education.
Milagros Castillo-Montoya co-presented “Examining the Role of Intergroup Dialogue (IGD) in Professional Education” for the 2019 Intergroup Dialogue Conference: Pedagogy of Possibilities in June in Amherst, Mass.
Sarah Woulfin hosted a Twitter chat with the American Education Research Association (AERA)’s special interest group on educational change in August. She was also recently named co-editor of AERA’s Educational Researcher and was featured in “Lead the Change Series Q & A with Sarah L. Woulfin” for the August issue of American Education Research Association (AERA)’s Special Interest Group (SIG) on Educational Change.
Students
LEAD Program students visit the Gentry Building last month. (Photo courtesy of Michele Femc-Bagwell)
Students from the Leadership, Equity, and Diversity (LEAD) Program in the Neag School visited various classrooms and the Neag School Dean’s Office on the UConn Storrs campus in August. Students are connected to the Neag School during their first two years of study through courses, seminars, research opportunities, and mentorship, all aimed at supporting the achievement of curricular and career goals. The purpose of this program is to nurture a diverse group of highly motivated students who are interested in working in areas of teaching shortages in the State of Connecticut, including comprehensive special Education, mathematics, science, and world languages. LEAD students are members of UConn’s Honors Program.
Joshua Abreu, a doctoral student in educational leadership, wrote an original article “People in the Reform: Brenda Oursler White” for the September issue of People in the Reform.
Batouly Camara ’19 (ED), a sport management master’s student and redshirt senior for the UConn women’s basketball team, was featured in an episode of the podcast “In the World of Female Sports.”
Chelsea Connery ’13 (CLAS), ’14 MA, a doctoral student in educational leadership, Preston Green, and James Kaufmanco-published “The Underrepresentation of CLD Students in Gifted and Talented Programs: Implications for Law and Practice” for the June issue of University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender, and Class.
Carli Culter is writing a new series for The Daily Campus. (Charlotte Lao/Daily Campus)
Carli Cutler, a sport management student and senior on the women’s softball team, wrote an original article for The Daily Campus.
Sandra Faioes, a student in the Executive Leadership Program (ELP), was appointed director of school improvement for Norwalk (Conn.) Public Schools. Previously, she was the principal at Brookside Elementary School in Norwalk, Conn.
Kiana Foster-Mauro ’19 (ED), ’20 MA poses with her students at La Paz Community School in Costa Rica, where she volunteered for six weeks this past summer. (Photo courtesy of Kiana Foster-Mauro)
Lynne Henwood, a master’s student in educational psychology, teacher in the Washington Township (N.J.) school system, and advocate for gifted and talented students in the Trenton Statehouse and Congress, is the 2019 winner of the Mensa Foundation’s Gifted Education Fellowship.
Jillian Ives, a doctoral student in educational leadership, wrote an original article “People in the Reform: Milena Cuellar” for the May issue of People in the Reform. She also serves as the Department of Educational Leadership’s representative for the UConn Graduate Student Career Council.
Jillian Ives and Ashley Robinson, doctoral students in educational leadership, were each awarded graduate conference travel scholarships from the Association for the Student of Higher Education (ASHE) to attend their national conference in Portland, Ore., in November.
Music education students performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City this summer. (Photo courtesy of Cara Bernard)
Music education students from the Neag School, including Emily Lattanzi, Jonah Garcia, Hannah Maynard, Spencer Sonnenberg, and Nicolas Tedeschi, performed two world premiere pieces at Carnegie Hall in New York, N.Y., in June as part of the National Concert Chorus.
Doctoral student Xiaochen Liu is working as a teaching fellow on behalf of UConn’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Tsinghua University in Beijing. (Photo courtesy of Xiaochen Liu)
Josué Lopez, a doctoral student in curriculum and instruction, received a Fulbright research grant to Guatemala, where he will conduct ethnographic research in a Mayan Ki-che village to better understand policy and practice relevant to multicultural education.
Dean Powers, a senior in agricultural education, penned an original article “Multiple Literacies in Agriculture Classrooms” for the June/July issue of The Agricultural Education Magazine.
Ashley Robinson, a doctoral student in educational leadership, was appointed vice president of UConn’s Graduate Employee Union. She was also named to the Graduate and New Professional Editorial Review Board for Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education’s Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education; was appointed vice-chair of American College Personnel Association (ACPA)’s Commission for Housing and Residential Life; and selected as an institute faculty member and institute assessment co-chair for ACPA’s Institute on the Curricular Approach.
Patricia Virella, a doctoral student in educational leadership, was recognized by the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) as a UCEA Jackson Scholar. This two-year program provides formal networking, mentoring, and professional development for graduate students of color who intend to become professors of educational leadership.
Alumni
Alan Addley ’07 ELP, ’14 Ed.D., superintendent of Granby (Conn.) Public Schools, was named the state’s Superintendent of the Year for 2019. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
Alan Addley ’07 ELP, ’14 E.D. has been appointed superintendent of Darien (Conn.) Public Schools. He most recently served as superintendent of Granby (Conn.) Public Schools.
Anastasia Ali ’13 MS was recently promoted to director, football strategy and business development at National Football League in New York, N.Y., after serving as manager of strategic business operations also at the NFL.
Emily Armstrong ’16 (CLAS), ’17 MA, a goalkeeper with a women’s soccer club from Sundsvall, Sweden, shared highlights from the 2019 season.
Joseph Briody’86 (CLAS), ’95 MA, ’96 Ph.D.has been named interim assistant vice president for UConn’s Division of Student Affairs. He has been in the Department of Student Activities for more than 24 years.
CASP 2019 Intern of the Year Award winner Hannah Brown ’17 MA, ’19 6th Year (center) celebrates with Jessica Patris, a school psychologist from East Hartford (Conn.) Middle School, and Michelle Ford, a school psychologist from Glastonbury High.(Photo courtesy of Lisa Sanetti)
Hannah Brown’17 MA, ’19 6th Year received the Connecticut Association of School Psychologists (CASP) 2019 Intern of the Year Award.
June Cahill ’92 (CLAS) ’93 (ED), ’94 MA, principal of Kennelly School in Hartford, Conn., led a group of students who presented at the Hartford Public Schools’ Board of Education meeting about the school’s partnership with the Neag School.
Kathryn Dal Zin’05 (CNHR), ’06 MA was named Teacher of the Year by Wallingford (Conn.) Public Schools. She has been the agricultural-science teacher at Lyman Hall High School since 2010.
Anastasia DiFedele-Dutton ’04 (CLAS), ’08 MA was accepted to join the Learning Forward’s Academy Class of 2021 as a Corwin Academy Scholarship recipient. She is the assistant director of professional learning at Hartford (Conn.) Public Schools.
Miguel Cardona ’00 MA, ’04 6th Year, ’11 Ed.D., ’12 ELP, at right, was sworn in by Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz as the Connecticut State Department of Education’s new education commissioner. Also pictured are members of Cardona’s family. Cardona was also featured by numerous outlets, including in a piece by The Intelligencer about his journey from educator to state education commissioner. Desi Nesmith ’01 (ED), ’02 MA, ’09 6th Year, chief turnaround officer for the state Department of Education, served as interim commissioner.
Killeen Tracy Dziavit ’01 (ED), ’02 MA was named the English department head for Norwich Free Academy (NFA) in Norwich, Conn. Dziavit began her NFA teaching career in 2002 as a member of the English department faculty. For the past 17 years, she has been immersed in professional activities, contributing to numerous school and departmental improvement initiatives.
Jamelle Elliott ’96 (BUS), ’97 MA, sport management alumna, former UConn women’s basketball star, and current associate athletic director for the UConn National ‘C’ Club, was featured by UConn Today.
Paul A. Funk ’93 (ED) was named principal of Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School in South Yarmouth, Mass., where he previously served as assistant principal, athletic director, and head football coach.
Holly Hageman ’86 (CLAS), ’00 6th Year, ’06 Ph.D. has been named interim superintendent of schools for Regional School District 17 in Haddam, Conn. She previously served as the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.
David Howes ’11 6th Year was named principal of LEAP School in Willimantic, Conn. Howes most recently served as principal and executive director from 2014 to 2019 at the Interdistrict School of Arts and Communication in New London, Conn.
Brittany Hunter ’08 (ED), ’11 MS began her second year in the Vanderbilt University MBA program and has been offered a job at Microsoft as a human resource manager upon graduation. Most recently, Brittany was the director of instruction (grades 3-5) at Harlem Village Academies in Harlem, N.Y., and before that, she was a teacher at the Harlem Success Academies for six years.
Isaiah Jacobs ’17 MS recently began a job with the Hartford (Conn.) Public Schools as a student engagement specialist. He will have the new Weaver High School in Hartford, his alma mater, as one of his schools. Most recently Jacobs was the assistant program director for Upward Bound at the University of Vermont.
Taylor Kielpinski-Rogers ’17 (ED) was recently promoted to director of communications at the National Football League in New York, N.Y., after serving as the media relations manager before this new position.
Josh Lupinek ’11 MS started the semester as an assistant professor of sport marketing at Feliciano School of Business at Montclair State University, where he is also the co-program director of the sport and recreation business program. He had previously taught at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.
Melissa Collier Meek, ’08 (CLAS), ’04 MA, ’11 6th Year, ’13 Ph.D., a faculty member at UMass Boston, is the winner of the American Psychology Association’s Division 16 2019 Lightner Witmer Award. The award honors young professionals and academic school psychologists who have demonstrated scholarship that merits special recognition. Meek also co-published an article titled “Exploring the Influences of Assessment Method, Intervention Steps, Intervention Sessions, and Observation Timing on Treatment Fidelity Estimates” with Lisa Sanetti, Sandra Chafouleas, and alumna Lindsay Fallon ’09 MA, ’11 6th Year, ’13 Ph.D. for the June issue of Assessment for Effective Intervention.
Michael McDonnell ’91 (CLAS), ’16 6th Year was appointed assistant professor for Mabelle B. Avery Middle School in Somers, Conn. McDonnell joins the middle school after 16 years of teaching at Somers Elementary School as both a reading interventionist and a fourth-grade teacher.
Emmanuel Omokaro ’11 (ED), ’12 MA was is ESPN’s Team VoluntEAR of the Year. A project coordinator in ESPN Corporate Citizenship, Omokaro helped raise nearly $40,000 to build a school in Senegal and oversaw its construction.
DJ Quinn ’19 (ED) is serving as a hiring associate at the UConn Department of Recreation at the UConn Storrs campus.
Emmanuel Omokaro ’12 (ED), ’12 MA (left) celebrates with ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro after receiving the 2019 Volunteer of the Year Award. (Melissa Rawlins/ESPN Images)
Zuleyka Morales Shaw ’09 MA, a science teacher at Hartford (Conn.) Magnet Trinity College Academy, was one of three 2019 finalists for Hartford Public Schools’ Teacher of the Year.
Victoria Schilling’16 (ED), ’17 MA, a science teacher at Ellington (Conn.) Middle School, was featured in a podcast about Consensus Modelling in the NGSS Classroom for NGS Navigators.
Jessica Shufelt ’12 (ED) was inducted into the 2019 New York High School Hall of Fame. (Photo courtesy of the New York State High School Soccer Hall of Fame)
Jessica Shufelt ’12 (ED) was inducted into the 2019 New York High School Hall of Fame. Shufelt is the head coach of the Keuka College women’s soccer team in Keuka Park, N.Y.
Jaclyn Sullivan’18 MA was named head coach for boys’ cross-country at Norwich Free Academy (NFA) in Norwich, Conn. She is NFA’s current indoor and girls outdoor track and field assistant coach.
Howard J. Thiery’90 6th Year was named superintendent of Region 10 Schools in Burlington, Conn. For the past nine years, Thiery has been superintendent of Regional School District 17 (Conn.), which comprises the towns of Haddam and Killingworth.
Ian Tiedemann ’05 MA will receive the 2019 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Teaching Champion Award this fall. (Photo credit Greenwich Free Press)
Suzanne Updegrove’15 MA, a gifted and talented teacher for grades 6 through 8 at Branchburg Central Middle School in Bridgewater, N.J., was named Somerset County Teacher of the Year by the New Jersey Department of Education.
Katie Visentin ’14 MS was recently promoted to director of sponsorships and brand loyalty at Generation UCAN in Woodbridge, Conn., where she previously was the event manager and marketing associate. While at UConn, she served as an assistant coach for the UConn women’s rowing team.
Lindsay Waack ’15 (ED), ’16 MA received the 2019 National Association of Geoscience Teachers “Outstanding Earth Science Teacher” award for the state of Connecticut. She teaches at Fairfield Ludlowe High School in Fairfield, Conn.
Megan Wax ’11 (ED), ’12 MA has been hired as head coach for Greenwich (Conn.) High School’s field hockey team. A mathematics teacher at Eastern Middle School in Greenwich, Wax began her coaching career at E.O. Smith High School in Mansfield, Conn., where she served as a varsity assistant and junior varsity field hockey coach.
Ally Zoppa ’08 (CAHNR), ’12 MA has been promoted to associate head coach of UConn women’s rowing. She recently wrapped up her 11thseason on the UConn staff.
In Memoriam
Howell Aarons ’68 Leonard R. Aldrich ’70 Kenneth A. Bilodeau’75
David J. Calchera ’70
Robert F. Derosler ’70
Sally S. Doyle ’82
William J. Faber ’54
Samuel B. Greene III ’62
Marcella R. Gugnoni ’63
Robert A. Hille ’54
Fay B. Husted ’59
Sharon T. Kallin ’65
Madeline M. Lane ’68 Leland F. McElrath ’71 Ricardo J. Menendez’95
Barbara A. Mooney ’83
Robert J. Narducci ’68
Barbara N. Pearsall ’38 Karin Randolph’86 Stephen J. Rechner ’59
Barbara M. Shea ’63
Sonya J. Shue ’56 Andrew (Andy) “Skev” Soltis’53
Lillian Tanguay ’46
John P. Tauro ’60
Bertha J. Tosh ’63 Virginia (Hargreaves) Tyron’49 Alice S. Vale’81 Francis X. Vasile ’71
Lee Weinstein ’52
Rosalie T. Whitesell ’70
This fall, the Neag School welcomes a number of visiting faculty members and also announces several new appointments for current members of the community. In addition, colleagues, friends, and guests celebrated the career of Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Scott Brown earlier this month, who has retired from the Neag School after 39 years of service.
Educational Leadership
Professor Laura Burton will serve as head of the Department of Educational Leadership. (Courtesy of U.S. Dept. of State in cooperation with the University of Tennessee Center for Sport, Peace, & Society. Photographer: Jaron Johns)
Laura Burton – Department Head, Educational Leadership
Professor Laura Burton steps in this fall as head of the Department of Educational Leadership during Jennifer McGarry’s yearlong sabbatical.
Danielle DeRosa – Clinical Instructor, Sport Management Danielle DeRosa ’16 MA is serving as visiting clinical instructor with a focus on experiential learning, primarily with undergraduate students through internships and career development. For the past several years, DeRosa has developed professional development opportunities in her role with Husky Sport, as the assistant director of student and professional development while also serving as the Department of Educational Leadership’s Student and Staff Development Manager.
Doug Glanville joins the Neag School’s Department of Educational Leadership this fall. (Photo by Joe Faraoni/ ESPN Images)
Doug Glanville – Academic Technician, Sport Management Doug Glanville brings a distinct perspective to his teaching on the subject of sports, activism, policy, and the media, including offering insight about baseball and how the sport translates to everyday life. Raised in Teaneck, N.J., Glanville graduated from the School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the first African American Ivy League graduate to play Major League Baseball. After retiring from a nine-year career in the MLB, Glanville began sharing his experience and knowledge through his writing, speaking, and sports commentary. He balances his broadcasting career at NBC Sports Chicago and ESPN with his goals as a teacher and advisor. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View. His work appears in The Athletic, The New York Times, and NBC Sports Chicago, as well as other publications. He also co-hosts the baseball podcast Starkville, where he and co-host Jayson Stark share baseball stories and trivia as they challenge their audience to rethink conventional wisdom. This fall, Glanville will be advising students and developing an online course on sport, race, and the media modeled after the courses he has taught at UPenn and Yale. Additionally, he will teach the undergraduate Sport in Society sections in the spring.
Preston Green — John and Maria Neag Professor of Urban Education
Professor Preston Green was formally appointed the John and Maria Neag Professor of Urban Education last month. Read more.
Jesse Mala ’14 MA, ’18 Ph.D. – Visiting Assistant Professor, Sport Management Jesse Mala ’14 MS, ’18 Ph.D. joins the Neag School as a visiting assistant professor. (Photo courtesy of Jesse Mala)
Jesse Mala ’14 MS, ’18 Ph.D. joins the Department of Educational Leadership as a visiting assistant professor. While his teaching duties will begin in the spring, this fall he will be advising master’s students, supporting master’s interns, as well as carrying out several research projects. His research interests include the role of physical activity and sport participation in fostering cognitive development and stress regulation among youth in poverty. He returns to UConn after a year at FitKids, a Champion School in Phoenix, where he gained experience as a coach and sport scientist.
Adam McCready – Visiting Assistant Professor, Higher Education and Student Affairs Adam McCready is serving as visiting assistant professor of higher education and student affairs in the Neag School. Most recently, he taught courses and took part in numerous research projects at Salem State University in Salem, Mass. His research focuses on the college student experience in order to address inequitable or oppressive structures in higher education. His current research work includes serving as principal investigator on a study focused collective fraternity chapter masculine norm climates and co-PI on examining the transition of transfer students from closed liberal arts colleges in New England. In addition, he serves on a research team that is examining the experiences of students of color with racialized hostilities on social media. McCready has 17 years of professional experience in higher education, including 15 years of experience as a higher education and student affairs professional in the areas of student activities, fraternity and sorority life, assessment, leadership development, student unions, and residential life. A first-generation college student, McCready earned his bachelor’s degree at George Washington University, his master’s at Bowling Green State University; and his Ph.D. at Boston College.
Eli Wolff – Academic Technician, Sport Management Eli Wolff, who has been connected to the sport management program for more than a decade, joins the Neag School as an academic technician and adjunct faculty member. He will be supporting the Global Sports Mentoring Programthis fall, developing an international experience course, advising students, and assisting with the facilities and event management courses in the spring. Wolff’s past work has been at the intersection of research, education, and advocacy in and through sport. He has been an advisor to the United Nations Sport for Development and Peace initiatives and activities and was a member of the U.S. Paralympic Soccer Team in the 1996 and 2004 Paralympic Games. He is a graduate of Brown University and has an MA in sport studies and is currently a Ph.D. student with the German Sport University of Cologne.
Educational Psychology
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology Scott Brown After nearly four decades of service to the University, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology Scott Brown has retired from the Neag School. Read more.
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Scott Brown listens to remarks from colleagues and friends during his recent retirement celebration, marking this 39 years of service to the University. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
Susannah Everett – Assistant Professor in Residence (formerly assistant research professor), Special Education
Sara Renzulli – Visiting Associate Professor, Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology Sara Renzulli ’11 MA, ’13 Ph.D. joins the Neag School as visiting assistant professor of counseling education. She will be teaching master’s program courses, advising students, and supervising master’s students taking part in practica. She has served in numerous roles at the University of Connecticut, including as an academic advisor, adjunct faculty member, academic counselor, and most recently as a university specialist at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.
Melodee Walker – Assistant Professor in Residence, Center for Behavioral Education and Research (CBER) Melodee Walker is serving in the Department of Educational Psychology as an assistant professor in residence at the Center for Behavioral Education and Research (CBER), where her responsibilities include coordinating IES-funded project activities, data collection, and dissemination of results; participating as a member of the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) Research Network Team; and supervising graduate students. Most recently, she served as a research assistant professor at Boston University and as a learning specialist, consultant, and advocate for students with learning differences. Her research interests include dyslexia, diagnosis and remediation of learning disability, reading instruction, and multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) implementation.
Dean’s Office
Staff additions to the Neag School this fall also include three new members of the Dean’s Office: Carlton Jones, who joins the Neag School Dean’s Office as an academic advisor; Diane Matteau, administrative services assistant for Associate Dean Joseph Madaus; and LeShonda Owens, who began in June as assistant to the dean in June.
Potential applicants to the program are encouraged to seek further information about Project LINC by reaching out to the project’s faculty leaders, Bettini and Kearns. Each institution will host applicants for a recruitment weekend this spring. The project team welcome applications from professionals in education and related fields (e.g., social work, counseling, mental health) who have worked with students with disabilities in applied settings, such as schools, for at least three years. Applicants must hold a masters degree, preferably in a related field (e.g., education, special education, social work, school counseling, cognitive science). Learn more.
