Daily Campus (Neag School’s diversity efforts with the Teacher Education Program are featured)
Three Keys to Success for College Freshmen
Hartford Courant (Neag School’s Richard Schwab co-writes Op-Ed on tips for college freshman)
Neag School Accolades – June-August 2018
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 of Accolades for the following: Faculty/Staff; Alumni; Students, as well as In Memoriam.
Dean’s Office and Departments
The Neag School welcomes four new faculty members this August — two in the Department of Educational Leadership and two in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. In addition, René Roselle has been named interim director of teacher education for a two-year term. Donald Leu announces his retirement, effective Sept. 1, after 18 years with the Neag School. Read more.
Gladis Kersaint was named to a 44-member advisory search committee to recommend the next president for the University of Connecticut, to replace Susan Herbst, who is ending an eight-year stint as president and going to a faculty position at the Stamford campus.
Department of Curriculum and Instruction (EDCI) and Teacher Education
The Teacher Education program launched a new teacher certification program in Mandarin Chinese, in response to a need for Mandarin elementary and high school teachers at the state and national level. In June, Elizabeth Howard and Michelle Back had testified at the Connecticut State Board of Education in Hartford about the proposed program.
The Teacher Education program, along with the Neag School Alumni Board, hosted a Strong Beginnings Workshop for alumni who are now serving in their first or second-years as teachers. Attendees had the opportunity to work with seasoned educators and administrators, gaining insights to help them navigate their careers as educators. The workshop was held at Lewis Mills High School in Burlington, Conn. See photos from the event.
The Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates (TCPCG) collaborated with the Norwich Free Academy in Norwich, Conn., for a free STEM academy for grades six through eight, while Neag School students in TCPCG got hands-on experience working with the middle-school students. Check out a photo album from the program.
The Neag School’s Reading and Language Arts Center hosted “The Reading Brain’s Lessons for Literacy and Dyslexia,” featuring Maryanne Wolf, an award-winning dyslexia scholar and best-selling author. Organized by Rachael Gabriel, the event was held in May at the Storrs campus. See photos from the event.
Glenn Mitoma and Alan Marcus co-led a workshop in August at the Dodd Center for teachers and administrators in response to the new Connecticut state law mandating Holocaust and genocide education. Requested by the Connecticut State Department of Education, their workshop was one of four held at different locations throughout the state. Watch a video of the workshop, filmed by CT-N.
The Neag School co-hosted a Connecticut Dual Language Symposium in July at the UConn School of Law. Co-hosts included Multistate Association for Bilingual Education (MABE) and Dual Language Connecticut Educators (DuLCE). The half-day symposium, co-coordinateed by Elizabeth Howard, was designed to celebrate the successes of existing dual language programs; brainstorm challenges and solutions for expanding dual language education in the state; and promote awareness of resources to support dual language program implementation. The event brought together professionals in bilingual education; leadership teams from school districts; policymakers; and State Department of Education staff. Check out photos from the event.
Department of Educational Leadership (EDLR)
The Center for Education Policy Analysis released three issue briefs over the course of the summer, each authored by current doctoral students. Chelsea Connery ’13 (ED), ’14 MA examined the impact of undocumented status on children’s learning; Alexandra Lamb wrote about preparing school districts for 1:1 technology initiatives; and Samuel J. Kamin’s issue brief focused on current trends in career and technical education.
The Department of Educational Leadership hosted the Windham Teacher Leadership Fellows program, which supports the Windham (Conn.) Public Schools in developing and implementing a teacher leadership initiative that aims to provide a sustainable professional development structure in every school in Windham. The program was held on the Storrs campus in June and is entering its third year. See photos from the workshop.
The Executive Leadership Program celebrated the graduation of its 2017-18 cohort in June at the Hartford campus. The event featured James Thompson, superintendent of the Bloomfield (Conn.) Public Schools, as the guest speaker. View photos from the celebration.
Department of Educational Psychology (EPSY)
The Neag School hosted the 8th annual Modern Modeling Methods (M3) conference on the Storrs campus in May. M3 is an interdisciplinary conference designed to showcase the latest modeling methods and to present research related to these methodologies. Keynote speakers included Susan A. Murphy from Harvard University, Tenko Raykov from Michigan State University, and Peter Molenaar from Pennsylvania State University. See photos from the conference.
The Two Summers Master’s in Educational Technology Online Program welcomed new students for the 2018-19 cohort and held an orientation week in July on the Storrs campus. In the initial weeklong face-to-face session, the emphasis was on sharing, designing, and reflecting on a variety of potential classroom tools and practices. This included emergent technologies like virtual reality, robots, drones, and more. View photos from the event.
The Renzulli Center for Creativity, Gifted Education, and Talent Development hosted the 41st annual Confratute, a summer institute on enrichment-based differential teaching. The weeklong program was held on the Storrs campus and drew attendees from across the U.S. and 12 countries. Check out photos.
The Neag School’s Center on Postsecondary Education and Disability hosted the 30th Annual Postsecondary Disability Training Institute (PTI), which seeks to assist professionals in meeting the unique needs of college students with disabilities.
Fifty-nine students from across the U.S. participated with the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s Young Scholars Program in July on the Storrs campus. The program was launched by the Renzulli Center for Creativity, Gifted Education, and Talent Development. Check out pictures from one of the student/faculty partnerships.
The Neag School’s Center for Behavioral Education & Research hosted its second annual Summer Behavioral Institute — a one-week intensive program presented by national experts designed to develop positive behavior interventions and support (PBIS) skills — on the Storrs campus in July. Check out photos from the program.
Faculty/Staff
Joseph Abramo co-published with another colleague “What Cooperating Music Teachers Say About Educative Mentoring: A Focus Study Research Project” for the June issue of Research Studies in Music Education. Abramo was also appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of Music Teacher Education. He was one of three faculty members selected for a three-year team out of 32 nominees.
Michele Back co-edited with another colleague a new book Racialization and Language (Routledge, 2018).
Ronald Beghetto was interviewed by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) an audio segment titled “Teaching Students to Solve Overwhelming, Complex, and Uncertain Problems,” during which he discussed his recently published book What If? Building Students’ Problem-Solving Skills Through Complex Challenges (ACSD, 2018).
Aarti Bellara presented “Extending the Curve of Factor Models to Accommodate Non-Ignorable Missingness” at the M3 conference on the Storrs campus in May with doctoral students Anthony Gambino and Kevin Agnello. She also presented “Evidence in Teacher Preparation: Establishing Reliability and Content Validity of Educator Preparation Program-Developed Rubrics” with George Michna at the Association for Assessment and Learning in Higher Education Conference in June in Salt Lake City.
Melissa Bray co-published with other colleagues “Academic Stress: What Is the Problem and What Can Educators and Parents Do to Help?” in the July issue of Positive Schooling and Child Development.
Rebecca A. Campbell-Montalvo co-presented on educational inclusion at the Latin American Studies Association meeting in Barcelona in May.
Todd Campbell co-published with colleagues “Science Education and Student Autonomy” for the June issue of Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education. In August, Campbell hosted a two-day teacher professional learning workshop for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources Conservation Academy on the Storrs campus in August. Neag School research assistant and alum Laura Rodriguez ’16 (ED), ’17 MA led the workshop. Campbell also worked closely with the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History to provide teacher curriculum for UConn’s Bug Week, held in July on the Storrs campus.
Milagros Castillo-Montoya presented at University of Southern California’s Equity Minded Teaching Institute in Los Angeles in June.
Sandy M. Chafouleas co-authored “Accessing Behavioral Health Services: Introduction to a Special Issue of Research, Policy, and Practice” for the June issue of School Mental Healthas well as “Examining the Stability of Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Risk Status: Implications for Screening Frequency” in the May issue of School Psychology Quarterly. With D. Betsy McCoach and other colleagues, she also co-published “Methods Matter: A Multi-Trait Multi-Method Analysis of Student Behavior” in the June issue of Journal of School Psychology.
Joseph Cooper penned original commentary for The Conversation about damaging stereotypes regarding black college athletes.
Michael Coyne published “Evaluating the Effects of Supplemental Reading Intervention Within an MTSS or RTI Reading Reform Initiative Using a Regression Discontinuing Design” in the May issue of Exceptional Children.
Morgaen L. Donaldson and Sarah Woulfin co-published “From Tinkering to Going ‘Rogue’: How Principals Use Agency When Enacting New Teacher Evaluation Systems” for the July issue of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Donaldson also co-published “Principals and Teacher Evaluation: The Cognitive, Relational, and Organizational Dimensions of Working With Low-Performing Teachers” in the June issue of Journal of Educational Administration, and “The Structure of Tracking: Instructional Practices of Teachers Leading Low- and High-Track Classes” in the June issue of American Journal of Education.
Hannah Dostal co-published with a colleague “If You Use ASL, Should You Study ESL? Limitations of a Modality-B(i)ased Policy” for the June issue of Language. In the July issue of Exceptionality, she also co-published “A National Survey of Teachers of the Deaf on Disciplinary Writing.”
Elizabeth Howard and Tom Levine co-published “What Teacher Educators Need to Know About Language and Language Learners: The Power of Faculty Learning Community,” a chapter in the new book What Teachers Need to Know About Language (Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications, 2018).
James Kaufman, Joseph Renzulli, and Sally Reis,along with other colleagues, co-published “Characteristics of ADHD Related to Executive Function: Differential Predictions for Creativity-Related Traits” for the August issue of the Journal of Creative Behavior.
James Kaufman was featured in an article titled “Creativity as a Sliding Maze: An Interview with Dr. James Kaufman” in the May issue of Association for Educational Communications & Technology. Kaufman also co-published with a colleague “The Siren Song of Aesthetics? Domain Differences and Creativity in Engineering and Design” in the May issue of Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, along with “The Road to Uncreative Science Is Paved With Good Intentions: Ideas, Implementations, and Uneasy Balances” in the July issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science. With his wife, Allison B. Kaufman, he co-published Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science(MIT Press, 2018), which was featured in a blog titled “The Inquisitive Biologist.” He also co-published “The Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Domain-Specific and Domain-General Creativity” in the August issue of Journal of Creative Behavior. In May, he was recognized with the Florence L. Denmark Award, given by Pace University for his work with the American Psychological Association, at the Pace University Psychology Conference in New York, N.Y.
Devin Kearns presented on data-based decision making at the Lorentz Center in Leiden, Nethlerlands, in June. In May, he co-published “Reading Comprehension and Co-Teaching Practices in Middle School English Language Arts Classrooms” in Exceptional Children, and in July he co-published “Envisioning an Improved Continuum of Special Education Services for Students With Learning Disabilities: Considering Intervention Intensity” in Learning Disabilities Research & Practice.
Donald J. Leu co-published with colleagues “Reading to Learn from Online Information: Modeling the Factor Structure” for the July issue of Journal of Literacy Research.
Catherine Little wrote original commentary for the National Association for Gifted Children in July about peer tutoring and gifted learners.
Erik Loken was part of a research team that studied how a responsive parenting intervention can result in lower body mass indexes (BMIs) for young children. The findings were released in the August issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Allison Lombardi and former Neag School faculty member Shaun Dougherty, along with graduate student Jessica Monahan, co-authored “Students With Intellectual Disabilities and Career and Technical Education Opportunities: A Systematic Literature Review” for the April issue of Journal of Disability Policy Studies.
Joseph Madaus edited with other colleagues Navigating the Transition from High School to College for Students with Disabilities (Routledge, 2018). The book features a chapter on increasing college and career readiness for all students, co-authored by Allison Lombardi.
Alan Marcus wrote original commentary for The Conversation about rethinking how the Holocaust is taught.
Betsy McCoach and Aarti Bellara co-authored a paper with current graduate students Graham H. Rifenbark, Sarah D. Newton, Xiaoran Li, Dani Yomtov, andAnthony J. Gambino, as well as alumna Janice Kooken’15 Ph.D., “Does the Package Matter? A Comparison of Five Multilevel Modeling Software Packages?” for the May issue of Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics. McCoach also co-published “Stability of Intelligence from Infancy Through Adolescence: An Autoregressive Latent Variable Model” in the July-August issue of Intelligence.
Glenn Mitoma worked with E.O. Smith High School in Mansfield, Conn., this past year on a community outreach program, which received a Humanities Institute Initiative on Campus Dialogues Fellowship. Mitoma trained about 80 students on facilitating deliberative forums in the style of the Kettering Foundation’s National Issues Forums. This summer, they facilitated a forum with most of the E.O. Smith faculty, and with about 30 classes.
Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead is serving as a co-PI on a project that has received $2.2 million in funding from the National Science Foundation. The project, titled “Integrating Computational Thinking in Mathematics and Science High School Teacher Professional Development,” will focus on developing a comprehensive online professional development program for high school science and mathematics teachers.
Joseph Renzulli published “Common Sense About the Under-Representation Issue” for the August issue of the International Journal for Talent Development.
Lisa Sanetti co-published “Evaluating the Fit of Ecological Framework for Implementation Variables” in the June issue of Assessment for Effective Intervention.
Richard Schwab has been appointed to the Dean’s Advisory Board of Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education. He was also nominated and will be voted on for the National Advisory Board of Discovering Amistad in early September.
John Settlage co-published “Writing Worth Reading: Science Methods Textbooks and Science Education Articles” this past spring in Science Education.
George Sugai was a featured presenter during the U.S. Department of Education’s Federal Commission on School Safety field visit to a school in Maryland in May. Read more. Sugai also moderated a panel session for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, U.S. Department of Education, that looked at the systems of support to maximize students’ time in instruction. The panel was held in July in Washington, D.C. This August, he spoke at the Southbridge (Mass.) Schools convocation, an event led by alum Jeffrey Villar ’96 MA, ’99 Ph.D.
Jennie Weiner co-published with doctoral student Shannon Holder “Why Lead?”: Using Narrative to Explore the Motivations of Those Aspiring to Be Principals in High Needs Schools” in the July issue of International Journal of Leadership in Education.
Sarah L. Woulfin co-published with a colleague “Editor’s Introduction: Organizational Perspectives on Leadership Development” for the August issue of Journal of Research on Leadership Education. She also published “Mediating Instructional Reform: An Examination of the Relationship Between District Policy and Instructional Coaching” for the August issue of AERA Open.
Students
Ellen Agnello, a second-year doctoral student in educational psychology, published “Why Are We Doing Math in English Class? Building Qualitative Literacy to Improve Expository Text Comprehension” for the July issue of Advancing Education in Qualitative Literacy.
Emily R. Auerbach, a graduate student in educational psychology, co-published with Sandra M. Chafouleas and Neag School alumna Amy M. Briesch ’05 MA, ’09 6th Year, ’09 Ph.D.“State-Level Guidance on School-Based Screening for Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Risk: A Follow-Up Study” for the June issue of School Mental Health.
Tatianna A. Montalvo, an undergraduate student in sport management, was recognized with the Outstanding Senior Women Academic Achievement Award by the UConn Provost’s Office, UConn Alumni, and the Women’s Center. The award recognizes undergraduate and graduate female students who have excelled academically within each School/College and demonstrated high achievement in research and service to the University community.
Francisca Quainoo, a graduate student in educational psychology, was recognized by the Connecticut Association of School Psychologists (CASP) as the UConn Intern of the Year. Quainoospent her internship at East Hartford (Conn.) Middle School, where she has engaged in clinical work and developed innovative programming for students. She was recognized at CASP’s annual meeting in June in Fairfield, Conn.
Alumni
Parag Bhuva ’12 (CLAS), ’13 MA, a world history teacher at Washington Latin Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., traveled this past summer on an expedition to the Arctic with National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions, through its Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship. Starting in Bergen, Norway, the group traveled up the coast of Norway to Svalbard, an island archipelago in the Arctic to view polar bears, walruses, and seals, and to learn about the ecosystems and culture of the area.
Kristi Gebler Carriero ’04 (ED), ’05 MA, an assistant principal at Norwalk (Conn.) Brien McMahon High School, was hired to serve in the same role at New Canaan High. She began the new role in July.
Yvonne Condell ’58 MA, ’65 Ph.D.was honored in June with a humanitarian and philanthropic award from Minnesota State University, where she was a longtime faculty member.
Viviana Conner ’17 ELP has accepted a position with Hartford (Conn.) Public Schools as the executive director for elementary and middle school grades. Most recently, she was at Greenwich (Conn.) Public Schools, where she was responsible for aligning the world language curriculum to the Connecticut Common Core Standards for English language arts.
Alanna Cooney ’17 (CLAS), ’18 MA is featured in this fall’s recruitment campaign for the Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates (TCPCG). A grad of TCPCG at the Avery Point campus, she will be starting this coming school year as a seventh-grade science teacher at Rogers Park Middle School in Danbury, Conn. Watch her video.
Anna M. Cutaia-Leonard ’07 ELP, ’13 Ed.D. has been named superintendent of Milford (Conn.) Public Schools. Cutaia-Leonard, former superintendent of schools for Regional District 14, and former director of elementary education in Fairfield, started her new position in August.
Jon Dahlquist ’03 (ED) is dean of wellness and athletics at Eagles Catholic High School in Manchester, Conn.
Chris Dailey ’99 MA, associate coach from UConn women’s basketball, was inducted into Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame this June. The event was held at the Tennessee Theater, in Knoxville, Tenn. She became the fifth person from UConn to be inducted. Dailey has coached for 33 seasons in Storrs, having come to Connecticut with Geno Auriemma in 1985. Together, Auriemma and Dailey have combined to lead UConn to an all-time record 11 NCAA National Championships.
Peter Dart ’09 6thYear, ’16 ELP has been named principal of Dorothy C. Goodwin Elementary School in Mansfield, Conn. Most recently, he served as a principal of the Mary Hooker Environmental Science School in Hartford, Conn.
Jamelle Elliott ’96 (BUS), ’98 MA was named associate athletic director for the National “C” Club for UConn student-athletes. Ellliott most recently served as the head women’s basketball coach at the University of Cincinnati from 2009-18 after working on Geno Auriemma’s coaching staff from 1997-09.
Elena Forzani ’16 Ph.D. has been appointed assistant professor of literacy education at Boston University (BU). Prior to joining BU, she was a researcher at Boston College. Forzani began her professional career as a high school English teacher in New Haven, Conn.
Maryanne Garry ’93 Ph.D., a professor at Waikato University in Tauranga, New Zealand, gave a free lecture on the science of memory this August.
Brett Gottheimer ’09 (CLAS), ’09 (ED),’17 6th Year was appointed dean of teaching and learning for Center Woods Upper Elementary School in Weare, N.H. Gottheimer formerly served as the fine arts department head at Pinkerton Academy in Derry, N.H. Prior to his move into school administration, he taught music in high schools and middle schools in Connecticut for 13 years.
Meghan Hanrahan ’02 (CLAS),’04 MA was recognized by Hartford Business Journal as a “40 Under 40” honoree. She is UConn School of Business’ director of the business analytics and project management graduate program at UConn Hartford and Stamford campuses. Hanrahan has worked for UConn for 14 years and served in a variety of roles across the institution. As director, she manages an $8 million program for the school and supports more than 450 students recruited from around the world.
Lynda Mullaly Hunt ’88 (ED), ’97 MS, an author of children’s books, was recognized with a 2018 William Allen White Children’s Book Award for her book Fish in a Tree.
Scott Hurwitz ’93 (CLAS), ’08 6th Year has been appointed principal of Irving A. Robbins Middle School in Farmington, Conn. He most recently served as the acting middle school principal of Gideon Welles School in Glastonbury, Conn.
Brian T. Keating ’93 (ED), ’94 MA has been named the interim program administrator after participating in the Alternative High School Design Team during the 2016-17 school-year to develop the Windrose Program. He joined Greenwich High School in 2001 as an English teacher with the GHS Community Learning Program and served as Clark House assistant dean.
Stephen Kilgus ’06 (CLAS), ’07 MA, ’11 Ph.D., ’11 6th Year is associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to UW-Madison, Kilgus worked at the University of Missouri and East Carolina University.
Holly Korona ’13 (ED), ’14 MA and Daniel Bronko ’15 (ED), ’16 MA, who originally became known nationally for having UConn’s mascot Jonathan help with their engagement proposal, celebrated their wedding day with numerous fellow Huskies by their side. Their wedding photos — also featuring Jonathan — made national news in such outlets as SFGate, NBC New York, and the Associated Press.
Wally Lamb ’72 (CLAS), ’77 MA was Norwich Free Academy’s Class of 1969 50th reunion speaker. He was a member of that graduating class, and had served on the faculty as an English teacher for 25 years.
James E. “Jim” Main ’79 MA has been appointed executive vice president for administration and chief financial officer for the University of North Texas Dallas in Dallas. He most recently served in a leadership role at the University of Nebraska.
Tina Mannarino ’02 ELP, ’03 Ph.D. has been appointed superintendent for public personnel services for Westport (Conn.) Public Schools. She previously served as director for the Department of Programs and Services for Young Children and Families for LEARN – Regional Education Service Center in Old Lyme, Conn.
Ralph F. Mayo ’06 ELP has been selected as interim superintendent of schools for Greenwich (Conn.) Public Schools. Mayo, a Greenwich High graduate, has been an educator with Greenwich Public Schools for 41 years, an administrator for 26 years, and, for the past 14 years, principal of Eastern Middle School.
Yvette T. McDonnell ’99 (CLAS), ’01 MA has been named dean of community and work at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vt. McDonnell will oversee a broad range of programs and services that support the well-being and holistic education of Sterling College students.McDonnell has more than 15 years of experience working in the field of student affairs.
TJ McKenna ’18 Ph.D.has accepted a faculty position at Boston University. Most recently, he was led science education at the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford, Conn.
Ty McNamee ’15 MA was profiled in the Star Tribune out of Wyoming. McNamee is currently a doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York, N.Y.
Maureen Mitchell ’76 MA has been installed as president of Sisters of Mercy Northeast Community. Mitchell recently served as Northeast Community’s vice president. Before entering Community leadership, Mitchell ministered for over a quarter century as a clinical pastoral education supervisor — most recently for the Veteran’s Administration New York Harbor Health Care System, where she taught seminarians and military chaplains how to spiritually accompany veterans.
Chantelle (Hennessy) Palumbo ’96 (ED), ’97 MA has accepted a position as the middle school special education supervisor for Norwalk (Conn.) Public Schools. Most recently, she was the special education program administrator for Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Conn.
Sean Palziere ’18 (ED) was featured in UConn Magazine as part of a series welcoming incoming freshmen.
Diana L. Payne ’07 Ph.D., education coordinator at Connecticut Sea Grant, co-edited Exemplary Practices in Marine Science Education (Springer, 2018), the first international book on marine science education and ocean literacy, which will be a resource for undergraduate and graduate courses in science education.
Daniel Pichette ’04 MA, ’11 6th Year is assistant principal for Rockville (Conn.) High School.
Reuben Pierre-Louis ’17 (ED), ’18 MA was welcomed as a newly hired special education teacher at Westhill High School in Stamford, Conn.
Amanda Powell ’10 (CLAS), ’11 MA was honored as Bloomfield (Conn.) Public School’s Teacher of the Year. At Bloomfield High, Powell teaches algebra, geometry, and AP statistics.
Jessica Raugitinane ’13 (ED), 14 MA was featured on the Alma Exley Scholarship website in a piece about her experience teaching English as a second language in Quito, Ecuador, through a volunteer program called WorldTeach.
Maureen McSparran Ruby ’77 (CLAS), ’78 MS, ’82 DMD, ’07 Ph.D.was recognized by Sacred Heart University with the 2018 Outstanding Administrator Award. She received the award in Fairfield (Conn.) in May. Ruby is the assistant superintendent in the Brookfield (Conn.) Public Schools.
Kelly Shea ’11 (CLAS), (ED), ’12 MAwas recognized as Manchester (Conn.) Public School’s Teacher of the Year. Now in her sixth year of teaching at Manchester High, Shea teaches English, acting, and humanities, a course she co-created with a colleague.
Tyler Sheikh’10 MA has been appointed head coach of men’s soccer at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Most recently, Sheikh was the men’s soccer coach at Knox College.
Amanda Slavin’08 (ED), ’09 MA was a featured speaker at the 2018 Big Omaha conference in August in Omaha, Neb.
Emma Smith ’01 (CLAS), ’14 MA, ’18 6th Year published “Exploring Survival: A Student-Led Unit in the Seventh-Grade English Classroom” for the May issue of English Journal.
Joshua Smith ’XX ELP was named superintendent of New Milford (Conn.) Public Schools. Smith, who grew up in Southbury and graduated from Pomperaug High School, started his 22-year education career as a student teacher at Rochambeau Middle School.
Elsie Torres ’18 ELP has been selected as the assistant superintendent of East Hartford (Conn.) Public Schools.
Kristina Wallace ’09 (CLAS), ’12 MA, ’17 6th Year has been hired as the associate principal of Naugatuck (Conn.) High School. Most recently, she was the lead school counselor at Windsor (Conn.) High School.
Christopher Winters ’05 ELP, ’13 Ed.D. has accepted a position with Greenwich (Conn.) Country Day School as head of the new Upper School. Most recently, he served as Greenwich High’s headmaster for the past 10 years.
In Memoriam
Stephen August ’58
Ina Ruth Sarin Beck ’90
Raymond A. Bolduc ’64
Katherine E. Bombara ’61
Joseph D. Bridgeforth ’80
Robert J. Caffrey ’89
Robert Carchman ’88
Norma Cherlin ’73
Jack W. Cohen ’65
Theresa A. Delillo ’58
Roger R. Festa ’82
Eleanor S. Forslund ’51
David A. Fowler ’81
Katherine E. Flynn ’70
Myra S. Froman ’53
June E. Hardy-Greengrass ’78
Lester M. Harston ’59
John J. Kolesko ’79
Dorothy D. Kubachka ’67
Lucille E. Kuhnly ’52
Thomas R. Lawson ’55
Deborah Leff ’56
Romeo J. Martens ’50
Carroll D. Mason ’59
Patricia L. Mereen ’70
George Mitchell ’54
Michelle Musler ’60
Francis E. Nelligan ’59
Edmund J. Nocera ’86
Gregory R. Palmer ’82
Barbara M. Reinsch ’77
Jan Richards ’74
Andrea G. Rosenstein ’78
Dorothy D. Roberts ’69
Lori A. Tomasetti ’94
Sharon S. Torrant ’73
Sally A. Welch ’70
10 Questions With the Director of the Connecticut Writing Project
In our recurring 10 Questions series, the Neag School catches up with students, alumni, faculty, and others throughout the year to offer a glimpse into their Neag School experience and their current career, research, or community activities.
Jason Courtmanche ’91 (CLAS), ’06 Ph.D. has been serving in a variety of capacities at the University of Connecticut for 23 years. A lecturer in the University’s English department, he also is assistant coordinator of the Early College Experience English program and affiliate faculty in the Neag School’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction. He advises English majors who want to be secondary English teachers, including those who want to enroll or are enrolled in Neag School programs.
He received his bachelor of arts in English from UConn in 1991 and in 1992 also completed the Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates (TCPCG) when it was still a nondegree program in the School of Education. After having earned tenure as a high school English teacher, he returned to UConn to complete his Ph.D. in English in 2006. He also had attended Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif., for his master of arts in English.
Courtmanche primarily serves as director of the Connecticut Writing Project (CWP), which immerses Connecticut teachers in an intensive writing program where they grow as writers, learn about teaching writing, and have the opportunity to become published in one of CWP’s literary magazines. The foundation of this work involves running CWP’s Summer Institute, a six-credit program for teachers focused on improving the teaching of writing through research and the development their own portfolios of writing. Courtmanche also serves as coordinator for the Library of Congress’ annual Letters About Literature contest, for which students in grades four through 12 write about how a piece of literature affected their lives. In recent years, Courtmanche and fellow contest coordinator Douglas Kaufman, along with the Neag School and English Department as co-sponsors, increased contest participation in Connecticut by 53 percent.
You’re the director of the Connecticut Writing Project, which publishes teacher and student work in literary magazines. Why are these resources important for teachers and writers across the state? There’s a lot of research that says a real audience and a real purpose provide tremendous motivation for students to actually put in more time and more effort and take their writing more seriously. Getting published and having an audience is an incredibly empowering and validating thing.
“Our reasons for writing aren’t purely economic;
they are personal, they are community, they are civic.
At times, when the economy is weak,
people see humanities degrees as a luxury.”—Jason Courtmanche, ’91 (CLAS), ’06 Ph.D.
There’s been a push for STEM-focused education programs. Do you think writing and reading have been devalued? Why or why not? In recent years, there’s been a corporate reform asking educators to be an engine of economic renewal, so the language is about making people capable of writing for business purposes — which shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all for writing instruction. We think more broadly about what writing and English are. We really think about students being career- and college-ready, but also community-ready, like writing for the sake of civic engagement. Our reasons for writing aren’t purely economic; they are personal, they are community, they are civic. At times, when the economy is weak, people see humanities degrees as a luxury.
You are the first in your family to pursue a doctoral degree. What made you want to enroll in a Ph.D. in program at UConn? I knew so little about graduate school because no one in my family had done a Ph.D., and I thought to myself, “I’m 30 years old and if I do a Ph.D. program, I should do it now.” I did it by working really hard and not sleeping very much. It took me seven years and an extra semester. As an undergrad, a lot of my professors told me I should pursue a Ph.D., and I didn’t know how to go back and dedicate myself as a scholar. To get a Ph.D. in a content area was a mystery to me.
You were one of the last classes to graduate from the School’s Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates when it was a nondegree program. Why did you enroll in the program and how has that shaped your career? For today’s Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s [IB/M] students, they really have to arrive at UConn knowing they want a career in education. Not every student is this certain as a first- or second-year college student. For me, that’s what was great about TCPCG. I was simply not that certain about my goals as an undergrad. I was a good student, but I wasn’t really ambitious. Going into senior year, I hadn’t given my post-undergraduate career a whole lot of thought. … I learned about [TCPCG], and I found out I was good at teaching. I taught at an alternative high school, and that was a great experience.
The other thing I liked about TCPCG [a one-year graduate program] is that its students have many more options as undergrads to do other things. As an undergrad, I wrote and edited for the Daily Campus, worked for ConnPIRG, minored in sociology. These things wouldn’t have been as possible had I been in the School of Education [which at the time did not offer a dual-degree IB/M program]. But without clinicals and student teaching and education classes in addition to English classes, such options are easier to pursue, and at the end of the program a student can bring those experiences to their future classroom.
Why have you dedicated more than 20 years to working as a professor and advisor at UConn? There’s much that I find rewarding about teaching writing at UConn. I think one of the most rewarding things comes from working with students who are not English majors and who have maybe had bad experiences in the past with English, and helping them to have a positive experience with literature and writing.
Last fall, I had one student, a senior math major who was taking my class because she needed a writing course to graduate. She came to my office hours during the first week and was literally trembling as she spoke with me because she had so much anxiety about taking an English class. She told me repeatedly what a bad writer she was and how scared she was of failing. I asked the students to write a series of 750-word op-eds that discussed current events through the lens of one or more works of literature from the course. This student wrote several successful pieces, but her best one described the normalization of violence she experienced visiting Israel, which she compared in her op-ed to the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud chapters in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. She was incredibly proud of her paper and radically changed her attitude not just about English but about herself as a literate person. My job doesn’t get much more rewarding than that!
Where does your passion for teaching writing come from? I think it would be the contact I had with the [former] director of the Connecticut Writing Project, Mary Mackley. She was one of my most important mentors as a student and eventual educator. I had two classes with her as an undergraduate student that dramatically influenced the way I came to teach. Later, I studied with her during the summer of 1999 as a graduate student, and those courses became my entré into the Ph. D. program at UConn. From the fall of 1999 through the summer of 2002, I worked for the writing project under Mary’s supervision while I also taught high school full time and pursued my Ph. D. She and I co-taught the Summer Institute in 2000, 2001, and 2002, and during the academic year, I was the editor of Connecticut Student Writers. I learned much from her about being the director of a writing project.
My past teaching experiences at an alternative high school also influenced my passion for teaching writing. So much of that instruction had to be very student-centered and dynamic, and I try to be that way in all of my classes. My focus and my passion are really teaching writing more than teaching literature.
“There’s much that I find rewarding about teaching writing at UConn. I think one of the most rewarding things comes from working with students who are not English majors and who have maybe had bad experiences in the past with English, and helping them to have a positive experience with literature and writing.”
Why is it important for teachers who teach writing to write themselves? How does that influence and develop them as professionals? The question lies at the heart of the mission of the National Writing Project. At its most basic, a writing teacher who is a writer is an expert in her field who then shares her expertise with her students or with other teachers. If every teacher of writing were themselves a writer, we’d see no more five-paragraph essays, or rigid formulae for genre, or rigid procedures for process, because instruction would be based on the organic experience of the writer who happens to be teaching others how to write. But because this is not widespread, we have canned writing programs that cost school districts scandalous sums of money and create writing-averse students like the math major in my earlier example. It’s no surprise to me that English teachers like Vicky Nordlund at Rockville High or Danielle Pieratti at South Windsor High who are themselves successful, published writers produce students who year in and year out win writing awards and get published in various venues.
How have you been able to continue growing as a writer? One of the ways I’ve grown as a writer was by starting a blog about teaching writing. I publish between 28 and 30 750-word columns a year, and at first no one was reading it, but now I’ve gotten it to a point where it gets read by hundreds of Connecticut, mostly high school English, teachers, and it gets a really good following. That’s become a really exciting thing for me, but I do have a very specific audience I’m writing for, and that’s become an important thing for me. I read voraciously about the education system of Connecticut and always am thinking about what I want to write about.
What advice do you have for writers? Get involved in a writing group. One of the myths is the myth of a solitary author, but nobody really writes in a vacuum. Most authors write in writing groups to get feedback. Sometimes writing groups don’t work, but when people take them seriously and put in the effort, they work exceptionally.
What are some challenges that come with teaching writing? People’s fears. People are so afraid that the English teacher is going to criticize every spoken word and language use. It instills fear in a lot of people. [To help people to get over their fear of writing] I try to provide opportunities to write without penalty. I emphasize feedback and response. I try to structure the course in a way where I allow them to write things they have an interest and experience in, and they’re given so many opportunities to improve, so the occasion for writing isn’t punitive.
Learn more about the Connecticut Writing Project at Storrs at cwp.uconn.edu.
AUDIO: What If? Building Students’ Problem-Solving Skills
TeacherCast Podcast (Professor Ronald Beghetto featured for a discussion about his new book)
Nominations Open for 2019 Alumni Awards, Rogers Fund, Zirkel Award
This fall, the Neag School of Education welcomes submissions for the following awards and funding opportunities:
Neag School Alumni Awards
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Who is eligible: Neag School alumni
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Submission deadline: Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018
Rogers Educational Innovation Fund ($5,000 Award)
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Who is eligible: Elementary and middle-school teachers in Connecticut
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Submission deadline: Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018
Perry A. Zirkel Distinguished Teaching Award
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Who is eligible: Neag School full-time faculty members
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Submission deadline: Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018
Read more about each award opportunity below:
The Neag School of Education is now seeking nominations for the 2019 Neag School Annual Alumni Awards. Go online today to nominate deserving Neag School alumni in the following six categories:
- Outstanding Higher Education Professional – A faculty member or administrator at a college or university
- Outstanding School Superintendent – A leader of a public or private school system
- Outstanding School Administrator – A principal, assistant principal, central office administrator or director
- Outstanding School Educator – Pre-K through 12th grade educators, including classroom, reading, technology, ELL, school counselors, and school psychologists
- Outstanding Professional – A professional working within the public or private sector
- Outstanding Early Career Professional – A promising young professional in the first five years of his/her career in education
Submit Your Nomination: Find more information on how to submit your online nomination for the 2019 Neag School Alumni Awards here.
Nominations Accepted: Monday, Aug. 27, 2018 — Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018 (5 p.m. EST)
Elementary and middle-school teachers in Connecticut are invited to apply for a $5,000 gift through the Rogers Educational Innovation Fund, beginning Sept. 15.
This award, established in 2017 by Neag School professor emeritus Vincent Rogers, is intended to support innovative classroom projects carried out by teachers in Connecticut.
Dwight Sharpe, a math teacher in Middletown, Conn., received the inaugural award for his project, titled “Accessing and Engaging in Mathematics Through Robotics and Computer Programming.” The goal of the project, which was selected from among more than 40 submissions, focused on “explor[ing] and determin[ing] how robotics and computer programming can be embedded into middle school instruction to improve student engagement and achievement.”
For further information, including eligibility criteria and access to the online application form for the 2019 Rogers Educational Innovation Award, visit rogersfund.uconn.edu.
Applications Accepted: Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018 — Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018 (5 p.m. EST)
Apply for the Rogers Educational Innovation Fund online, beginning on Sept. 15.
Nominations for the 2019 Perry A. Zirkel Distinguished Teaching Award open Sept. 15.
Full-time Neag School faculty members may be nominated by current or former Neag School faculty, or by current Neag School students or alumni.
This award, launched in 2017 by UConn alum Perry A. Zirkel ’68 MA, ’72 Ph.D., ’76 JD, annually recognizes a Neag School faculty member for outstanding teaching. The inaugural award was presented to Professor D. Betsy McCoach.
Nominations Accepted: Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018 — Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018 (5 p.m. EST)
Find award parameters and submission instructions here.
Recipients of each of these awards will be formally recognized in March at the Neag School’s 21st Annual Alumni Awards Celebration.
Related Stories:
AUDIO: Identification of English Learners for Gifted and Talented Programs
Education Talk Radio (Associate Dean Del Siegle interviewed about research into the identification of gifted students among English Language Learners)
UConn Increases Diversity in Teaching Programs
UConn Today (Neag School’s efforts to boost the number of students of color in its teacher prep programs is featured)
Southbridge Teachers Kick Off School Year With Presentation
Citizen Chronicle (George Sugai speaks at high school convocation in Southbridge, Mass.)
UConn Increases Diversity in Teaching Programs
Editor’s Note: The following story was originally published in UConn Today.
A lack of diversity among classroom teachers in elementary and secondary schools has long been a national issue. In the state of Connecticut alone, less than 8 percent of teachers are of color, while students of color represent 40 percent of the population.
UConn and the Neag School of Education have made a concerted effort to increase their underrepresented student population, with the long-term hope of closing the gap that exists now in classrooms.
Over the past two years, the percentage of students of color enrolled in the five-year integrated bachelor’s and master’s program has increased by 10 percent to 30 percent for the class entering this year. And enrollment of students of color in the teaching certificate program for college graduates is now 25 percent.
“We are making strides in a very diligent manner, but we can’t sit on our laurels,” says Gladis Kersaint, dean of the Neag School of Education. “We are showing others the path on how to correct this issue.”
Change has come through hard work and an individual touch through a number of programs. The Neag School of Education has two advisors who concentrate much of their work on the enrollment of underrepresented students – Mia Hines and Dominique Battle-Lawson. They connect with both high school students and UConn freshmen, because students are admitted into the five-year program following their sophomore year.
Both advisors have experience in public schools – Battle-Lawson as an elementary teacher in Bloomfield, Connecticut, for more than six years, and Hines as a school counselor in North Carolina and Maryland.
The pair advise the Leadership in Diversity (LID) program, a student-run mentoring program that focuses on supporting students of color interested in teaching. Each year, LID hosts a Future Educators Conference for local high school students interested in careers in education. The conference now attracts about 100 students.
“We have done a much better job of reaching out to both UConn students of color and those in high schools about Neag School of Education and becoming a teacher,” says Battle-Lawson. “Especially for first-generation college students, we need to reach out and let them know about us.”
Another effort, called Diverse Educators Making Outstanding Change, partners mentors with students of color who are either enrolled in the teacher preparation program or interested in teaching. Mentors – recent graduates, administrators, and UConn faculty and staff – and students connect to talk about their professional paths as well as issues they may face as being a teacher of color in the field.
The end result of these efforts is to put more teachers of color in the classroom. That’s important because numerous studies have shown students do better with a diverse teaching population.
“Student of color benefit from having teachers of color,” says Kersaint. “They respond when they are supported by teachers of a like race. It’s not just students of color, though. Research supports that all students, no matter what race, benefit from having teachers of color.”
Symone James ’16 (ED), ’17 MA, a fifth-grade teacher at Roger Sherman Elementary School in Meriden, Connecticut, is part of the 8 percent of teachers of color in this state.
“From the time I was a little girl, my dream job was to become a teacher,” says James. “Both of my parents were from Jamaica and neither went to college, but they always told me education was important.”
“It’s really important for students to see windows and mirrors in their teachers. If they can see a reflection of someone like them, it can be very positive.”
Symone James ’16 (ED), ’17 MA
James said a reason that many student of color don’t enter the field of education is because of the perception of the job. She relied on many of the resources that the Neag School of Education offers to help support her through her education.
“Teaching is not something that students of color are encouraged to do at a young age,” says James. “But, I think it is really important for students to see windows and mirrors in their teachers. If they can see a reflection of someone like them, it can be very positive.”
James cherishes the conversations she is able to have with her students in Meriden. “It’s important for them to see people of color in a position of success, like a teacher.”
That ability to be a role model is something that Tracey-Ann Lafayette ’16 (ED), a fourth-grade teacher in East Hartford, saw first-hand with a student.
“There was a little girl from India, and she was so excited because our skin colors matched,” says Lafayette. “It really makes an impact.”
She says many students of color don’t enter the education field because of negative experiences they had of their own in school. When there are negative memories, “a school may be the last place you want to go back to,” she says.
Lafayette believes that the efforts the Neag School of Education is making in recruiting students at the high school level is very important.
“We also don’t spend a lot of time talking about white students having teachers of color, but that is really important too. It can teach them how important diversity is at a young age.”
The Neag School of Education’s programs targeting high school students are critical, according to Lafayette.
“By the time students get to college, a lot of people are set on what they want to do, or at least have a pretty good idea,” she says. “You have to go a little further back. It’s really good to let high school students knows that education is a great option.”
