Melissa Bray, a professor of school psychology in the Neag School, focuses much of her research work on the connection between mind, body, and health. (Photo Credit: Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
In our recurring “10 Questions” series, the Neag School catches up with students, alumni, faculty, and others throughout the year to give you a glimpse into their Neag School experience and their current career, research, or community activities.
Melissa Bray is a professor of school psychology in the Neag School of Education. She joined the faculty in 1999 and is a two-time alumna of UConn, having earned her undergraduate degree in communications sciences from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and her master’s degree in school psychology from the Neag School. Bray is a licensed psychologist and licensed speech language pathologist; a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society; and a member of a select group called the Society for the Study of School Psychology.
When did you realize you wanted to become a psychologist? In the early 1990s while working in Wallingford (Conn.) public schools as a speech language pathologist.
What are your research interests and what got you interested in them? I am most interested in mind, body, and health. I have had an interest in researching how the mind affects the body for some time.
Bray, center, attends the 2017 National Association of School Psychologists Annual Convention in San Antonio with Neag School alumni Lea Theodore ’02 Ph.D., left, and Nicholas Gelbar ’06 (ED), ’07 MA, ’13 Ph.D. (Photo courtesy of Melissa Bray)
That said, I have run many studies looking at how psychologically based treatments — such as relaxation and guided imagery, video self-modeling, and written emotional expression — affect physical change in individuals with asthma and, more recently, cancer. Anxiety, stress, and depression can initiate and exacerbate those diseases, amongst others, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and arthritis. My research focuses on how the mind — with these types of psychological interventions — change the physical body (e.g., lung functioning measured with standardized spriometry), along with improvements in anxiety, depression, stress, happiness, and quality-of-life measures.
What initially drove you to focus on asthma and stress as your initial areas of interest? I began by researching asthma, as I could handle that without a large grant. I used standardized spirometry [a common test used to assess lung function and help diagnose various lung conditions] to measure lung functioning in response to various psychological treatments.
What have been some of your most rewarding career moments? Intervention research is quite rewarding; I have spent my career to date doing that type of work. My research has focused on classroom behavior, stuttering, and physical heath. My students are what keep me going; they are smart, kind, and motivating.
What research are you currently working on or plan to start in the near future? I plan to try to get a federal grant to support my mind-body-health work, along with my work using video self-modeling for stuttering. I am running a study on stuttering this fall using that technique; I did my dissertation on that topic (stuttering and video self-modeling).
My colleague Melissa Root and I are just about ready to begin an ovarian cancer study in conjunction with UConn Health looking at Relaxation and Guided Imagery (RGI) — a unique recording that has three tracks and focuses on the immune system — and its effects on subjective well-being/mental health (anxiety, stress, depression) and physical health, including biological markers, tumor growth, and cancer recurrence.
“My students are what keep me going; they are smart, kind, and motivating.”
One of Professor Bray’s forthcoming research studies will investigate ovarian cancer and the effects of Relaxation and Guided Imagery (RGI) on patients’ mental and physical health.
What kind of results do you ideally hope to see come out of your forthcoming ovarian cancer study? In reference to ovarian cancer cells, stress hormones have been shown to increase their invasiveness[1]. This type of work supports the use of stress- and anxiety-reducing interventions such as Relaxation and Guided Imagery to mitigate stress hormone production and reduce its effect on ovarian cancer cell invasiveness. Therefore, the purpose of this current study is to investigate the effects of RGI on psychological (self-perceptions of stress, anxiety, depression, distress, mood, and quality of life) and biological variables (time to ovarian cancer recurrence) in patients with ovarian cancer as a method to hopefully help prevent the initiation and recurrence of ovarian cancer cell growth.
What are the implications for those diagnosed with cancer if your findings show techniques like RGI having a real and positive effect on things like slowing tumor growth? Participants will be engaging in the RGI intervention that has been shown to be effective in reducing stress levels for participants with physical health conditions. Previous literature has suggested that stress reduction in ovarian cancer patients may reduce tumorigenesis. Through engagement in this stress reduction intervention (RGI), participants may reduce stress, anxiety, depression and, in turn, improve overall health. The results of this study will assist the researchers in further understanding the relationship between stress, stress reduction interventions, and ovarian cancer progression.
What research project are you most proud of? The soon-to-be-run cancer study I am very proud of and is something I have always wanted to do. I am proud of the research I have done showing that video self-modeling can improve stuttering. … I am also proud of an undergraduate online class I am developing for this summer on Mind-Body-Health with treatment experientials, where the students get to try the actual therapies.
Has video self-modeling long been established as one technique for treating the condition of stuttering? How does this technique specifically help those who stutter? Video self-modeling … has been used in research for about 20 years. The individuals view a video of themselves not stuttering in a setting where they have problems with fluency. For example, if a person stutters when talking to teachers, that setting would be the focus of the video.
There are a few mechanisms to explain why video self-modeling helps stuttering. One is based on learning theory; in other words, there is a learned component to the individual’s stuttering, and video-self modeling, which is based on social learning theory, helps them to learn not to stutter. Nonetheless, video self-modeling has been partially or fully effective in some people who stutter. It can never hurt to try it with a person who stutters!
What would you say to students who are aspiring psychologists about the journey to becoming one? There are great mental health needs for individuals of all ages. Anxiety, in particular, is beginning in very young children. We need competent professionals, especially in the schools, to help these youth.
The Neag School of Education is proud to announce Connecticut’s winners of the 24th annual Letters About Literature contest, a nationwide writing contest sponsored by the Library of Congress for elementary, middle, and high school students.
This fall, the Neag School served as the contest’s Connecticut sponsor for the 2016-17 academic year; Professor Wendy Glenn is the contest’s faculty representative for the state of Connecticut.
Winners from each state for each of contest’s three categories (Grades 4-6, Grades 7-8, and Grades 9-12) will receive a cash prize and state recognition, and will then advance to the national competition, for which winners will be chosen later this month. Read more about the contest here, and click the winners’ names below to read their winning essays.
Congratulations to the winners for the state of Connecticut:
Level I (Grades 4-6)
First place:Casey Campellone, CREC Montessori Magnet School, Hartford, Conn. — Essay based on March 1, 2, & 3 by John Lewis
Second place:Winston Lee, Thompson Brook School, Avon, Conn. —Essay based on The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Level II (Grades 7-8)
First place:Hope McCann, Sage Park Middle School, Windsor, Conn. — Essay based on Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper
Second place:Araya Miller, Sage Park Middle School, Windsor, Conn. — Essay based on The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Level III (Grades 9-12)
First place:Maggie Veronesi, RHAM High School, Hebron, Conn. — Essay based on All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque
Second place:Nicholas Vollero, Notre Dame High School, Avon, Conn. — Essay based on To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Thank you again to the Neag School’s contest judges:
Michael Coyne, professor of educational psychology, reads with a group of first-, second- and third- graders at the Windham Center School. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)
Also joining the new editorial team are Suzanne Wilson, Neag Endowed Professor of Teacher Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Sarah Woulfin, assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, who will serve as associate editors.
This prestigious journal, first published in 1900, seeks to serve researchers, teacher educators, and practitioners in elementary and middle school education with peer-reviewed articles pertaining to education theory and research and their implications for teaching practice. It is issued on a quarterly basis by the University of Chicago Press.
“We are excited to bring the Elementary School Journal to the Neag School,” Coyne says. “ESJ is unique in its scope and breadth — it publishes cutting-edge articles across content areas including reading, mathematics, science, and policy research. Because of its interdisciplinary focus, ESJ reaches a wide audience of researchers and practitioners in both general and special education.”
STEM Teaching Tools (Neag School associate professor, Todd Campbell, and doctoral students, TJ McKenna and Victoria Schilling, wrote this teaching resource)
“This isa moment where we can … work together and create bridges amongst ourselves — and also with our students,” says Dorothea Anagnostopoulos, executive director of teacher education in the Neag School.
Faculty in the Neag School teacher education program this March brought together more than 70 people — from current students and alumni to local educators and school administrators — for an interactive discussion focused on the theme of “Teaching in Turbulent Times.” Prompted by ongoing discussion in recent months among faculty and educators about political divides surfacing in today’s classrooms, the event — led by Dorothea Anagnostopoulos, executive director of teacher education at the Neag School — was intended to serve as an opportunity for a diverse range of people in the education field to network and speak openly, offering suggestions and concerns.
Current students, practicing teachers, faculty, and local administrators alike, Anagnostopoulos says, have in recent months been raising questions about how to confront challenges within the classroom that have stemmed from the recent contentious presidential election campaign, the education policies currently being put in place by the Trump administration, as well as the larger movement of ethnonationalism across the U.S. and Europe.
“This is a moment where we can actually work together and create bridges amongst ourselves — and also with our students.” — Dorothea Anagnostopoulos, executive director, teacher education
Educators play an important role in students’ understanding of what it means to become active and informed citizens, Anagnostopoulos says. For example, she says, recent events have “raised critical questions about how we can find ways to support students who have been victimized and to educate students on hate crimes.” Teachers, she adds, may not always know how to address these kinds of issues with students in their classroom. This is what spurred the idea for a two-way conversation that addresses the needs of current and future educators and school administrators.
“This is a moment where we can actually work together and create bridges amongst ourselves — and also with our students,” Anagnostopoulos says.
“Teachers have started to voice concerns about these types of issues,” says Kelly Lyman, superintendent of Mansfield Public Schools and an adjunct faculty member of the UConn Administrator Preparation Program, who attended the March 6 event on the UConn Storrs campus. “This is an important time for finding safe spaces for others to have conversations.”
“My district is quite diverse, and the immigrant population makes up the fabric of who we are as a school community,” adds Vonetta Romeo-Rivers, director of Talent Development for Manchester Public Schools. “We started having these conversations, but they are tough to have in a professional space. If we can’t do it … ourselves, we can’t help our students.”
Anagnostopoulos kicked the event off, followed by remarks from Parag Joshi, a history teacher at Manchester High School, and Neag School assistant professor Glenn Mitoma, who serves as director of UConn’s Dodd Center. Each speaker highlighted educators’ rights and responsibilities in the current policy setting. During the latter half of the evening, attendees split into groups to discuss questions raised by faculty.
Neag School assistant professor Rachael Gabriel called it a “nice balance of sharing resources and also speaking and connecting.”
“The goal with a roundtable discussion is that it’s a structural symbol of equal participation, which is helpful for people who don’t know each other,” she says. “I’m really conscious of the idea that we are preparing future educators, but also that we have a responsibility to current teachers. We don’t have a lot of answers right now, which is why we feel that more of a connection is needed.”
Topics of conversation included the responsibilities of current and future educators toward undocumented, refugee, and immigrant students; ways to help students navigate fake news; and available resources to help students with these issues.
“I hope there will continue to be events like this so that people will feel less isolated,” says Teresa Bulanda, a math teacher at Classical Magnet School in Hartford.
Neag School associate professor-in-residence Eliana Rojas says she also found the dialogue led by teachers and the schools “inspiring.”
“After this type of event, it makes it very energizing and positive to work in this environment,” she says.
Kara Patterson, a current student in the Neag School’s Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s teacher education program, works on a lesson with a Kennelly School this past fall. (Ryan Glista/Neag School)
The Neag School of Education has long dedicated itself to providing aspiring educators with in-depth, firsthand experience in the classroom as part of its rigorous teacher education program. Its partners include numerous schools across the state of Connecticut at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.
For the past 10 years, E.B. Kennelly, a public neighborhood elementary school in Hartford, Conn., has been one of those school partners — and an exemplary one at that, having been recognized this past year with the National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER) Richard W. Clark Exemplary Partner School Award for 2016. The award recognizes a partner school collaboration that is advancing the complex work of developing, sustaining, and renewing partner schools.
At Kennelly, students enrolled in the Neag School’s Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s (IB/M) teacher education program get hands-on experience teaching in Kennelly’s classrooms during all three years of the program. Kennelly is one of the partner schools in which Neag School students who have an interest specifically in elementary education are placed.
“We renew the school, and the school renews us. We’re teaching them, and they’re teaching us.”
— René Roselle, Neag School’s
associate director of teacher education
During their second year in the IB/M program, Neag School students are gradually integrated into student teaching in the classroom. During their final year, those students then work as interns in a school, focusing on a specific area related to curriculum and instruction.
“The [IB/M] program is about finding ways to best support the good work that’s going on and make improvements for ongoing work,” says Neag School alumna Michelle Bashaw ’12 (ED), ’13 MA, currently a sixth-grade teacher at Windermere Intermediate School in Ellington, Conn., who served as a master’s intern at Kennelly School when she was in the IB/M program.
A Win-Win Collaboration
Connecting the Neag School’s aspiring educators with real-world experience in Connecticut’s classrooms benefits not only the students enrolled in the IB/M program, but also the partner school’s own students and teachers.
“Kennelly has made me feel completely welcome,” says Aryliz Crespo, a current IB/M student. (Photo Credit: Ryan Glista/Neag School)
“There’s a special energy when candidates are learning to be teachers alongside teachers who are already practicing,” says René Roselle, associate director of teacher education at the Neag School. “Our students are learning to be great education professionals.”
Practicing teachers at partner schools like Kennelly find value in it, too. “As I watch and listen to my student teachers, I use their ideas in my own lessons,” says Neag School alum and Kennelly third-grade teacher Donna Heikkinen ’91 (ED). “I am impressed by their ease with the use of technology. I love the young energy they bring to the school.”
“We renew the school, and the school renews us. We’re teaching them, and they’re teaching us,” Roselle says. “They’re helping us prepare new teachers, and we are utilizing their expertise as seasoned and tenured professionals.”
With specialized training from Neag School professors, students enter Kennelly with a head start in classroom preparation.
“Students from the Neag School entering Kennelly are not only learning fundamental teaching methods from veteran teachers, but are also relaying new ideas and fresh teaching methods,” says current Neag School IB/M student Kara Patterson. “This is all due to the progressive and responsive methods taught by Neag School professors.”
“The UConn students are well-prepared, focused, and willing to work,” adds UConn alumni Brenda Bellucci ’87 (CLAS), a reading teacher at Kennelly. “The benefits are passed directly to my students through more individual attention and fresh ideas.”
Faculty and administrators from the Neag School and E.B. Kennelly Elementary School gathered at the National Network for Educational Renewal ceremony last year to accept its exemplary school partner award. (Photo courtesy of Rene Roselle)
“It benefits Kennelly students by having another educator in the room with them, and it benefits the student teachers because they come into an authentic classroom, and experience the day-to-day comings and are fully immersed in all things you need to be a teacher,” says Mary Lou Duffy, now retired from her position as Kennelly’s principal.
These are some of the defining aspects of a strong school partnership, according to Roselle.
Another aspect of a strong school partnership is dedication, says Robin Hands, director of school-university partnerships at the Neag School.
“We’re very invested in our current partnerships,” Hands says, pointing to the decade-long collaboration between the Neag School and Kennelly. “The concept of partnerships is that we have an understanding and commitment to academic integrity on the national, state, and local levels.”
Lowering the Student-to-Teacher Ratio
Hartford’s proximity to many colleges and universities gives it the advantage of having education majors come in as student teachers and to help out in other aspects. The Neag School partnership with Kennelly, however, is also unique in the sheer number of its education students who are placed there.
“Kennelly hosts a critical mass of Neag [School] students,” says June Cahill ’93 (ED), ’94 MA, interim principal at Kennelly. “There can be a total of 20 University [of Connecticut] students in any given day.”
Having nearly two dozen Neag School students at Kennelly on any given day means having two to three teachers in a classroom at one time, says Roselle.
“We’re placing as many students there as we do in order to effect a positive change,” Roselle says. “One student can have an impact, but when you put 17 or 18 students from UConn there, it’s really transformative.”
Having Neag School interns present in partner schools effectively lowers the student-to-teacher ratio, allowing students to receive more individualized instruction, says IB/M student Emily Baseler, currently serving as a student teacher at Kennelly.
“It’s a unique opportunity to have so many teaching professionals in one place,” she says. “We can all bounce ideas off of each other, and students gain many different perspectives.”
‘Infusing Them in the Culture’
Current IB/M student Emily Baseler ’17 (ED, CLAS), ’18 MA, left, serves as a student teacher in the classroom of Kennelly teacher Beth Doyle ’99 (CLAS). (Photo Credit: Ryan Glista/Neag School)
In addition to receiving the Richard W. Clark Exemplary Partner School Award this past year, the Kennelly School was recently recognized by the district for progress made on the Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress (NEAP), which assessed the Kennelly School as having the highest-ranked overall school improvement in the area of mathematics for its entire district during the 2014-15 academic year. The assessment found that Kennelly students reported a 19.8 percent improvement in math, which was first in the district, and a 16.6 percent increase in reading, placing it fourth in the district. The Kennelly School attributes a large part of these increases to its partnership with UConn’s Neag School.
Yet the success of the partnership owes much to the collaborative efforts of the administrators and instructors at Kennelly — and their belief in inclusivity — as well.
“From the first day Neag School students start, they are treated as staff members, taking part in professional book groups and data teaming processes on a weekly basis,” Cahill says. “We infuse them in the culture of the building. There is ongoing communication and collaboration with Neag students and faculty. We are continuously learning from each other.”
“It’s a unique opportunity to have so many teaching professionals in one place. We can all bounce ideas off of each other, and students gain many different perspectives.” — Emily Baseler, current IB/M student
“Kennelly has made me feel completely welcome,” says Aryliz Crespo, a current IB/M student. “They’re very excited to hear my ideas and grateful for my help and contributions.”
“Students coming out of the Neag School have really up-to-date knowledge, so [Kennelly’s administrators] didn’t think of us as just student teachers; they wanted to hear from us,” Bashaw says.
Not only are Neag School students shadowing the teachers, but they are also actively providing feedback to enhance the curriculum. Kennelly students, former principal Duffy says, “reap the benefits of that.”
Cahill adds that having Neag School students in Kennelly classrooms has had an impact for its own students beyond academics.
“Our Neag School students have a direct impact on social and academic aspects for Kennelly students. Many students need a positive interaction while they are at school, and they are often given this from the Neag students,” she says.
The Kennelly School has nearly 600 students from ages 4 to 14. This school is diverse in its students’ wide range of ages and developmental levels, and because the students here come from more than 10 different countries and speak five different languages.
The varied age range and skill level at Kennelly gives Neag School students the ability to work with different grade levels both in the classroom and for small-group work. The level of diversity also creates a need to find more than one way to teach and interact with the students, adds Bashaw.
“Working at Kennelly taught me about putting things in perspective,” she says. “You can’t just think about them as students; you really need to think of them as people as well. You have to think about all the facets of their life, because they’re all coming from very different backgrounds. They’re not going to get the most out of their education if there are overarching problems going on.”
The amount of on- and off-campus collaboration and professional development shared with the Neag School is unusual in school partnership programs, Duffy says, but the positive impacts are evident, and the efforts to improve are always ongoing.
“We’ve had Neag School professors come out to do professional learning, and I’ve come to Storrs to talk about curriculum and district decision making,” she says. “We talk about how we can make a great program better.”
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
Dean Gladis Kerstaint, left, and current Neag School student Symone James, right, gathered with attendees of the AACTE-CT meeting in Hartford, Conn., including U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. (Photo courtesy of Gladis Kersaint)
Dean Gladis Kersaint, along with current Neag School students Symone James and Anna Ecceles, joined colleagues from fellow member institutions of the Connecticut American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE-CT) for a Hartford Day on the Hill in March to discuss the Connecticut Educator Preparation Initiative. Neag School alum Nathan Quesnel’02 MA, superintendent of East Hartford Public Schools, also participated.
The Neag School Alumni Board hosted its annual Neag School Alumni Awards Celebration in March. Six outstanding Neag School graduates were honored at a sold-out reception held on the Storrs campus. Find photos, videos, and more here.
The research of more than 70 Neag School faculty and graduate students will be presented at the AERA Annual Meeting in San Antonio in late April. Find more information here, including a list of all Neag School-affiliated presenters. See below for additional faculty AERA-related accolades.
The Neag School, in conjunction with UConn’s Residential Hall Association and Student Union Board of Governors, hosted a screening of “Hidden Figures” in March on the Storrs campus. Following the film screening, Neag School’s Dean Gladis Kersaint facilitated a discussion regarding underreprented groups in STEM including women and people of color.
Department of Curriculum and Instruction (EDCI) and Teacher Education
The Neag School’s Leadership in Diversity (L.I.D.) group hosted the second annual “Leadership In Diversity Conference” on Satruday, March 25, 2017. Dr. Christopher Emdin gave the keynote address.
Student leaders in Teacher Education’s Leadership in Diversity (L.I.D.) organized its 2nd Annual Conference on Multicultural Education and Culturally Responsive Teaching at the Storrs Campus in March. The event, themed “Liberation Starts With Education” featured keynote speaker Christopher Emdin, associate professor in the Department of Mathematics, Science and Technology at Teachers College, Columbia University, and author of For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood … and the Rest of Ya’ll, Too (Beacon, 2016). See photos from the daylong conference.
Department of Educational Leadership (EDLR)
The Center for Education Policy Analysis Speaker Series hosted three speaker sessions in recent weeks, featuring Dania Francis of University of Massachusetts — Amherst, Jorge Aguerro of UConn’s economics department, and Susanna Loeb of Stanford University. Check out photos and videos from past speakers’ presentations.
CommPACT partner school Bassick High School in Bridgeport, Conn., has started to host monthly Community Collaboratory meetings. The kickoff meeting held in January included 30 people from across the local community who are working with students and families.
Sport management students gathered with members of ESPN’s College Sports programming team for a networking event in February. (Photo Credit: Riley McGarry)
Students in the sport management program welcomed to the Storrs campus ESPN’s director of acquisitions and programming Brent Colborne ’04 (ED) and a group of ESPN’s programming staff for a networking event with current sport management students this February. Read more here.
Jennie Weiner, Sarah Woulfin, and Morgaen Donaldson, with the help of graduate students Alex Lamb, Shannon Holder, Daron Cyr, and Sasha Davis, completed a report for the Connecticut Council for Education Reform (CCER) on the Alliance District Plans. The report was presented to the governor and Connecticut State Department of Education, and Jennie Weiner attended a presentation session with the Urban Superintendent Alliance on the report in March.
Joanne Manginelli has been named program coordinator for the Wallace Foundation’s University Preparation Program Initiative (UPPI) in the Department of Educational Leadership. Last fall, the Wallace Foundation selected UConn to participate in a $47 million national initiative to to research, improve upon, and change the way that principals are trained. Read more about Manginelli here.
Department of Educational Psychology
The Black and Puerto Rican Caucus; Commission on Women, Children, and Seniors; and Commission on Equity and Opportunity jointly presented on the current status of the Connecticut K-3 Literacy Initiative (CK3LI) during a Literacy Forum at the state Capitol in March. Michael Coyne provided an update on CK3LI’s research and public engagement efforts. Check out the forum’s agenda at s.uconn.edu/litforum. View the CK3LI video below:
The Center for Behavioral Education and Research (CBER) hosted a Breakfast Brown Bag event titled “Squeezing Water From a Stone: Getting Research From School Collaborations,” featuring Devin Kearns and Adam Feinberg, at the Storrs Campus in March.
Stephen Sam, a UConn computer science junior from the ScHOLA2RS House program, relaxes while on spring break in Brazil. (Photo courtesy of Erik Hines)
The First Year Programs and Learning Communities’ ScHOLA2RS House, led by Erik Hines, traveled to the Bahia region of Brazil during spring break to learn about the low access rate to higher education for Afro-Brazilian adolescents. A few students from UConn’s Engineering House joined ScHOLA2RS House on this excursion. This education abroad trip was conducted in conjunction with The Ohio State University’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Students from both UConn and OSU traveled to Salvador, Morrow De Sao Paulo, and Gamboa, and engaged in a myriad of activities centered around understanding Afro-Brazilian culture and educational disparities in the Bahia region.
Faculty/Staff
Scott Brown co-presented two poster sessions with alum Kimberly Lawless’94 MA, ’96 Ph.D at the International Congress of Psychological Science, in March in Vienna, Austria.
Laura Burton served as a grant reviewer for the Social Science Humanities Research Council, Insight Grants, in Canada in January. She also co-published, with other colleagues, “Managing and Leading in Sport Organizations” in Contemporary Sport Management (6th Edition, Cloth Pass/Kycd).
Neag School students Victoria Schilling and Laura Rodriguez presented at the National Science Teachers Association Conference in Los Angeles in March with colleagues including TJ McKenna and Todd Campbell. (Photo courtesy of Victoria Schilling)
Todd Campbell co-published “Modeling as an Anchoring Scientific Practice for Explaining Friction Phenomena” in the February issue of The Physics Teacher. Campbell also co-presented three sessions at the National Science Teachers Association Conference in Los Angeles this March. He was joined by students TJ McKenna, Laura Rodriguez, and Victoria Schilling, who also presented with Campbell and other colleagues at the conference.
Tutita Casa co-published “Why Should Students Write in Math Class?” in the February issue of ASCD’s Educational Leadership journal.
Sandra Chafouleas co-published “Progress Monitoring the Effects of Daily Report Cards Across Elementary Secondary Settings Using Direct Behavior Rating” in Assessment for Effective Intervention in February.
Michael Coyne has been named an editor-in-chief of Elementary School Journal, which is published by the University of Chicago Press. Suzanne Wilson and Sarah Woulfin also join the newly appointed editorial team as associate editors.
Morgaen Donaldson served on AERA Division L dissertation of the year committee.
Shaun Dougherty presented two sessions at the 2017 Spring Conference of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) in Washington, D.C., in March. He also was a part of three different three sessions at the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) annual conference in Washington, D.C., in March. Morgaen Donaldson and Sarah Woulfin had work presented at the AEFP Conference as well. A National Bureau of Economic Research paper co-published by Dougherty and titled “Objective Course Placement and College Readiness: Evidence from Targeted Middle School Math Acceleration” was also updated and made available this past month.
Justin Evanovich; Patricia Bellamy, an assistant director for Husky Sport; and Cassandra Therriault, a sport management graduate student, co-presented “Strategic Integration of Physical Activity and Vocabulary Enhancement” at the Literacy Essential Conference in New Britain, Conn., in April.
Jennifer Freeman received the Ted Carr Award in March. (Photo courtesy of Tamika La Salle)
Jennifer Freeman received the Association for Positive Behavior Support (APBS) Ted Carr Award at the APBS Annual Conference in March in Denver. The annual award is given to an early career researcher whose work in positive behavior support reflects conceptual sophistication, applied relevance, and promise of substantial contribution to the field.
Rachael Gabriel co-published “Three Directions for Disciplinary Literacy” in the February issue of ASCD’s Educational Leadership journal.
Richard Gonzales presented at the preconference for the annual American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) meeting in Tampa in February. The Neag School, along with Western Kentucky University, were the first institutions to represent the Wallace Foundation University Principal Preparation Initiative at a national event. Read more about the initiative here.
Preston Green served as a panelist at the “200 Years in Review: Education and the Mississippi Constitution” symposium held by the Mississippi College School of Law, in Jackson, Miss., in March. In addition, Green’s research on charter schools was presented as part of the Oxford Education Research Symposium, held in Oxford, U.K., in March.
Jean Gubbinsprovided testimony on “An Act Concerning Services for Gifted and Talented Students” (Raised Bill No. 911) to the state of Connecticut’s General Assembly in Hartford, Conn., in February.
Elizabeth Howard served as a guest speaker at the Educational Collaborative for International Schools (ECIS)/English as a Second Language and Mother Tongue committee’s annual conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in March. She was also recognized for her outstanding contributions to the field of dual language education by the Massachusetts Association of Bilingual Education (MABE) at its 2017 Southern New England Regional Dual Language Conference in March.
Joshua Hyman hosted Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, acting superintendent of Hartford Public Schools, in his Economics of Education Reform class in April, where Torres-Rodriguez spoke to students about her experience and on topics from the class.
James Kaufman and Ronald Beghetto co-published, along with another colleague, a chapter titled “The Four-C Model of Creativity: Culture and Context” in the book The Palgrave Handbook of Creativity and Culture Research (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017).
Mark Kohan was a panelist at the Humanities in Action with the UConn Initiative on Campus Dialogues at the Storrs Campus in March.
Allison Lombardi co-authored with alum Adam Lalor ’16 Ph.D. a chapter titled “Faculty and Administrator Knowledge and Attitudes Regarding Disability” in Disability as Diversity in Higher Education: Policies and Practices to Enhance Student Success(Routledge, 2017), released this past February. Lombardi also served as a panelist for a webinar on college readinesss for students with disabilities, held by the National Technical Assistance Center on Transition in February. In March, she and CBER student researcher Graham Rifenbark co-presented “Combining College Readiness and Reading in a Blended Learning Context for Adolescents With and Without Disabilities” at the 2017 Spring Conference of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), held in Washington, D.C.
Jennie McGarry attended the annual conference of The Research Universities Civic Engagement Network on behalf of UConn’s Office of Public Engagement at Stanford University in February.
Jennie McGarry and Justin Evanovich co-published with Rhema Fuller ’06 (BUS), ’08 MA, ’11, Ph.D.; Cassandra Coble ’14 Ph.D.; and current sport management graduate student Garret Zastoupli “Action Research in a Campus-Community Partnership: Lessons Learned” in the journal of Research Methods Case Studies.
At a time when demand for evaluation across a variety of fields — including education, public health, and development — is at an all-time high, Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead has co-published “Toward the Development of Reporting Standards for Evaluations” in the American Journal of Evaluation. Evaluation quality and credibility are among the fundamental issues in evaluation, with current international and national conversations centered on concerns regarding who is meeting increased demand for evaluation — and how. Montrosse-Moorhead and her co-author put forth two arguments in the article: First, there is a legitimate need in the field of evaluation to establish standards specifying the minimum, evaluation-specific elements that an evaluator must report in order for stakeholders to make an informed, sound judgment regarding the quality and credibility of the evaluation being reported. Second, based on their research, she and her co-author propose a set of standards, which they term the CHecklist for Evaluation-Specific Standards (CHESS), as a viable candidate for meeting that need for reporting evaluation standards.
Grace Natham (Photo credit: New Haven Public Schools)
Grace Natham, a mentor with the UCAPP Plus-New Haven program, has been named Regional Principal of the Year by Magnet Schools of America. She has been the principal of Quinnipiac Real World Math STEM Magnet School since 2012.
Blanca Rincón has been elected to serve as a directorate member for ACPA’s Commission for Professional Preparation. She has also been invited to serve on the programming committee for AERA Division J.
Joseph Renzulli gave the keynote address on “The Schoolwide Enrichment Model as a National Plan For Talent Development In Chile” at Universidad Austral de Chile in March in Valdivia, Chile. He also gave three other keynote addresses in March, one at the British School Association, in New Delhi, India; another for Congresso Internazionale, Universita di Pavia, in Pavia, Italy; and a third this month at the International Congress For Gifted and Talented in Istanbul. Renzulli published a chapter titled “Developing Creative Activities Across All Areas of the Curriculum” in Nurturing Creativity In The Classroom (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Christopher Rhoads published “Coherent Power Analysis in Multi-level Studies Using Parameters From Surveys for the Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics in April.
Rene Roselle was a participant on a major form panel titled the Clinical Practice Imperative: Conversations with AACTE’s Commission, which took place at the AACTE Annual Meeting in Tampa, Fla., in March.
Lisa Sanetti co-authored with Melissa A. Collier-Meek ’08 (CLAS), ’09 MA, ’11 6th Year, ’13 Ph.D. and Lindsay M. Fallon ’09 MA, ’11 6th Year, ’13 Ph.D.“Incorporating Applied Behavior Analysis to Assess and Support Educators’ Treatment Integrity” in the February issue of Psychology in the Schools.
George Sugai presented on multi-tier systems of support, school climate, and their link to academic and social behavior success at the “Creating Safe, Supportive Learning Environments for Children with Disabilities” event hosted by the Office of Special Education Programs in March. He also presented “Addressing the Social and Behavioral Needs of All Students” at the University of Sydney Education and Social Work Dean’s Lecture Series in Syndey, Australia, in April. In addition, Sugai’s work in assisting with a nationwide effort to improve school climate and academic attainment in Jamaican schools has recently been featured by several media outlets. Read more about the school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports work in Jamaica here and or check out the video featured in this UNICEF blog.
Suzanne Wilson, Neag Endowed Professor of Teacher Education, was named by the American Educational Research Association as one of 14 AERA Fellows for 2017.
Suzanne Wilson was named by the American Educational Research Association as one of 14 2017 AERA Fellows. AERA Fellows, nominated by their peers, are selected on the basis of their notable and sustained research achievements. She is joined by 13 other scholars from across the country, who will all be inducted on April 28 during the AERA 2017 Annual Meeting in San Antonio.
Higher Education and Student Affairs grad Louis Cameron III ’16 MA is now serving as a resident director at Boston College. The Department of Educational Leadership’s Carissa Rutkaukas recently caught up with him; read more about his story here.
Chelsea Connery ’13 (ED), ’14 MA, now a doctoral student in the Neag School, is serving on this month’s UConn Science Salon panel, titled “Throwing It All Away: America’s Food Waste Epidemic.” Find more information about the event at sciencesalon.uconn.edu.
Robert Cotto co-published a review of the book Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation in the January issue of History of Education Quarterly.
Brianna Hennessy, an educational psychology graduate student, has been chosen to receive one of UConn’s Outstanding Scholars Program (OSP) Fellowship awards for the 2017-18 academic year. The OSP Fellowship seeks to recruit and enhance the most academically qualified and promising students entering UConn who are applying to doctoral programs.
Rachel Holden ’16 (CAHNR), an aspiring agricultural educator who is currently a student in the Neag School’s Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates (TCPCG), was featured on the College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources blog. Check out her story here.
Kristen Juskiewicz, a graduate student in the Measurement, Evaluation, and Assessment program, has been accepted for a summer internship program with the U.S. Government Accountability Office in Washington, D.C.
Current sport management graduate student Pat McKenna, who also serves as associate director of athletics communications for UConn Athletics, penned a piece for the Department of Educational Leadership website about the demands on student-athletes’ time during the weeks leading up to the NCAA Final Four.
Amy Miller, a current UCAPP student, has been appointed head of the English department at Farmington High School, in Farmington, Conn.
Jacqueline Ose ’18 (ED, CLAS) has been selected as a UConn IDEA grant recipient, for her project Effect of Advanced Placement Incentive Programs in Connecticut High Schools. For the project, she will evaluate the effects of Advanced Placement incentive programs instilled in Connecticut high schools to understand the impact this monetary program has had on students, teachers, and schools.
Sofia Read and Charles Macauley, graduate students in the sport management program, moderated the latest “Beyond the Field” series event, featuring political sportswriter David Zirin. Read more about the event. The next lecture in the “Beyond the Field” series will feature David Leonard of Washington State University and will take place April 27 at 4 p.m. in the Dodd Center’s Konover Auditorium.
Louise Berry ’52 (CLAS), ’61 (ED), ’80 JD is being recognized by the town of Brooklyn, Conn. by having School Street renamed in her honor, in recognition of her retirement as superintendent. Berry retired after 34 years as superintendent and almost 60 years working in the Brooklyn (Conn.) school system.
Dyllis Braithwaite ’51 (ED)
Dyllis (Schlosser) Braithwaite ’51 (ED) has an exhibit of her wearable art at the Windham Textile and History Museum in Windham, Conn., until May. The exhibit was curated by Laura Crow, a recently retired UConn professor of costume design.
Bridget Carnemolla ’13 Ed.D. was recognized as Watertown (Conn.) Chamber of Commerce’s Community Leader of the Year. Carnemolla has been superintendent of Watertown Schools since 2014. She previously was principal of Watertown High School, where she oversaw the budget, operations, staff and teaching of 957 students, one of Connecticut’s largest student bodies.
Tom Dubreuil ’93 MA joined Penn State Lehigh Valley as director of student affairs. He previously served as assistant director of parent giving at Lafayette College and as director of student affairs at Penn State Schuylkill.
Dana Dudzinska-Przesmitzki ’11 Ph.D. was elected to the steering committee of the Academy of Human Resource Development Scholar-Practitioner Special Interest Group.
Crystal Fernandez-Harris ’13 MA and Robin Grenier were recognized at the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD)’s 2017 Annual Conference with the AHRD Excellence in Scholarly Practice Award 2016. The awards are given for excellence in applying scholarly HRD theory and research to practice in a manner that brings measurable improvement to an organization and/or has the potential to advance the field of HRD.
Mary-Teresa Grandville ’88 (ED), ’00 6th Year
Mary-Teresa Grandville ’88 (ED), ’00 6th Year was named principal at Greenwich’s Parkway School, in Greenwich, Conn. She is currently the assistant principal at North Street School in Greenwich, Conn.
Khalil Griffith, a first-year master’s student in sport management, spent time earlier this semester in Kenya, conducting workshops to promote healthy masculinity in villages throughout Kibera, a neighborhood in the city of Nairobi, and working to implement positive youth curriculums in communities. Read more about his experience here.
Virginia Hoerle ’06 6th Year has been named principal of Oliver Ellsworth School in Windsor, Conn. She has served as an educator in Windsor Public Schools (Conn.) for 18 years.
Aresta Johnson ’12 ELP, former deputy superintendent – then interim – in Bridgeport (Conn.), was officially named Bridgeport’s superintendent. Johnson, a former pharmaceutical chemist who started her teaching career in Waterbury, first came to the district as a director of science in 2005.
Paula Milone-Nuzzo ’80 MS (NURS), ’89 Ph.D. (Photo credit: Penn State)
Paula Milone-Nuzzo ’80 MS (NURS), ’89 Ph.D., dean of the College of Nursing at Penn State, has been named president of MGH Institute of Health Professions.
Jose Ortiz ’99 MA, ’00 Ph.D. was named principal of C.B. Jennings Dual Language and International Elementary Magnet School in New London, Conn. Read more.
Kathleen Simoneau ’04 (ED), ’05 MA has been appointed principal of the Connecticut IB Academy in East Hartford, Conn., effective July 1. She currently serves as assistant principal and middle years programme coordinator at the Connecticut IB Academy and Sunset Ridge School in East Hartford.
Orlando Valentin ’15 (ED), ’16 MA, a fourth-grade teacher at Casimir Pulaski Elementary School in Meriden, Conn., has been chosen to participate in a study intended to improve teach-preparation programs. Read more here.
Jon Wholley ’04 (CLAS), ’07 MA recently returned to UConn as part of the football coaching staff, after having been defensive coordinator at Fordham University the past two seasons.
Mike Willie, a graduate student in sport management, has formed a student organization as a first step in starting a wheelchair basketball team at UConn in partnership with the Ryan Martin Foundation.
In Memoriam
William C. Anderson ’51
Carlita R. Baldwin ’08
Priscilla P. Boivin ’79
Deborah Chase ’87
Rosalie M. Colman ’78
Thomas A. Coleman ’70
Audrey L. Conrad ’48
James E. Doherty ’56
Barbara B. Fleming ’48
Allen C. Frazier ’58
Nathan S. Goldberg ’53
Felix Grzych ’57
Peter J. Harrity, Jr. ’66
James V. Healey ’64
Elizabeth A. Helm ’78
Jack A. Huber ’74
Richard K. Jepsen ’57
Richard S. Kelley ’65
Ann O. Kenny ’87
Sally Kneeland ’55
Philip Langer ’57
Stuart J. McEnerney ’77
Jeanne A. Meddick ’69
Albert J. Mitzak ’73
Robert J. Orszak ’69
Gail S. Perry ’68
Marcia O. Riccio ’76
Virginia B. Salzer ’77
Kathleen J. Starkey ’71
Marilyn P. Turkowski ’50
Paul L. Whitley ’59
faculty AERA-related accolades.
Rachael Gabriel and Sarah Woulfin published a new book titled 
James Kaufman co-published 
Chelsea Connery ’13 (ED), ’14 MA, now a doctoral student in the Neag School, is serving on this month’s UConn Science Salon panel, titled “Throwing It All Away: America’s Food Waste Epidemic.” Find more information about the event at sciencesalon.uconn.edu.
Crystal Fernandez-Harris ’13 MA and Robin Grenier were recognized at the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD)’s 2017 Annual Conference with the AHRD Excellence in Scholarly Practice Award 2016. The awards are given for excellence in applying scholarly HRD theory and research to practice in a manner that brings measurable improvement to an organization and/or has the potential to advance the field of HRD.
