Neag School Announces Recipients of 2019 Alumni Awards

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Alumni Awards Celebration 2019 image

The Neag School of Education and its Alumni Board are proud to announce the 2019 Neag School Alumni Awards honorees. Seven outstanding Neag School graduates will be formally recognized at the School’s 21st annual Alumni Awards Celebration on Saturday, March 16, 2019:

Outstanding Early Career Professional — Victoria M. Schilling ’16 (ED), ’17 MA

Victoria Schilling serves as an eighth-grade teacher at Ellington (Conn.) Middle School, where she has designed and implemented next-generation science standards units of instruction, and also serves as the cheerleading coach. She is a member of the UConn Mentor Teacher Collaborative Professional Learning Network, through which she has co-published multiple articles and presented at national and regional conferences. After graduation, Schilling also worked for the Neag School of Education, where she led a middle school curriculum development project focused on the Carl and Marian Rettenmeyer Army Ant Guest Collection and funded by the National Science Foundation.

Outstanding School Educator — Deidra Fogarty ’05 (ED), ’06 MA

An educator for more than 12 years, Deidra Fogarty currently serves as a special educator for the Knowledge Is Power Program’s Spring Academy in Washington, D.C., where she has increased student reading capacities, established individualized education program goals, and worked to ensure compliance with special education reporting deadlines. She is the founder of Black Girls Teach, a collaborative platform she created to empower black women educators. In addition, she co-founded WAM! Book Bundle, a monthly subscription service for diverse children’s books.

Outstanding School Administrator — Maureen F. Ruby ’77 (CLAS), ’78 MS (ENG), ’82 DMD, ’07 Ph.D.

Maureen Ruby is assistant superintendent of Brookfield (Conn.) Public Schools, where she oversees school and district improvement plans, along with curriculum, instruction, assessment, and human resources. In her education career, she has been instrumental in securing and managing more than $8 million in grants including a five-year federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) for Brookfield High School, and also served as project director and co-principal investigator for a $3.9 million U.S. Department of Education literacy grant. Ruby has held previous administrator positions for school districts in Connecticut as well as faculty positions at UConn and other universities. Prior to her education career, Ruby was a dentist serving as an officer in the U.S. Public Health Service and in private practice.

Outstanding School Superintendent — Craig A. Cooke ’01 6th Year, ’07 Ph.D., ’08 ELP

For the past five years, Craig Cooke has served as superintendent of Windsor (Conn.) Public Schools, where he is responsible for managing the school district, including overseeing a $69 million budget. Prior to that role, he served as the assistant superintendent of human resources for the district of more than 650 educators and support staff. Cooke also previously served as the human resources director for Enfield (Conn.) Public Schools.

Outstanding Professional — Rachel R. McAnallen ’10 Ph.D.

Known as “Ms. Math” to children across the country, Rachel McAnallen has devoted her life to sharing the joy of mathematics with learners of all ages.  A professional educator for more than 60 years, she travels the globe teaching her love of mathematics at every grade level. In addition to her experience in the classroom, McAnallen has served as a department chair, a school board member, and a high school administrator. A lifelong learner, McAnallen received her Ph.D. from the Neag School at age 75.

Outstanding Higher Education Professional — D. Betsy McCoach ’01 MA, ’02 6th Year, ’03 Ph.D.

A faculty member at the Neag School in educational psychology for over 15 years, Betsy McCoach also directs the Data Analysis Training Institute of Connecticut (DATIC) and the Modern Modeling Methods (M3) Conference, both of which bring international experts to UConn. She is the current co-principal investigator of a $3 million National Science Foundation grant on the science of learning and the National Center for Research on Gifted Education, funded by a $5 million grant through the Institute for Education Sciences. McCoach is an established scholar, having authored or co-authored nearly 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, dozens of book chapters, and four books.

Distinguished Alumna Award — Carla S. Klein ’72 (ED)  

A retired schoolteacher, Carla Klein has dedicated herself to supporting numerous educational endeavors through scholarships and service over the years, including as an emeritus UConn Foundation Board member. She and her late husband, John, former president and CEO of People’s United Bank, had been active in raising awareness and funding for various education causes, including support for school programs across the state focused on anti-bullying. A member of the Bridgeport Public Education Fund board of directors, she also was previously co-chair of Operation Respect Connecticut and spent a year serving on the Connecticut Commission on Educational Achievement, making recommendations — many of which were ultimately adopted by Gov. Dannel Malloy — on issues related to closing the achievement gap. Most recently, the Klein Family Foundation — run by Klein, along with her children — has instituted the Klein Family Scholarship Fund at the Neag School, which provides financial support to several teacher education students with demonstrated financial need and academic achievement.

The 21st Annual Neag School Alumni Awards Celebration begins at 5 p.m. on March 16, 2019. Attire is business formal. No-host bar. The cost of the dinner is $50 per person. Join us for the celebration. Register online at s.uconn.edu/NeagAlumni2019.

Questions? Contact Caitlin Trinh, Neag School alumni relations director, at 860.486.2240 or ctrinh@foundation.uconn.edu.

Principal Preparation Program Undergoes Redesign

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Neag School alumna Megan Baker ’12 6th Year, a graduate of the UConn Administrator Preparation Program (UCAPP), has served since 2015 as principal of Tourtellotte Memorial High School.
Neag School alumna Megan Baker ’12 6th Year, a graduate of the UConn Administrator Preparation Program (UCAPP), has served since 2015 as principal of Tourtellotte Memorial High School. (Cat Boyce/Neag School)

Editor’s Note: The following story originally appeared on UConn Today, the University of Connecticut’s news website.

The field of education has been going through constant evaluation and evolution since 1983, when “A Nation At Risk” was published.

“That report sounded the alarm that the United States was not at the top of the food chain anymore when it comes to education,” says Richard Gonzales, director of UConn’s Neag School of Education leadership preparation program.

Since then, responses to the report have encompassed curriculum changes and standards, teacher preparation, and in the early 2000s, a growing emphasis on leadership – in particular the role and training of school principals.

UConn is now one of seven universities that are part of The Wallace Foundation’s University Principal Preparation Initiative, a four-year, $48.5-million program aimed at improving training for aspiring administrators. The Foundation encourages administrator training that emphasizes the practical aspects of the job and includes instructors who have been school leaders themselves.

Overall, the universities in the initiative have developed stronger partnerships with districts where their graduates will lead schools. Some have made headway in curriculum design, a key component of the initiative. All have measured their programs against state and national leadership standards to identify areas to work on, according to Education Week.

“We are doing things today that will become the norm for the next 10 to 20 years – and that is huge,” says Gonzales, who oversees the UConn Administrator Preparation Program (UCAPP).

UCAPP has redesigned its program, introducing changes that will go into effect this July. Among those, UCAPP students will now have leadership coaches, who will guide them in planning and strategizing. The coaches, like the program’s mentors of the past, will continue to be selected from among current and retired principals and administrators.

“We are shifting from supervision to coaching in terms of how our UCAPP students are taught, and the coaching is going to be around authentic tasks,” says Gonzales. “We are taking the current administrator evaluations, and redesigning our coursework to align with that.”

The curriculum redesign factors in data about instructional leadership, talent management, and organizational leadership – the domains that have been prioritized by the State of Connecticut, says Gonzales.

“The school systems in Hartford, Meriden, and New Haven  helped us redesign our curriculum so students know what it takes to be a principal in a city like that,” says Gonzales. “Our program became much more contextually based. Instead of teaching evaluation and supervision, we used the actual instruments and resources that principals use.”

UCAPP enrolls current teachers who have an average of eight to 12 years in the classroom and have shown evidence of leadership work. Cohorts of students in six different Connecticut towns – Hartford, New Haven, Stamford, Guilford, East Hartford, and West Hartford – take two years of classwork, and do a 12-credit internship to complete the program.

“First and foremost, a good principal understands the social aspect of the work, and they are grounded in the communities in which they work and serve,” says Gonzales. “We emphasize early on that the communities in which you serve are your constituencies. You serve that area, the people – all of them.”

Gonzales notes that UConn’s principal preparation program prioritizes leadership coaching from the beginning.

“The coaching provides us with a day-to-day look at what goes on at a school,” says Kathryn Lenehan ’10 (ED), ’11 MA, a second-grade teacher at Lake Garda School in Burlington, whose coach is Kelly Sanders ’12, a principal of the West District School in Farmington, and a UCAPP graduate.

“It’s nice to work with someone who has been trained,” says Lenehan. “We have conversations like ‘why did you do this?’ or ‘is this the first time it happened?’ – information you can use when you are principal of a school someday.”

“It’s an exciting, challenging time in education and to be a principal,” adds Megan Baker ’12, principal of Tourtellotte Memorial High School in Thompson, “and having ‘courageous conversations’ with teachers is a big part of it.”

Gonzales says one of the best compliments he receives about UCAPP is about the way it values teachers. “UCAPP understands that a principal’s role is about supporting the teacher, the student, and the curriculum,” he says. “Principals are there to create the conditions for everything to work.”

Learning About Holocaust History With Virtual Reality

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Ken Thompson, assistant professor-in-residence of game design at UConn, takes 3D scans of Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg, Germany. (Photo courtesy of Ken Thompson)
Ken Thompson, assistant professor-in-residence of game design at UConn, takes 3D scans of Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg, Germany. (Photo courtesy of Ken Thompson)

Editor’s Note: This piece originally appeared on UConn Today.

UConn researchers are developing an immersive learning experience using virtual reality (VR) and game design to bring to life archival materials from the Nuremberg Trials.

With the help of a $25,000 Digital Projects for the Public award from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), researchers from UConn’s Digital Media and Design Department in the School of Fine Arts, UConn Library’s Archives & Special Collections (ASC), and Neag School of Education are working with colleagues across the globe to make this project a reality.

While the project seeks to help users have a personal encounter with an important event from Holocaust history, the technology behind the project couldn’t be more futuristic.

The team hopes that their Courtroom 600 project – named for the courtroom in the Justizpalast in Nuremberg, Germany, where the trials took place – will draw learners into ongoing thought and empathetic discussion about human rights both past and present.

“The Courtroom 600 project team is grateful for the opportunity NEH funding will provide to advance this work,” says principal investigator Ken Thompson, assistant professor-in-residence of game design. “Evidence shows there is a significant decline in Holocaust awareness, with one study citing that 1 out of 5 millennials haven’t heard of or are not sure if they have heard of the Holocaust. As publically engaged scholars, we believe it is critical to create engaging and well-informed educational experiences to begin to address this disconnect, and the Courtroom 600 project aims to do just that.”

The goal of Courtroom 600 is to engage learners in historical thinking processes as they explore international justice and Holocaust histories through the lens of the major war criminals trials that took place in Nuremberg, before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in 1945-1946.

Although the trials were held more than 70 years ago, their impact is still evident in modern international law. Legacies of the IMT include the development of international criminal courts, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and the “Nuremberg Code” of medical and scientific ethics.

The research and advisory team, which includes experts in educational psychology, digital public humanities, human rights, international law, and Holocaust history, considers teaching learners how to evaluate the nature of evidence as a critical first step in understanding the histories and legacies of the Holocaust and the IMT. Among other aims, the Courtroom 600 VR experience will also write women’s roles and Jewish resistance back into Holocaust history.

While the project seeks to help users have a personal encounter with an important event from Holocaust history, the technology behind the project couldn’t be more futuristic. The team has completed a technological proof-of-concept, with software code that connects the UConn Library’s digital repository to various systems used for educational VR experiences.

Embodying a fictitious member of the U.S. prosecutorial team, learners must investigate digitized copies of documents, photographs, and other primary source materials. Then, aided by materials that provide historical context, they piece together an understanding of past events and accumulate evidence against selected defendants.

When finished with the discovery phase of the investigation, the Courtroom 600 experience places learners in a three-dimensional, human-scale reproduction of Courtroom 600. Here they listen to testimony, interrogate witnesses and defendants, and consult with the prosecuting attorneys on their team about strategy – in other words, learners actively experience the trials instead of passively hearing about them.

The archival materials used for the virtual experience are pulled in real time from executive trial counsel Thomas J. Dodd’s papers housed at UConn Library’s Archives and Special Collections in Storrs. Through one of the first collaborative projects of its kind in the nation, UConn and partner organizations digitized 50,000 depositions, photographs, pieces of evidence, correspondence, drafts of legal briefs, and other documents from the Nuremberg Trials for use by scholars and now the public.

“The potential impacts of Courtroom 600 extend beyond its subject matter and beyond its proposed approaches to engaging self-directed learners in Holocaust history,” says Greg Colati, co-investigator on the project and assistant university librarian for University Archives, Special Collections, and Digital Curation. “It also demonstrates the value of interoperable data standards so we can increase the versatility and discoverability of digital collections and allow people to personally interact with media and history.”

Thanks to the recently awarded NEH funding, members of the Courtroom 600 project and a panel of national and international experts will meet in Storrs for a two-day charrette in June 2019. Project collaborators include specialists from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and the Memorium Nürnberger Prozesse (Nuremberg Trials Memorial) in Germany. They will have the opportunity to don VR headsets, take up the controls, and spend time experiencing the prototype for themselves. In addition to gathering information on possible approaches to the narrative, learning objectives, and visual treatments in focus groups, the software will capture data about user interactions to refine the prototype.

The June meeting will also involve discussions of what it means to present Holocaust history through this new medium.

“The use of immersive, interactive VR technologies to educate learners about difficult histories by ‘placing’ them in convincing simulations of the past is still a relatively new area of work,” says co-PI Clarissa Ceglio, assistant professor of digital humanities. “And it comes with a number of important ethical questions that need to be addressed. Sharing how we work through these issues will be one of the key contributions that Courtroom 600 makes to the field.”

The NEH funding will bring the project closer to completing a prototype of the first educational module of the Courtroom 600 experience. The team will test the module at UConn and with collaborating museums dedicated to Holocaust and human rights histories.

This project is made possible thanks to generous support from a University of Connecticut School of Fine Arts Dean’s Grant, the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, and the UConn Office of Global Affairs. Cultural exchange and cooperation between the University of Connecticut, Germany, and Israel have also been critical to the project’s early success. The UConn project team includes: PI Ken Thompson, co-PIs Clarissa Ceglio, Stephen T. Slota, and Greg Colati, with advisors Heather Elliott-Famularo, Charles B. Lansing, Alan Marcus, Glenn Mitoma, Grae Sibelman, Graham Stinnett, and Daniel Weiner.

Read more about the legacy of the Nuremberg Trials.