Education Week (Neag School’s Donald Leu comments on media literacy and recent trend of fake news)
A Call for a Language Shift: From Covert Oppression to Overt Empowerment
With increasing shifts in racial and ethnic demographics in the United States, the national conversation on diversity and inclusion is ever evolving. Several terms have become commonplace in identifying racial and ethnic groups that are disadvantaged by interlocking, oppressive systems, such as White supremacy, patriarchy, and neoliberal capitalism. Among the most popular phrases currently used to describe groups that have been historically underserved based on their race is “People of Color.” Another common term used to describe these groups is “minorities.” One intention behind using these terms is to emphasize the overlapping or shared experiences with discrimination, marginalization, and oppression on the basis of racial, ethnic, and/or cultural identities. These terms also seek to acknowledge and magnify the reality that all racial and ethnic groups do not experience the same privileges. Despite the well-intentioned nature of these terms, I argue they covertly serve to reinforce racial hierarchies and perpetuate problematic status quos.
In response to the problematic nature of terms such as
“People of Color,” “minorities,” “marginalized groups,” and “oppressed groups,” I call for a shift in language. In the pursuit of a more equitable and just society, it is
important that we develop and use language that disrupts oppressive systems.
Critique of the Status Quo
One primary issue with the phrase “People of Color” is that it normalizes and privileges Whiteness. For example, by separating White from this label in direct contrast to a cluster of multiple racial and ethnic groups, this phrase reinforces White superiority. In fact, on a pathological level it reiterates the humanization of Whites and dehumanization of racial groups across the Africana, Latina, Asian, and Native American Diasporas. The reality is that White indeed is a color, and people from all racial and ethnic groups deserve human dignity, liberties, and supports for holistic development. Despite existing in a White neoliberal capitalist society that values lives differently based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and among multiple identity categories, if we as a society are committed to celebrating racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity and inclusion — rather than using differences as a basis for discrimination and oppression — then our language and related systems and social practices should reflect this valuing accordingly.
Another issue with the phrase “People of Color” is it implicitly suggests that, in order to value and focus on the issues impacting these groups, we need to cluster them together, which diminishes the uniqueness of their differences between and within groups. These differences include variations in sociocultural histories, migration patterns and experiences, economic opportunities, and related circumstances. For example, there are more than 33 ethnic groups and nationalities under the Latina Diaspora and upwards of 50 within the Africana Diaspora. No doubt there are intersecting oppressions, but there are also distinct differences worthy of acknowledgment, critical examination, and concerted action.
The term “minorities” is also problematic on multiple levels. Minorities can be interpreted numerically or symbolically. Numerically, the term is always contextual and refers to a group that represents less than 50 percent of a given a population and oftentimes less than 30 percent. Hence, the definition of minorities in a numerical sense focuses on representation. However, the pervasive use of this term dismisses the fact that certain groups are not numerically fewer in representation in every context. For example, Blacks and Latinas are not always numerical minorities in every geographical context (e.g., urban environments in the U.S. — or globally, for that matter) or every institutional context (e.g., Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs)). Thus, context matters when this term is applied. Organizations often mask the underlining issues of a lack of diversity by clustering a range of groups deemed as “minorities.” For example, many institutions tout attaining high levels of diversity by grouping numerous “minority” groups together while minimizing or disregarding specific inequities related to certain racial and ethnic groups (e.g., higher numbers of international students from Asian countries conflating overall diversity numbers while persistently attracting lower numbers of African-American and Latina students from within the U.S.).
Symbolically, the term “minorities” implies an inferior or deficient status. Often, terms such as “dominant” and “marginalized” are juxtaposed and used to describe socially constructed power dynamics within a given context. However, the referencing to groups in this way distorts the perceived possession of power by positioning groups who are being oppressed as powerless, and “dominant” groups as controlling all the power. Hence, without the qualifying term “numerical” to the term “minority,” frequent references to “oppressed” and “marginalized” can perpetuate and exacerbate pathological assumptions about human worth and potential for positive change.
The language we use and how it is interpreted can consciously and subconsciously perpetuate dehumanization, marginalization, and oppression.
Shifting Our Language
In response to the problematic nature of terms such as “People of Color,” “minorities,” “marginalized groups,” and “oppressed groups,” I call for a shift in language. In the pursuit of a more equitable and just society, it is important that we develop and use language that disrupts oppressive systems. This shift involves replacing language used to describe specific conditions based on systemic oppressions rather than defining groups of people. As such, this shift rejects oppressive terms while continuing to recognize inequitable systems, but promotes more affirmative, empowering, and humanistic terminologies. By shifting the language, we can upend and challenge, rather than reinforce and strengthen, inequitable power structures.
One phrase involving the use of empowering language that does not define a group or groups by encounters with oppression is Powerful Groups Targeted for Oppression (PGTOs). This term emphasizes the humanity and power within groups while still acknowledging the reality of oppressive systems. Using this language will shift the thought process and self-identification within one’s self (as well as within society at large) as more affirming and empowering, rather than focusing solely on the condition of being oppressed and marginalized. Specific terms — such as “racial,” “ethnic,” “cultural,” “sexual identity,” and “religious affiliations” — can be inserted between the words “Powerful” and “Groups” to focus on and address the specific issues impacting these groups. The terms “targeted for” can be replaced with “subjected to” based on the context, relevance, and application. For example, in place of the phrase “Women of Color,” the phrase “Powerful Women Subjected to Intersecting Oppressions (PWSIOs)” could be used. In addition, the term “oppression” can be used interchangeably with marginalization, underrepresentation, economic deprivation, educational neglect, exploitation, or related terms. The existences of these aforementioned terms in specific contexts can be framed as a condition associated with their lived experiences/realities, but it does not have to be how they are defined holistically.
A second recommendation for replacing status quo references to racial and ethnic groups is to list the groups that are focused upon either separately or collectively. For example, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and/or Multi-Racial Groups (BHANAM) and/or individuals across Africana, Latina, Asian, and Native American Diasporas (ALANDs) could be used. Specificity can be incorporated as necessary to ensure that nuanced differences, as well as overarching similarities, are recognized. This naming of specific racial and ethnic groups acknowledges each groups’ uniqueness and centralizes core aspects of their cultural identities and lived experiences.
Language matters. The recommendations put forth here should also be considered and expanded to language used for various identity categories. The language we use and how it is interpreted can consciously and subconsciously perpetuate dehumanization, marginalization, and oppression. Contrarily, we can use language to uplift, empower, and transform human cognitive processes and interactions toward a more equitable society.
Joseph N. Cooper is an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education. He recently was honored with the Neag School’s 2016 Outstanding Early Career Scholar Award.
Mathematician Attends White House Computer Science Education Conference
College of Liberal Arts and Science (Neag School doctoral student, Amit Savkar, was part of a Connecticut educator group that went to the White House)
Equity Cluster Hire: An Investment With Continuing Returns
Neag School faculty members have a long history of examining the factors that influence equitable access to education, including issues that affect learning opportunities for students of diverse backgrounds and cultures.
Through collaborative as well as individual research endeavors, Neag School faculty across each department have investigated the complexities of social justice and equity issues through a variety of lenses — from perspectives based on a specific educational discipline, such as gifted education or literacy, to such multi-level, schoolwide approaches as positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS).
Social justice and equity remains an area of focus for Neag School researchers, particularly given that the achievement gap[1] between Connecticut’s low-income and minority students and their peers is among the largest in the United States.[2] In an effort to push its focus in this area even further, the Neag School in 2013 hired a cluster of researchers committed to examining social justice and equity issues. This cluster consists of six faculty members who actively engage with colleagues across and beyond the School on a wide range of ongoing studies related to educational equity, school climate, student behavior, and more, all of which continues to build on the many research contributions made by fellow Neag School faculty in these areas.
Social justice and equity remains an area of focus for
Neag School researchers, particularly given that the achievement gap between Connecticut’s low-income and minority students and their peers is among the largest in the United States.
The cluster “has allowed me to be among those who are focusing their energy on continuing to do studies that … tackle education’s most pressing and most difficult-to-answer questions, and that have potential to make a difference for students, educators, and schools,” says Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead, assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology. The achievement gap, she adds, “is a complex problem that will require all of us to work collaboratively, and honor the unique expertise and experience we all bring to bear on the issue.”
Here, the Neag School highlights several key avenues of research work — including recent as well as ongoing studies — involving one or more members of the cluster since its formation in 2013:
In the first statewide evaluation of its kind, several Neag School faculty recently worked to explore issues of educational equity in a large-scale evaluation of Connecticut’s School Readiness Pre-Kindergarten program. Led by assistant professor Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead, the study also involved assistant professors Shaun M. Dougherty, Jennie Weiner, Tamika La Salle, and Hannah Dostal, in addition to a number of Neag School graduate and undergraduate research assistants.
The Neag School’s experts — tapped as subcontracted researchers by the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, on behalf of the Connecticut General Assembly’s Education Committee — designed and implemented the study, as well as outlined its findings, which were presented at a briefing this past September at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, Conn.
Findings revealed positive impacts for students attending this state-funded program; in fact, on average, children who attended the program received a 50 percent boost in early literacy skills, and about a 40 percent boost in early numeracy skills, as compared with children who did not participate in the program, according to Montrosse-Moorhead.
“I believe this study will be helpful to the state as they continue to consider how best to allocate resources among initiatives designed to help close the state’s achievement gap,” says Montrosse-Moorhead, who is also participating in numerous other studies related to educational equity. These include one centered on raising the quality of science education in the U.S., and another examining the enactment of gifted and talented programs, both of which are in the data collection phase.
Learn more about the Early Childhood Regression Discontinuity Study (PDF format).
Another study, conducted by assistant professors Shaun M. Dougherty and Jennie Weiner, examines the impact of federal education policy on school performance.
“The Obama administration invested large amounts of money to support the improvement of chronically underperforming schools and districts,” Weiner says. Such funding has gone toward implementing federal policies that include Race to the Top (RTTT) — a $4.35 billion U.S. Department of Education initiative intended to reward states that demonstrate success in raising K-12 student achievement — and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which was reauthorized last year by President Barack Obama as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Although these types of federal policies are intended to provide equal opportunity for all students, they often, Weiner says, end up targeting school districts that disproportionately serve students of color and at-risk populations.
“Our work centers on the fundamental question of the effectiveness of such policies and whether they translate to improved opportunities and learning for students within them,” she says. “Our findings suggest that they often do not — and that real change requires investments in infrastructure; comprehensive and coherent approaches to reform; and time.”
Weiner has also looked more closely at the experience of school leaders in turnaround settings as they attempt to implement these reform measures and enhance opportunity and achievement among the nation’s most at-risk youth. These efforts include the recently released paper “Possibilities or Paradoxes?: How Aspiring Turnaround Principals Conceptualize Turnaround and Their Place Within It” in School Leadership and Management. In addition to this study, other work on turnaround leadership and effectiveness, including the impact of gender bias on female turnaround leaders, and her recent collaboration on the Pre-K program evaluation, Weiner’s research on the opportunity gap includes ongoing research examining the impact of charter schools, among other work.
Hannah Dostal, assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, is involved in a number of literacy-related projects, one of which is focused on a framework for writing instruction specifically designed for deaf and hard of hearing students, known as Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI).
The three-year Institute of Education Studies (IES) study, which involves students in Grades 3 through 5, finds that exposure to SIWI consistently boosts language and writing scores for deaf and hard of hearing students in these grades — regardless of their beginning language or writing proficiency.
“Supporting deaf and hard of hearing students as they develop their expressive language skills and engage in critical thinking and reasoning provides essential building blocks for literacy attainment,” Dostal says.
To learn more, access “The Writing Performance of Elementary Students Receiving Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction[1],” which Dostal co-published last year in the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. A related study on a professional development program for SIWI, titled “A Three-Year Study of a Professional Development Program’s Impact on Teacher Knowledge and Classroom Implementation of Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction” and co-published earlier this year in the Journal of Educational Research, is also available online. Dostal’s other studies in this particular area are available here.
In addition, she is engaged in collaborative work on disciplinary literacy, which involves partnerships across several universities, and a professional development partnership providing support for literacy instructional practices for literacy with Windsor (Conn.) Public Schools, among other projects.
“I think it is important to work directly with teachers in their classrooms, and to interact with children across the state, in order to ensure that research efforts are informed by, and closely related to, the vibrant, challenging realities of public schools,” Dostal says.
[1] Dostal, H., & Wolbers, K. (2016). Examining Student Writing Proficiencies Across Genres: Results of an intervention study. Deafness & Education International, 18:3, 159-169.
“Minority students represent a disproportionate number of students who are suspended or expelled from school, and who often face more severe consequences for similar behavior infractions,” says Jennifer Freeman, an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology. “If we focus on teaching social and behavioral expectations just as we teach academics, we can level the playing field and improve outcomes for all students.”
Freeman has been pursuing two separate, but complementary, lines of research as they relate to improving behavioral outcomes for all students.
Awarded a 2015 Research Excellence Program grant from UConn’s Office of the Vice President for Research, Freeman is heading up an exploratory study examining the relationship between positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS); school climate; and college and career readiness in high schools across the U.S. Results will be available in the coming year.
In addition, Freeman is partnering with Brandi Simonsen, associate professor at the Neag School, to identify and test effective professional development methods for teachers to improve their use of classroom management practices. Their work has included two group case studies and one single case study in both elementary and high school settings in the past three years.
“In particular at the high school level, we often assume — wrongly — that students have the social and learning skills required to organize themselves, study effectively, negotiate with adults, and work collaboratively with peers,” says Freeman, who has to date published multiple peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and other publications related to her specific areas of research, including the Supporting and Responding to Student Behavior technical assistance guide, released at the White House last fall.
“Directly teaching and supporting students with these skills as part of an overall, multi-tiered behavioral framework can lead to positive academic and behavioral outcomes for students,” Freeman says. “However, identifying effective practices for students without also identifying implementation supports is insufficient. In order to teach students these skills effectively, teachers need support, including effective and efficient professional development and performance feedback.”
At the same time, published and forthcoming work on the opportunity gap by assistant professor Shaun M. Dougherty focuses on how educational policies and programs can address systematic differences in educational outcomes by family income, race, and disability status. For instance, Dougherty has been working to examine everything from the experiences of black student-athletes at historically black colleges and predominantly white institutions to the impact on high school students participating in career and technical education.
His forthcoming work in Education Finance and Policy demonstrates how one model of career and technical education delivery in Massachusetts substantially increased high school graduation rates, with even larger gains for students who qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. In a second forthcoming paper in the Review of Research in Education, Dougherty and Neag School co-author Allison Lombardi explore the centuries-old linkage between education and career preparation, including the insidious ways tracking had been used to limit educational access for lower-income youth and youth of color throughout the 20th century.
Dougherty has received significant research funding from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to evaluate career and technical education in Connecticut and to examine principal evaluation as well as from the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood to expand the evaluation of Pre-K in Connecticut[1].
“Differences in the academic performance between groups of students,” he says, “is a function of complex social conditions that are perpetuated by unequal systems of school funding, and a lack of flexibility in the way that school districts are organized.”
Since joining the Neag School in 2013, Dougherty also has teamed up with his colleagues on the recent Pre-K program evaluation as well as additional publications on student-athletes in college, federal education policy, and access to career and technical education, among numerous other published and forthcoming publications with fellow cluster member Jennie Weiner; Lombardi and Joseph Cooper, assistant professors at the Neag School; and others within and beyond the Neag School, including such colleagues as Eric Brunner and Steven Ross in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
See additional information about research relating to race, income, and disability status conducted by assistant professor Tamika La Salle in the following section.
[1] Dougherty, S.M. (PI), Montrosse-Moorhead, B. (Co-PI), Dostal, H., La Salle, T., and Weiner, J. An Evaluation of Connecticut’s Federal Prekindergarten Expansion Grant Implementation. Funding agency: Connecticut Office of Early Childhood. (2015-2019, $836,671).
In addition to her partnership on the large-scale evaluation of Connecticut’s School Readiness Pre-Kindergarten program, assistant professor Tamika La Salle has largely focused her work on the development, validation, integration, and practical application of school climate surveys as well as the influence of culture on student outcomes.
“I see my research as being focused on two primary areas: culturally responsive educational environments and school climate,” she says.
Her efforts have resulted in numerous peer-reviewed articles in such journals as International Journal of School and Educational Psychology and School Psychology Forum; book chapters; a technical manual; as well as additional research partnerships with fellow faculty. La Salle’s school climate surveys, for instance, have been integrated into Freeman’s research in this area. These surveys are available through the Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS); La Salle works with the Center on integrating culture and climate within the evidence-based PBIS framework.
The recipient of a 2015 Research Excellence Program grant from UConn’s Office of the Vice President for Research, La Salle is also conducting research in a local school district focused on PBIS, school climate, and culture.
Beyond advancing research in these areas, La Salle is engaging in service that supports the state; taking part in school- and district-level professional development inside and outside of Connecticut to promote culturally responsive practices; and developing school climate surveys that have been used nationally and internationally.
Her work in these area, in turn, connects back to various aspects of culture, including race, disability, and income. Having not only published articles on the significance of examining culture within the context of education, but also having developed a model for examining culture and climate from an ecological framework, La Salle sees her work stemming from the examination of educational contexts through a cultural lens — and using this information to guide the ways in which educational settings are organized to meet the needs of students. Here, she says, she sees herself “at the intersection between culture and climate.”
“If our goal is to create educational environments that are conducive to positive (academic, behavioral, social, and emotional) outcomes, we must examine practices, strategies, and efforts within the cultural context of students,” La Salle says. “Making concerted efforts to create environments that are culturally responsive to the students, families, teachers, and communities in which schools reside increase the likelihood that students will experience positive school climates and have more positive school outcomes.”
Collectively, these achievements signal that this faculty cluster at the Neag School remains a key voice in national social justice and equity conversations, offering valuable, relevant, and promising insights and powerful ongoing research efforts.
[1] https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/gaps/
[2] http://ctedreform.org/whats-the-achievement-gap/
Access a current list of publications showcasing the range of scholarship in this area authored by members of the cluster.
The Game Changer For Improving Literacy?
The Berkshire Eagle (Neag School’s Michael Coyne led a research team to conduct workshops as part of a literacy research project)
Lessons From ‘Resilience’ on Achieving Whole-Child Focus in Educator Preparation
Editor’s Note: The following piece originally appeared on the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)’s Ed Prep Matters blog, authored by Neag School Professor and Director of Research Sandra Chafouleas. She also is co-director of the Collaboratory on School and Child Health at UConn. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.
What Happened to Eric and Josh? Lessons From ‘Resilience’ on Achieving a Whole-Child Focus in Educator Preparation
In the ’90s, I worked as a school psychologist and then as an administrator in urban and rural settings. I used my graduate training in behavior management to help students overcome challenges and meet classroom expectations.
I have since spent almost two decades training future educators and conducting research on school-based behavior assessment and intervention tools for educators. I can say with confidence that my work has resulted in many successes, but I also know we have advanced significantly in our understanding of how to attend to the “whole child” since my early work in schools. I often think about how my colleagues and I might have done more for our students.
“I often think about how my colleagues and I might have done more for our students.”
Eric, for example, was a fifth-grader in a rural setting where school was the only way to access support. Eric presented with cognitive delays and had displayed intensive behavioral challenges to the extent that he (and his younger brother) was placed in special school settings. Our meager team worked hard to support Eric, but at each meeting with his family, it was apparent that more intensive home supports were needed. We were left feeling dissuaded that we could enact real change.
I remember another student, Josh, who was a second-grader in an urban school. He struggled to meet academic expectations, displayed moderate behavioral challenges, and was frequently tardy. Our support team worked with his teachers to design skill-based intervention plans. We occasionally commented on the lack of home supports, but our practice did not include deeper inquiry that might have brought a better understanding of the whole picture of Josh’s life.
Today, we know more about the science behind adverse child experiences and how to foster resilience in students like Eric and Josh. I often wonder if the countless hours we spent did enough for them — meeting with student-support teams, volunteering for classroom field trips, even just playing Connect 4 to give students a break. How much more effective could we have been if we’d taken a more whole-child approach?
At my university, we’re taking an interdisciplinary path to studying school and child health to further boost our understanding of how to serve the whole student more effectively. To kick off our work at the UConn Collaboratory on School and Child Health, we recently screened the new one-hour film “Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope” as our first major event, providing a compelling launching point for our emerging work.
The film helps everyone who interacts with children and their families, particularly in school contexts, to understand the science behind toxic stress as a critical step toward making informed decisions and providing better service and support. Whether you are a teacher, school leader, literacy instructor, or student support specialist, this understanding is critical to your work. “Resilience” supports the whole-child approach by presenting what science tells us about the impact of adverse childhood experiences, prompting essential conversations about how to address children’s needs holistically.
My favorite clip in the film is a statement about putting information in the hands of others so they can invent wise actions. In the days since screening “Resilience” for nearly 250 people, I have not been able to walk down the hall without being stopped by someone interested in further conversation.
And to Eric and Josh, wherever you may be: Please know that I still care about you both, and hope that your life paths have included ample fostering of resilience for you and your families.
Access the original blog post — “What Happened to Eric and Josh? Lessons From ‘Resilience’ on Achieving a Whole-Child Focus in Educator Preparation” — on the AACTE’s Ed Prep Matters website. View photos from the “Resilience” screening event.
$3.5M National Science Foundation Grant to Support Diversity in STEM
Editor’s Note: Portions of this story first appeared on UConn Today, the University of Connecticut’s news website. Shawn Kornegay contributed to this updated version.
Working alongside fellow UConn faculty and administrators, Neag School assistant professor Blanca Rincón will serve as co-principal investigator and researcher on a new five-year, $3.5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant dedicated to expanding diversity in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Rincón joins UConn provost and principal investigator Mun Choi, along with co-principal investigator Maria D. Martinez, UConn’s assistant vice provost for student success, on the research project, which will engage researchers and practitioners in examining whether students seeking STEM undergraduate degrees enter the STEM workforce or STEM graduate programs after receiving their undergraduate degrees.
The grant is associated with the Northeast Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (NELSAMP), which is made up of a half-dozen New England institutions working to increase the number of historically underrepresented minority students (URM) in STEM. This fall, UConn assumed the lead role for the alliance, which includes Northeastern University, Tufts University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, University of Rhode Island, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
NELSAMP has been active for the past 15 years; this NSF grant will fund the NELSAMP Alliance for an additional five years with UConn as the lead institution. Through the LSAMP program, the number of URM undergraduate students in STEM at UConn increased from 473 in 2008 to 1,189 in 2015 (a 150 percent increase). The LSAMP team has also submitted a proposal to support the third phase of the NSF Bridge to the Doctorate program for outstanding Ph.D. students.
‘What We Can Do Better’
NELSAMP has consistently raised recruitment, retention, and graduation rates for students from racial and ethnic minority groups who are pursuing undergraduate degrees in engineering and the sciences. As a result, regional enrollment in the alliance has increased from 1,000 to 3,800.
“Since NELSAMP’s inception, we have witnessed a three-fold increase in underrepresented minority baccalaureate enrollment and graduation rates at member institutions.” Assistant Professor Blanca Rincón
“The LSAMP program supports the successful completion of STEM bachelor’s degrees for racial and ethnic minority students. Since NELSAMP’s inception, we have witnessed a three-fold increase in underrepresented minority baccalaureate enrollment and graduation rates at member institutions,” says Rincón.
The LSAMP and related programs support students through advising, personal, and professional development, and by providing a community of scholars on campus.
Specifically, the NSF-funded research, Rincón says, will help to “inform the improvement of LSAMP intervention activities, provide evidence for best practices, and establish a literature base on post-college STEM pathways for underrepresented minority students.”
“For the next five years, NELSAMP expects to continue developing a pipeline to increase the number of underrepresented students in the STEM fields,” says Martinez, who also serves as director of UConn’s Center for Academic Programs.
The ultimate goal, Rincón adds, is “to better understand how STEM students’ educational and career aspirations change and develop over time, and what informs those changes” as well as to “have a feedback loop so that LSAMP program sites can get a sense of how students are doing and how we can better support them.
“Through the Tech Park Program and Next Generation Connecticut, UConn is positioning itself as a leader in driving innovation and change in STEM,” she adds. “Part of UConn’s responsibility is to make sure we are making STEM accessible to all of our students. LSAMP is a central strategy for recruitment and retention to ensure access for racial and ethnic minorities in STEM. This research study is important for helping us learn what we are doing right — and what we can do better.”
TJ McKenna ’18 Ph.D.: Changing How We Teach Science
For Thomas “TJ” McKenna, a love for science may not be enough; his mission, it seems, has become focused just as much on sharing his love for making science accessible to the masses. Some students and faculty members may have seen him on stage at Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts this past November, when he served as a moderator for a question-and-answer event with the stars of the Discovery Channel’s “MythBusters” program. But the current Neag School Ph.D. candidate has been bringing his enthusiasm for science to plenty of other venues as well.
With a background in animal behavior and a master’s degree in entomology, McKenna’s interest in science was always strong. However, his gradual transition from studying animal behavior to studying the most effective ways to teach science to students in grades K-12 stemmed from his experiences as a staff scientist at the Connecticut Science Center, where he began working in 2009.
There, McKenna has run Science Center exhibits with live animals, aquariums, and rooftop gardens; co-created and co-hosts weekly “Science Sunday” videos on Connecticut’s WFSB Channel 3; and taught student groups that have come to the Center for field trips. It was through his experience teaching some of these field trip classes that McKenna encountered an early draft of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) — a series of education standards drafted by stakeholders from 26 U.S. states with the intention of improving science education. These early drafts of the NGSS, he says, interested him because they “capture[d] what it is like to think like a scientist in authentic ways[1].”
“That persuaded me to shift back to education rather than focusing in a content area,” McKenna says, “Schools are looking to head back into this direction, and that’s something I want to be a part of.” In 2015, he began the Ph.D. program in education and curriculum at UConn’s Neag School of Education.
‘From Learning About Science — to Figuring It Out’
Before the NGSS were developed, science would be taught to students with no clear connection as to how the content related to the real world, McKenna says.
By contrast, NGSS, created by current educators, uses a three-dimensional approach to teaching science to K-12 students in a more effective and thought-provoking way. The three dimensions, which are practices, core ideas, and crosscutting concepts, work together to create a shift in the science curriculum — from students being taught information to having students actively participate in the reasoning, using information to explain phenomena or solve problems of consequence to them.
“Science is about explaining things that happen in the world,” says Todd Campbell, associate professor in the Neag School and McKenna’s doctoral advisor. “The new standards ask students to try to explain something that happens and then envisions them collaborating with peers and engaging with tools that help them continually critique and refine their explanations.”
To help educators with the transition to the Next Generation Science Standards, TJ McKenna started a website — known as Phenomena for NGSS — to promote discussions among science educators and give them a range of resources, including ideas for different scientific phenomena to explore and share with their classes.
“It’s a shift from learning about science, to figuring it out,” says McKenna, who is in now his second year of the Ph.D. program. The classes within the Neag School’s curriculum and instruction doctoral program, he says, focus on policy and the curriculum of teaching science; the curriculum looks at the various obstacles faced by educators and considers the ways in which new policies can give them support.
The idea for changing the traditional science education curriculum came out of education research showing that teaching the same curriculum, but in a new and more interactive way, would yield more positive student learning outcomes, McKenna says.
“The newest standards documents align well with the idea that we should be engaging students in figuring stuff out,” Campbell adds. “The big picture is trying to make everybody see that science is about constructing and critiquing explanations, and that’s what NGSS is focused on.”
The content of the NGSS — available for free online — stems from a book written in 2011 titled “A Framework for K-12 Science Education,” which outlines a vision for teaching science using the new standards and discusses how the standards can be applied to all students. Information on the NGSS website is pulled from this 400-page document to create a condensed manual that covers the core ideas of the vision in an effort to help educators make a smooth transition to the new curriculum.
“The new standards are focused on trying to understand the world, and trying to take a more systematic approach to that understanding, so that when we make claims, we have some evidence to support those claims,” Campbell says.
Connecting With Other Educators
Teaching science to students in grades K-12 has always been taught the same way, McKenna says, so educators are currently transitioning to new teaching methods aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. The standards are very malleable, he says; there are no set lesson plans stating exactly what should be taught.
“I think it’s super exciting that there’s no answer,” McKenna says about the standards’ flexibility. “It’s very much like we’re learning and trying to work together to figure this out.”
However, given that the NGSS lacks a strictly outlined curriculum, McKenna saw that some educators were struggling in part because they were attempting to adjust to the new standards, while also trying to find the right supporting material to teach their classes.
To help educators with this transition, McKenna started a website — known as Phenomena for NGSS — to promote discussions among science educators while giving them a range of resources, including ideas for different scientific phenomena to explore and share with their classes.
On the site, McKenna posts videos he has found on the Internet and converted into animated GIF images, all of which represent different scientific phenomena. Each image is designed to serve multiple audiences and is accompanied by a short explanation. The main purpose of each of the images is to allow the viewer to figure out what the science is behind the phenomena, much like the mission of the new standards.
McKenna invites fellow educators to submit images to the site as well. “I was pushing it as this organic, collaborative, ‘we build this resource together,’” he says.
The NGSS Phenomena website began just under a year ago and already has more than 111,000 views from educators across the country. The website also now emerges among the top Internet search results for the term “NGSS” and has been included as a link on the Next Generation Science Standards website as a resource for science educators nationally.
McKenna is also actively sharing his ideas about teaching science on social media. Along with the Phenomena website, he and Campbell are participants in a national bimonthly Twitter discussion, where in-service and pre-service educators, education researchers, and state and district leaders pose and answer questions regarding the implementation of NGSS using the hashtag #NGSSchat. These Twitter discussions typically engage approximately 100 participants at a time (with more than 300 to 400 teachers nationally having participated at some point), helping to facilitate interactions mainly between researchers and teachers. The chats allow these audiences to network and collaborate on different projects, as well as give one another different levels of support to make the future of teaching science better for students.
“Collectively, our vision is to change instruction in the classroom — but this happens at multiple levels,” Campbell says. “I think [TJ] and others like him will determine how much progress we make in changing how students perceive science, which is huge.”
Visit TJ McKenna’s Phenomena for NGSS at ngssphenomena.com. Or, follow him on Twitter at @tjscience.
[1] https://www.ngssphenomena.com/about/
Neag School Accolades — November 2016
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 of Education hosted Race and Revolution, an art exhibit and interactive discussion in which alumni, students, and members of the community explored issues of race and leadership in conjunction with an art exhibit at the Stamford campus in November. Mark Kohan led the group discussions. For more information on the event, visit s.uconn.edu/raceandrevolution. Check event photos out here.
Department of Curriculum and Instruction (EDCI) and Teacher Education
Teacher Education, through UConn’s Community Outreach program, sponsored a screening of “Bring It to the Table,” a documentary produced by Emmy nominee Julie Winokur that aims to break down political stereotypes and prejudice and encourages respect, tolerance, and genuine dialogue.
René Roselle and Robin Hands joined Kennelly School’s principal Mary Lou Duffy as well as dean of students and Neag School alum June Cahill ’94 in accepting the National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER) Richard Clark Exemplary Partnership Award for 2016 — awarded to Neag School partner school Kennelly School — this past October at the NNER 2016 Annual Conference in Arlington, Texas.
Department of Educational Leadership (EDLR)
The Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA) hosted its Fall Speaker Series, with the October presentation (co-sponsored by the UConn Department of Economics) featuring Amy Ellen Schwartz from Syracuse University, who spoke on the impact of universal free meals on student outcomes (see photos here). The November presentation featured John Papay of Brown University, who spoke about the effects of school turnaround strategies in Massachusetts (view photos here). The next featured speaker in the series will be Sean Corcoran of New York University; he will speak on Dec. 7 on high school choice. RSVP here.
Numerous EDLR faculty and graduate students attended the 30th Annual University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) Conference, held in November in Detroit, where work by Neag School faculty members Erica Fernández, Michele Femc-Bagwell, Jennie Weiner, Eric Bernstein, Morgaen Donaldson, Kim LeChasseur, Shaun Dougherty, Richard Gonzales, Sarah Woulfin, and Laura Burton and by graduate students including Jeremy Landa, Shannon Holder, and Scott Hurwitz was presented. Casey Cobb, Aarti Bellara, Rachael Gabriel, Preston Green, and others also served as facilitators.
Neag School students from student organization Leadership In Diversity (L.I.D.) attended the 2016 National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) Conference in Cleveland this November as representatives of Husky Sport and the Neag School.
Department of Educational Psychology (EPSY)
Led by the Collaboratory for School and Child Health, the Neag School co-hosted a screening of the documentary film “Resilience: The Biology of Stress & the Science of Hope,” followed by a panel discussion in November at the Storrs campus featuring James Redford, director; Alice Forrester, chief executive officer of the Clifford Beers Clinic in New Haven, Conn.; and Paul Diego Holzer, executive director of Achieve Hartford! in Hartford, Conn. Sandra Chafouleas served as the panel moderator. For more information about the event, visit s.uconn.edu/resilience. View photos from the event here.
ESPY was recently recognized by the Provost’s Office as having the highest ranking out of the roughly 60 UConn departments in the new report of Academic Analytics.
The Center for Behavioral Education and Research (CBER) celebrated its 10-year anniversary during a gathering in October, bringing together CBER research scientists, regional partners, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and others. Read more about the event here, or view event photos on the Neag School Facebook page. CBER researchers also contributed to a special issue on replication research, for Remedial and Special Education, co-edited by Michael Coyne with contributions from Allison Lombardi, Jennifer Freeman, and Brandi Simonsen.
Students in Grades 4-8 at Hartford Academy, the first Renzulli Academy created by Joseph Renzulli and Sally Reis, organized a weeklong event in October to raise funds for cancer research as well as for a student field trip to New York City.
EPSY faculty joined the Halloween spirit and participated in the Mansfield Community’s Annual “Trick-or-Trunk” event in October.
Faculty/Staff
Several Neag School graduate students and faculty members have been named part of the Collaborative to Advance Equity Through Research on Women and Girls of Color, a national consortium of more than 50 universities and institutions focused on research related to women and girls of color in STEM fields and in public health. Recipients of the Collaborative’s UConn Research Grant Fellows and Projects include Laura Burton and Jennie Weiner, faculty members in educational leadership, whose project is titled “Shedding Lights, Activating Voice, and Building Community: Investigating the Experiences of Women of Colors in Educational Leadership”; John Settlage, faculty member in curriculum and instruction, who will work on “Signposts Along the Pathway: Increasing Access to Quality STEM Education for Women of Color;” Blanca Rincón and Milagros Castillo-Montoya, faculty in educational leadership, with their project “Examining Race Dialogues as a Tool for Mitigating Racial Climate for Women of Color in STEM;” Sian Charles Harris, doctoral student in curriculum and instruction, whose project is titled “Capacity Building: Rick and Resilience in Black American Teen Girls”; Monique Golden, doctoral student in educational leadership, who is working on “MAGNET-ic Repulsions: Why Aren’t CT’s Magnet Schools Attracting Girls of Color to STEM”; and doctoral student Monique S. Negron, whose project is “One Bad Grade Does Not Define Me: Counter-Stories of Resilience from Women of Color in STEM.”
Joseph Abramo and Cara Bernard are in the process of receiving a new grant award from the National Association for Music Education. The award will be for $9,990, and the project is titled “Diversifying Music Educators: Creating Frameworks and Best Practices for Recruiting and Retaining Urban and Rural Students and Students of Color.”
Dorothea Anagnostopoulos presented “Learning to Redesign University-based Teacher Education” at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education in November.
Michele Back’s most recent article, entitled “Symbolic competence in interaction: Mutuality, memory and resistance in a peer tutoring context,” was published in the journal L2. This semester she also presented at Cornell University’s Language Resource Center on the possibilities of setting up peer tutoring programs in their world language departments.
Ronald Beghetto and James Kaufman co-edited the second edition of Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Kaufman was also recently featured in two videos by the Brainwaves Video Anthology: discussing creativity and intelligence as well as creativity and personality.
Ronald Beghetto published a new book, Creative Contradictions in Education (Springer, 2016), which brings together leading cross-disciplinary experts to weigh in on the seemingly paradoxical nature of creativity in education. He was featured in two videos by the Brainwaves Video Anthology as well, including one focused on the paradoxical nature of creativity and another on responding to uncertainty.
Melissa Bray and Thomas Kehle co-authored with other colleagues a number of book chapters and articles this past year, including “Interventions for Homework Performance” for the Handbook of Evidence-Based Interventions for Children and Adolescents (Springer, 2016); “The Good Behavior Game for English Language Learners in a Small Group Setting” in the International Journal of School and Educational Psychology; and “Interdependent Group Contingency to Promote Physical Activity in Children” in Canadian Journal of School Psychology; among others. In addition, Bray was also an author or co-author of numerous articles in recent editions of the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, including “Introduction to Special Issue and to KTEA-3 Error Analysis”; “What Do Children’s Phonological Processing Errors Tell Us About Their Skills in Reading, Writing, and Oral Language?”; and “Exploratory Factor Analysis of Reading, Writing, Oral Language, and Math Errors.” She is co-author of other articles, including “Students with Cancer: Presenting Issues and Effective Solutions” and “Mind Body Health in the School Environment,” both published in The International Journal of School and Educational Psychology. In addition, she served as a co-presenter on “Patterns of Strengths and Weaknesses: Implications for Assessment and Intervention”; “2E Students’ Patterns of Strengths and Weaknesses in Academic Assessment”; and “Mindfulness for Asthma,” all held at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association (APA) this October in Denver, as well as for two additional presentations at the National Associate for Gifted Children in November.
Scott Brown has served as co-author on several publications and presentations in recent months, along with alum Kimberly Lawless ’94 MA, ’96 Ph.D. and other colleagues. Their presentations have included “Making Your Voice Heard: Developing Online Leadership Through Persuasive Writing,” presented at the 47th Annual Conference of the Northeastern Educational Research Association in Trumbull, Conn., this past October; “Listening to the Teachers Through Journals and ROPD: The Need for Identifying Teacher Challenges as They Happen and Providing Responsive Online Professional Development” at the Michigan Virtual Leraning Research Institute Webinar Series, also held in October; and “Increasing Students’ Science Writing Skills Through a PBL Simulation,” at the13th International Conference Cognition and Exploratory Learning in Digital Age (CELDA), held in Mannheim, Germany — which was selected as the CELDA Best Paper for 2016. In addition, Brown and Lawless recently published “Listening to the Teachers: Using Weekly Online Teacher Logs for ROPD to Identify Teachers’ Persistent Challenges When Implementing a Blended Learning Curriculum” in Journal of Online Learning Research.
Laura Burton and Ray Cotrufo ’01 (CLAS), ’14 Ph.D. co-wrote “The NFL Evolution: Does Prioritizing Player Welfare Influence Consumers?” for the International Journal of Sport Management. Burton also moderated a panel discussion on the film “Business of Amateurs” — a documentary about student-athletes in NCAA Division I sports — at the Dodd Center in November. The event was co-sponsored by UConn-AAUP, the sport management program, the Department of Economics, and the Storrs Economics Club.
Laura Burton traveled to Washington, D.C., in November to attend the presentation given by her Global Sports Mentoring Program mentee, Jessica Wu. Burton and Jennie McGarry, along with UConn associate athletic director Ellen Tripp, had served as hosts and mentors in October for the Global Sports Mentoring Program (GSMP), a program co-sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of State and espnW.
Sandra Chafouleas was recognized with the Possibilities in Action Partner Award from the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). The award is in recognition of National School Psychology Week. Recipients are selected based on suggested guidelines from NASP that highlight remarkable personal or professional dedication to improving outcomes for students, outstanding professional functioning and effectiveness, effective advocacy for public policy that supports needed services for children and families, commitment to effective collaboration with school psychologists and other student services staff, and long-term dedication to advocacy on behalf of individual students.
Joseph Cooper has received the Neag School’s 2016 Outstanding Early Career Scholar Award. Cooper, who arrived at the Neag School in 2013 as an assistant professor of sport management, engages in research that touches on race, education, culture, gender, and sport and has established a reputation as a nationally recognized scholar in the area of black college-athletes’ experiences. He has 16 publications on these topics, with others underway, and 12 books and/or book chapters published or in process. He also is the founder and advisor for the student organization Collective Uplift, which focuses on student-athlete support and development.
Shaun Dougherty co-presented “Does Eliminating Tenure Protections Affect the Supply of New Teachers?” at the Northeast Economics of Education Workshop in West Hartford, Conn., this October. He is a co-principal investigator on the two-year, $50,000 grant “Exploring Gun Policy and Legislation: What Are the Effects?” through the Bennett Fund for Research on Health and Society at UConn. He also co-presented “The Effects of Early Math Coursework on College Readiness: Evidence from a Targeted Middle School Math Acceleration” for the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management’s 2016 Fall Research Conference in November in Washington, D.C.
Michele Femc-Bagwell co-published a chapter in Designing Services and Programs for High-Ability Learners: A Guide Book for Gifted Education (2nd ed.). The chapter is titled “Collaborating With Families to Support Gifted Students.”
Erica Fernández and Blanca Rincón co-presented “Creating a Welcoming Climate for Latinx Students” for the Puerto Rican Student Association at UConn’s Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center in October. Rincón and Fernández also welcomed the Spanish Community of Wallingford’s Adelante Program to UConn in October. Forty Adelante students toured the University, participated as college students in a class, and had the opportunity to hear from current students about the college experience.
Jennifer Freeman is the recipient of the 2017 Ted Carr Initial Researcher Award from the Association for Positive Behavior Support.
Robin Grenier presented on “Museums and Civic Discourse: Exploring Challenges and Opportunities for Social Action” at the New England Museum Association 2016 Annual Conference in Mystic, Conn., in November. She also published “Autoethnography as a Methodological Approach in Adult Vocational Education and Technology” in the International Journal of Adult Vocational Education and Technology. In addition, Grenier is a contributor on a recently awarded Canadian Connections Grant titled “Gender Justice, Adult Education, and Curatorial Dreams.” It funds a workshop and subsequent research, to be held in Victoria, British Columbia, in February. She attended the Academy of Human Resource Development Board meeting in Houston in October. Grenier is joining the editorial board of Industrial and Commercial (Emerald Journal). She is also serving as an external reviewer for a programmatic review of Northern Illinois University’s Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education.
Erik Hines co-presented on the ScHOLA2RS House Residential Learning Community about retention and graduate school for African-American males at the “5th National White House and Reach Higher Convening” in Washington, D.C. in October.
Devin Kearns joined the editorial boards for the Journal of Educational Psychology, Remedial, and Special Education as well as Reading Research Quarterly.
Dean Gladis Kersaint and Tamika La Salle participated in the Black Women’s Empowerment Panel, sponsored by the UConn chapter of the National Council of Negro Women in November at the Storrs campus.
Dean Gladis Kersaint served as a panelist for the Connecticut Science Center’s Women in Science seminar “Methods and Mastery: Mathematics Instruction in the 21st Century” this November in Hartford, Conn.
Allison Lombardi and two CBER graduate student researchers, Jessica Monahan and Laura Kern, presented at the Council for Exceptional Children’s Division on Career Development and Transition conference in Milwaukee this October.
Jennifer McGarry facilitated a panel discussion titled “Equity Organizing in a School of Education: Developing Capacity for Critically Conscious Action” at the National Association of Minority Educators (NAME) conference in November in Cleveland.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has awarded David Moss and Todd Campbell a Professional Development for Secondary School Teachers and Educational Professionals grant of $144,138 for three years (2016-19) in support of the science education project titled “Water and Sustainability: Educative Curriculum Using Online Mapping Tools to Support Teacher and Student Learning.” Moss and Campbell will serve as co-principal investigators on the project, along with several fellow UConn faculty in the College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources (CAHNR) and the Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering; the project’s principal investigator is Chester Arnold of CAHNR. The core of the project is a free, three-day professional development workshop for secondary school teachers, designed to immerse them in an educational module that uses the real and virtual worlds — including cutting-edge, online mapping tools — to explore the dynamics of local water resources and the anthropogenic issues that affect them. Participants will then tailor the completed learning module for their use in their own classrooms, in teaching students about water and sustainability. Read more about the project here.
James O’Neil co-authored two book chapters this past year, including “A New Understanding of Man’s Best Friend: A Proposed Contextual Model for the Exploration of the Human-Animal Bond Interactions Among Insecurely Attached Males” and “Gender Role Conflict Theory, Research, and Practice: Implications for Understanding the Human-Animal Bond,” both of which appear in the first academic book to examine the relationship between men and dogs, Men and Their Dogs: A New Understanding of Man’s Best Friend (Springer, 2016).
Christopher Rhoads published “The Implications of Contamination for Educational Experiments with Two Levels of Nesting” in the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness in November.
Blanca Rincón is the co-principal investigator for a five-year, $3.5 million National Science Foundation Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) grant dedicated to expanding diversity in the STEM fields. Read more here.
Eliana Rojas, along with UConn’s El Instituto, hosted a group of faculty visitors from the Universidad de Antofagasta Chile in October. Antofagasta, the second-largest city in Chile, is a port city and regional capital of an important mining area in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert. During the past decade, Antofagasta has been experiencing unforeseen growth in the population of new immigrants from various countries in Latin America. The focus of the visit was a discussion about borders and Latinos in the U.S.
Del Siegle was elected to a three-year term on UConn’s University Senate. In October, he gave a keynote “Contributing Factors to Students’ Underachievement and Possible Solutions” at the Australian Association for the Education of the Gifted and Talented National Gifted Conference in Sydney, Australia, and the keynote “Promising Practices in Gifted Education for Underserved Population” at the 12th Annual New Mexico Association for the Gifted Fall Gifted Institute in Rio Rancho, N.M., also in October.
Brandi Simonsen was the keynote speaker on “Classroom PBIS: Every Moment Counts” at the National PBIS Conference this past October in Chicago.
Megan Staples has won the Associated Teacher of Mathematics in Connecticut (ATOMIC) 2016 Robert A. Rosenbaum Award in recognition of her outstanding commitment and successful service to the entire mathematics community in Connecticut. She will accept the award this December at ATOMIC’s annual conference in Cromwell, Conn. Tom DeFranco has funded Neag School students to attend this conference in recent years; this year alone, 31 mathematics education seniors and master’s students from the Neag School will attend. Tutita Casa and doctoral students Madelyn Colonnese and Sharon Heyman will also be presenting at the event.
The American School of Valencia (ASV) in Valencia, Spain, hosted George Sugai in November. There, he helped ASV to develop its own positive behavior intervention and support (PBIS) team and program.
Robert Villanova organized and facilitated a panel discussion at the annual CABE/ CAPSS Leadership Conference held on Nov/ 18 in Mystic, Conn. The panel focus was “Leadership for District Coherence and Capacity-A Case Study–Vernon and Bloomfield.” Panel members included alumni Desi Nesmith, ’01 (ED), ’02 MA, ’09 6th Year, chief turnaround officer at the Connecticut State Department of Education; Richard Lemons, associate executive director of the CT Center for School Change; and Joseph Macary ’94 (CLAS), ’05 ELP, ’16 Ed.D., superintendent of Vernon Public Schools.
Jennie Weiner’s article “Paradoxes or Possibilities?: How Aspiring ‘Turnaround’ Principals Conceptualize Reform and Their Role Within It” was published in School Leadership and Management in October.
Suzanne Wilson presented “Studying Teacher Learning: The Challenges Associated with Documenting the Effects of Professional Development” at the Department of Mathematics Education Seminar in November.
Students
Students in the sport management program hosted a book signing and Q&A this November with Neil deMause, co-author of Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit and author of The Brooklyn Wars: The Stories Behind The Remaking of New York’s Most Celebrated Borough.
Husky Sport hosted a “Multiculturalism Workshop” in November on the Storrs campus. More than 55 faculty, staff, and students participated.
More than 75 students attended a “Career Night in Sport” in November, hosted by the sport management program. Twelve alumni working in sport management and members of the UConn Athletic Department participated in the event, which was hosted at the UConn Alumni House.
The sport management program hosted speaker Chelsea Fenstermacher, manager for insider sales for the Philadelphia 76ers, in November at the Storrs campus. The speaker discussed sales training, spent the afternoon interviewing students for entry-level sales positions, and then gave a presentation at the UConn Sport Business Association that evening.
Students from Avery Point’s Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates (TCPCG) recently traveled with John Settlage to Minneapolis to take part in a meeting with the National Science Teachers Association.
Five teacher education students — Symone James, Maria Enrique, Jessica Stargardter, Madison Corlett and LaShawna Thompson — were selected for the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY) Teacher Candidate Fellowship. During the course of the year, teacher candidates selected for the fellowship will take part in numerous activities, including monthly webinars to discuss important educational topics with State Teachers of the Year and Finalists and weekly engagement with one another through discussion forums.
The Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) program hosted a panel in October for first-year students to learn more about upcoming practicum experience from second-year students Leslie Lawrence, Abigail Smith, Lexy Parrill, Alyssa Paquin, and Jordan Walsh.
University of Connecticut Student Affairs Association (UCSAA) and the (HESA) program hosted a mixer for faculty, staff, and student at the Nathan Hale at the Storrs Campus in November.
HESA students from HESA Glasgow 3 (Abigail Smith, Lauren Hennes, and Emily Pearson, who traveled this summer to Glasgow) presented on their international experience at the Storrs Campus in November. Their presentation was titled “The Glasgow 3 Experience: Assessment and Feedback Toolkit.”
Approximately 30 current students from the University of Connecticut Administrator Preparation Program (UCAPP) participated in optional workshops on Scientific Research-Based Interventions (SRBI) and situational leadership. The first workshop session, exclusively for “South” cohorts (New Haven and Stamford), took place in November at the Davis Street Arts and Academics School in New Haven, Conn.
Ph.D. candidate Nneka Arinze facilitated a workshop on implicit/explicit bias at the Connecticut Campus Compact Conference in November at Central Connecticut State University.
Emily Armstrong, an elementary education student, is the goalie on the UConn Women’s soccer team, which won the 2016 American Athletic Conference regular season title in October. Senior Rachel Hill, a Neag School student in the sport management program, is also on the team and is one of the premier soccer forwards in the country. Hill also has been selected as a semifinalist for the 2016 MAC Hermann Trophy, the most coveted individual honor in NCAA Division I soccer.
Casey Cochran, graduate student in the sport management program, was featured in an ESPN video about his work to raise awareness about concussions in sport.
Ricki Ginsberg, a doctoral student in curriculum and instruction with a focus on secondary English education, has received the Neag School’s 2016 Outstanding Student Researcher Award. Ginsberg has a diverse array of publications and presentations to her name as well as a book in progress, and serves as the assistant editor of The ALAN Review, the peer-reviewed journal of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English.
Max Klein, an undergraduate sport management student, was a recipient of a UConn IDEA Award for his research “Social Influences of Top High School Baseball Prospects’ College-Professional Decision.”
Ph.D. candidate Taylor Koriakin co-authored several articles in recent editions of Journal for Psychoeducuational Assessment, including “Investigating Patterns of Errors for Specific Comprehension and Fluency Difficulties” and “Patterns of Cognitive Strengths and Weaknesses and Relationships to Math Errors.”
Efthimia Kutrubis, a special education student, is on the UConn women’s field hockey team, which won the Big East Championship title this November.
Ph.D. candidate TJ McKenna served as moderator for a recent Jorgensen event featuring Adam Savage and Jamie Hynemamn of the Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters” program. Check out other photos of the event — as well as a new profile story on McKenna.
Jessica Monahan, a special education graduate student, was elected student representative for the Council for Exceptional Children’s Representative Assembly for 2017-19.
Alexis Parrillm, a graduate student in the HESA program, presented an online session in November on “Telling Our Story: College Union History Examined Through Naming and Construction.” This event was hosted through the University of Connecticut’s ACUI Community of Scholars.
Amit Savkar, associate professor in residence of mathematics in UConn’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as well as a current doctoral student in the Neag School’s educational psychology Ph.D. program, recently represented the state of Connecticut at the White House Symposium on State Implementation of Computer Science For All in Washington, D.C.
Abigail Smith, a graduate student in the HESA program, presented “Beyond Borders; The Afro-Caribbean International Student Experience” at the NASPA Region 1 conference in November in Burlington, Vt.
Ashley Valentin, a graduate student in the HESA program, was awarded the Raymond Goldstone Association for Student Conduct Administration Scholarship.
Alumni
The Neag School of Education Alumni Association hosted an event for Huskies Forever Weekend in October, featuring Sandy Bell, who spoke on neuroscience and learning. Check out more photos from the event.
Neag School’s sport management program hosted its annual Career Networking Night, which included a panel discussion, small group discussions, and networking. The event was held in November at the Alumni Center.
The Neag School held its second annual Educational Leadership Alumni Forum on Nov. 1 in von der Mehden Hall on the Storrs campus. Featured speakers were alumni Alicia Bowman ’01 (ED), ’02 MA, ’08 6th Year and Joseph Macary ’94 (CLAS), ’05 ELP, ’16 Ed.D. Read the event wrap-up and check out event photos on the Neag School’s Facebook page.
Deidra Fogarty ’05 (ED), ’06 (MA) who has been working in the education field for the past decade, recently launched WAM! Book Bundle. WAM is based on the theory of how books can serve as windows and mirrors to its readers.
Lynda Mullaly Hunt ’88 (ED), ’96 MA recently spoke on campus, sponsored by The Rightors Fund for Children’s Literature. Hunt is a New York Times best-selling author of One for the Murphys and Fish in a Tree, which is an ALA Schneider Award winner. Hunt’s books appear on 37 state award lists and are published in more than 20 languages. Read a recent piece about the value of teaching, written by Hunt, here.
Scott Hurwitz ’15 Ed.D. attended UCEA’s Graduate Student Summit in Detroit to present a paper on leaders’ framing of PBIS.
Amanda McLean ’16 MA was appointed corporate community relations coordinator for the New York Yankees, in New York, N.Y.
David Pearson ’88 MA, Ellington Middle School principal; and Ellington Middle teachers Marissa Boucher ’12 (ED), ’13 MA and Melissa Scarbrough ’15 (ED), ’16 MA, recently joined one of Michele Femc-Bagwell’s recent teacher leadership classes.
Lisa Rubenstein ’07 MA, ’Ph.D., assistant professor of educational psychology at Ball State University, was awarded Ball State’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Award.
In Memoriam
Bernard C. Beauchamp ’56
Carolyn S. Bellingham ’73
Robert D. Bowden Sr. ’53
Margaret L. Carlson ’59
Vincent J. Demeis ’97
Edward J. Devlin ’73
Nesbie M. Dupuy ’74
Constance G. Falcigno ’82
Elaine T. Falcigno ’52
Robert H. Jackman ’71
Edward J. Kelley ’55
Francis J. Kuzsman ’68
Bruce T. Marshall ’85
Marcia K. Mason ’71
Ann E. Vecchitto ’85
Lillian S. Wilson ’47
Save the Date: 2017 Neag School Alumni Awards Celebration
Join us in celebrating the Neag School’s outstanding alumni this spring. The 19th annual Neag School Alumni Awards Celebration is scheduled for Saturday, March 18, 2017. All Neag School alumni are welcome.
Awards will be presented 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, school psychologists, etc.
- 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
Learn more about specific award criteria, and see videos of last year’s winners.
Questions? Contact Caitlin Trinh, Neag School Alumni Relations Director, at ctrinh@foundation.uconn.edu.
