Ten Tips for Parents of Students Going to College this Fall

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  1. Stock image -- family Understand the challenge of this time for both you and your son or daughter.  For you, this is a time of both loss and freedom. While your teen is getting ready to leave your home, you are also reducing your responsibilities.  As your child is dealing with this departure, he or she is also beginning to pull away from you and this is normal.  Spending more time with friends and less with you is a normal step as students begin to get ready for college. Support this and try to make sure that the time you do have with your college-bound kid is as enjoyable as it can be.
  2. Have a conversation about your expectations and goals for the first year of college. Don’t assume that your son or daughter can read your mind so specify your goals. For example, explicitly explain that you expect that he or she will attend classes; your beliefs about his or her use of drugs or alcohol; your expectations about involvement in at least one or two activities.  Understand that your beliefs, however, are your beliefs and your son or daughter must be the person who eventually takes control of her own learning.
  3. Consider communications and how to make them work for you. Most college kids have cell phones and one strategy that I used with our kids who went to college was to ask them to call or text me when they were very happy!  Having a ‘cognitive map’ to call your parents when something fun happened is an excellent way to keep in touch and to focus on positive events. (also, if you want to stay in touch with your teen—learn to text—it is THE way to communicate).
  4. Enjoy this transition! Even though it may be challenging, try to focus on planning some enjoyable activities with your soon-departing teen. Don’t spend the last few weeks of the summer before college and the first few months of college giving lectures. Remember, most of your parenting time has already occurred and now, it is your time to be a support system from the side!
  5. Give up the notion of you being the person who can, will, and should solve your teen’s problems. A goal of college is to transfer the process for responsibility for individual problem solving to your son or daughter.  Give suggestions about how they can get help (have you contacted the registrar, have you gone to the infirmary, have you tried to find a tutor or an advisor) BUT DO NOT TRY TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM. The goal of successful parenting is raising independent, self-reliant teens who can solve their own problems and college is a wonderful time to learn this lesson.
  6. Initiate three specific brief discussions with your college student. First, draft a budget so he or she knows how much and what can be spent. Second, talk about nutrition and exercise as many kids who go to college begin to eat sporadically and consume too much junk and gain weight. Third, talk about time and the productive use of time and how to create a schedule that takes advantage of blocks of time.
  7. Be a quiet source of support. Send quick notes to let your son or daughter know you are thinking about him or her. Send a care package every now and then with favorite cookies or snacks.  Make sure that you tell your teen about things that are happening in your home (updates on siblings, pets, house projects) so that they understand that home is still home.  Let them know you are thinking of them and that you are there if you need them.
  8. LISTEN and don’t disagree if you get a call from your son or daughter telling you that they are not as smart as the other kids and are not going to make it.  When they have shared their concerns, reassure them that they would not have been accepted unless they were capable enough to do the work and that at this level of life, it is more about EFFORT and SELF-REGULATION THAN ABILITY. Reassure them and encourage them to discuss their feelings with their new friends and reach out for help if needed. Learning study skills is more challenging when very smart kids have not really had to work at top levels before.
  9. Understand that your teens will come home for their first break with new ideas, friends, and perhaps a different appearance. Be patient and listen rather than lecture. Over time, he or she will ultimately find the right path but education is about new ideas and challenges and finding your path in the light of all of these new images and messages.
  10. Encourage your students to get involved in campus activities. Whether it is basketball, debate, student government, tutoring high poverty children, or art, students who are more engaged in campus activities, do better and enjoy college more!

Dr. Sally Reis is a professor of educational psychology in the Neag School of Education @ UConn and parent of four college graduates.

In Age of Internet, Noted UConn Researcher Pioneers New Tactics for Teaching Reading

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Don LeuA child reads information in a school textbook. A child then reads on the Internet. Is reading the same?

No, says Dr. Donald Leu, a prominent reading researcher, director of UConn’s internationally renowned New Literacies Research Lab in the Neag School of Education and the John and Maria Neag Endowed Chair in Literacy and Technology.  “This is a digital native generation,” he says. “But they are really not very skilled in using information.”

Leu believes he can change that. “We’ve identified the skills and strategies for successful online reading and writing,” he says. “I care deeply about preparing our children for the kinds of reading and writing demands that will define their future.”

Leu predicted the Internet would be a powerful tool when he first encountered it in 1994. Seventeen years later, two billion people are online. And he foresees that within seven to 10 years, everyone in the world will be. The challenges that coincide with its growth are multiplying too.

An affable yet ambitious academic who is a graduate of Michigan State, Harvard and Berkeley, Leu was comfortably ensconced as chair of the Department of Reading and Language Arts at Syracuse University when the Neag Endowed Chair came calling. The Neag chair would enable Leu to teach teachers new ways of reading instruction, and provide funding to create and run the literacy center.

He accepted the chair. During his tenure at UConn, the literacies lab has established itself as the premier center for research on new reading comprehensions and learning skills required by the Internet and other technologies. Leu is also widely published, and recently co-published the Handbook of Research on New Literacies (Erlbaum, 2008).

Groundbreaking research has its perks: Leu’s reputation and the literacies lab’s discoveries have attracted the attention of a number of charitable heavy hitters including the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, PBS, the Annenberg Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among a host of others who have combined to provide grants in excess of $8 million.

More than attracting grant money, the chair has brought international acclaim to the University. Leu lectures throughout the world on Internet literacies, and says he is consistently surprised by the prestige the chair has afforded UConn.

“It’s amazing to me,” he says. “I give 30 to 50 talks a year, and when I am introduced as an endowed chair at a talk, I see the impact. With this chair, UConn has achieved the stature and recognition at the level of other major universities in ways that are sometimes hard to accomplish. Everywhere in the world, people know of our research.”

Leu realizes that what he is seeking – to change the world’s classrooms – is not for the faint of heart. But the impact of his work continues to drive him. “When you teach a child to read and write,” he says, “you change the world.”

Dr. Jason Irizarry Publishes Book on “The Latinization of U.S. Schools: Successful Teaching and Learning in Shifting Cultural Contexts”

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The Latinization of U.S. SchoolsDespite the rise in Latino population in the United States, academic achievement in schools is scarcely recognized among Latino youth. Dr. Jason G. Irizarry, an assistant professor of multicultural education in the Neag School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, analyzed this issue of underachievement in his recently published book, The Latinization of U.S. Schools: Successful Teaching and Learning in Shifting Cultural Contexts.

Dr. Irizarry’s inspiration came from a high school student of his, who told him on his first day that, “Latinos are not smart; we are just not smart.” After conducting his professional development research with Latino youth (through Youth Participatory Action Research), Dr. Irizarry collaborated with his students to write the text, proving his trust in their abilities and further driving his message home that ethnicity should not limit achievement.

“I really felt committed that their stories had to be told,” Dr. Irizarry said.

Each of Dr. Irizarry’s students contributed a topic or issue of interest for a chapter in The Latinization of U.S. Schools they felt needed to be addressed. The author’s intention was to not only amplify the voices of Latino youth, but also prove to his students that they were, in fact, smart.

The text examines the issue of schools lacking the acknowledgment of Latino accomplishments through the passionate voices of youth and empirically based recommendations. Written from the students’ perspective, Dr. Irizarry’s book provides inspiration and information for teachers, students and those concerned with the future of education in the United States.

“Articulating what many know from experience but do not find reflected in the studies on Latino education, Jason Irizarry and his high school coauthors provide readers an insightful, inspiring, and powerful view of the capabilities—and, yes, brilliance—of Latino students in America today,” said Sonia Nieto, professor emerita of language, literacy and culture at the University of Massachusetts.

For more information about the book, contact Dr. Irizarry at jason.irizarry@uconn.edu.

Grip Strength Is Good Indicator of Overall Health

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A dynamometer, a device to test grip strength. Photo credit: UConn Today
A dynamometer, a device to test grip strength. Photo credit: UConn Today

When Richard Bohannon does physical therapy with his stroke and cancer patients, the one thing he always makes sure to check is their grip strength.

While not yet widely used in the medical community, a grip strength test can be an important screening tool in assessing a person’s overall health, says Dr. Bohannon, a professor of physical therapy in the Department of Kinesiology at the Neag School of Education.

“Weakness is one of those cluster signs of frailty,” says Bohannon. “There are other things, like unintentional weight loss and a particularly slow gait. But grip strength gives you an overall sense of someone’s vitality. It is reflective of muscle mass and can be used to predict things in the future like post-operative complications and even death.”

By obtaining a reading of a person’s overall muscle mass and strength level, health care practitioners can prescribe nutritional guidelines, exercises, and other interventions in an attempt to increase strength if necessary and improve the person’s overall health and vitality.

“It’s not that I want their grip strength to be bigger or better,” says Bohannon, who last year was named a Fellow of the American Society of Neurorehabilitation. “I want them to be stronger. I want them to be fit. They need reserve, in case they experience an untoward event such as an infection.”

To measure grip strength, Bohannon uses a hand-held device called a dynamometer, which measures force. It can record forces over a wide spectrum.

Several years ago, Bohannon conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed journal articles to assess the adequacy of using hand-grip dynamometry as a predictor of important health outcomes. The majority of the studies focused on middle-aged and older adults. The results, published in the Journal of Geriatric Physical Therapy, supported “the value of grip strength as a predictor of mortality, disability, complications, and increase length of [hospital] stay.” Even when grip strength was adjusted for potentially confounding variables, it was “a consistent predictor of important outcomes,” the study showed.

“You really can tell a little bit about people and where they stand, based on grip strength,” says Bohannon, measurement of muscle spasticity, is among the most cited in medical rehabilitation literature. “There was a study done that looked at folks’ middle age. The authors found that weakness in middle age was predictive of problems later, predictive of the onset of disability. Those who were weaker in their 40’s and 50’s were more likely to demonstrate an onset of disability in their 60’s.”

Maintaining fitness helps individuals combat infection and rebound from illness, Bohannon says.

“If you experience weakness that accompanies aging and you have a stroke or serious infection, it can definitely be a problem,” Bohannon says. “For instance, if it takes all the strength you can muster to get out of a chair now and you suddenly get a urinary tract infection, it is likely you will have more trouble getting up because you don’t have any reserve.”

Bohannon says he recently worked with a new cancer patient, and while she did standard sit-to-stand and grip strength assessments adequately, he cautioned her that she might want to do some things to increase her strength.

“I told her she was going to be undergoing chemo and maybe some other things in the near future that are going to knock her down a peg or two and there is no time like today to start doing things to increase her strength,” he says. “You need to build up a reserve so that when these things happen, you have enough strength to manage.”

Bohannon says basic exercises like moving from a sitting to standing position can help build strength in older individuals simply using their body weight and gravity. Walking up stairs or stepping up to the bottom stair and back to the floor also helps. Holding onto a counter and rising up on one’s toes is another good exercise. Of course, older individuals should consult their personal physician before starting any new exercises, and should always be careful about the possibility of a fall.

In a separate study published in Perceptual and Motor Skills last year, Bohannon looked at grip strength in 41 home-care patients with diverse diagnoses ranging from stroke and cancer to fracture and osteoarthritis. He found that the patients (as a whole) were weaker than normal for age and sex.

For patients with cancer or those recovering from stroke, reduced grip strength might be anticipated. But impaired grip strength is less predictable among other patients such as those suffering lower extremity fractures, recovering from back surgery, fall victims, pulmonary disease, and cellulitis.

In his conclusion, Bohannon said that the study, while small, was evidence that the sensitive dynamometer measurements “demonstrated a magnitude and prevalence of hand weakness not likely to have been identified” if the tool wasn’t used; and that it showed the dynamometer’s value as a standard assessment tool for patients in a home-care setting.

“I use dynamometers with almost every patient I have because I think it is important,” Bohannon says. “In most cases, I’m using it as a marker much like a doctor checks vital signs like blood pressure and heart rate. Very few therapists use dynamometers, which I think is unfortunate. Dynamometers are relatively inexpensive, portable, and easy to use.”

U.S. Senator Takes a Lesson in School Reform

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Senator Blumenthal listens to CEA Policy Director Mary Loftus Levine at a CommPACT roundtable in Waterbury. Source: CEA
Senator Blumenthal listens to CEA Policy Director Mary Loftus Levine at a CommPACT roundtable in Waterbury. Photo credit: CEA

What school reform model has no student lotteries and doesn’t require youngsters to leave their neighborhood schools?  U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal may not have known the answer prior to a visit to Waterbury last week.  Now he knows the answer (CommPACT Schools) and much more!

Sen. Richard Blumenthal visited Washington Elementary School in Waterbury. “I was very excited and impressed with the CommPACT model, and the enthusiasm and engagement of the teachers and parents working together and collaborating,” he said after a roundtable discussion at the school.

The Connecticut Education Association invited Blumenthal to the session that included representatives from Washington and West Side Middle Schools, Waterbury’s two CommPACT schools.

CommPACT involves a partnership of Community, Parents, Administrators, Children, and Teachers who share in school decision making. Experts from the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education help too with expertise and technical planning.

At the outset, Blumenthal told the group that he made the visit to listen and learn, and that he was looking for models that could be used to improve education in the state. Those seated around the table took every opportunity to explain the CommPACT education model to their visitor from Washington.

Allysa Lombardo, a third-grade teacher at Washington School, said that before CommPACT arrived the teachers had little input into how the school was run. Now it’s just the opposite with the principal getting and needing input from teachers and parents.

Donna Vignali, president of the Waterbury Teachers Association, said, “Teachers are on the front lines and they know what has to be done. Research shows that when you work together, parents and community leaders too, wonderful things happen.”

Jassie Meyers, a parent liaison from West Side Middle School, said she has six children, four who have passed through the school and two who will be attending it.

“So I have a vested interest,” she said. “I love CommPACT and West Side. When I started it was not welcoming to parents but CommPACT has changed that. After its first year, I thought something was wrong. People were smiling. They couldn’t wait for school to start again. That shows CommPACT is working and I hope they do it all around the U.S. because parents have a voice.”

Marianne Lusk, who is a speech and language pathologist at Washington and the school’s CommPACT coach, said she has been at the school for 14 years and the transformation that has taken place since the CommPACT model was introduced three years ago is unbelievable. Washington teachers, working on their own time and with help from UConn, use data and have undergone professional development so that they can work together in groups called cadres to make the school better in their fields of expertise, such as math, science or behavior, she said.

Also speaking from the audience was Heather Greene, whose daughter had attended a magnet school but is now at West Side Middle School. “At first I was worried about West Side,” she said, “but I love the staff. I would not want my daughter at any other school.”

Reprinted with permission, Connecticut Education Association

Neag Undergrad Does the Research, Does the Math

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Briana Hennessy gathers with students while in Tanzania. Photo credit: Briana Hennessy
Briana Hennessy gathers with students while in Tanzania. Photo credit: Briana Hennessy

This is the story of how Neag junior Briana Hennessy missed a trip to Mexico, instead became immersed in math justification research, and went to Tanzania this summer and got to teach math.

She says of the change in destination, “I was going to do a community service project but not related to teaching, so it was much better that I got to go to Tanzania and teach. It ended up being great that I didn’t go to Mexico.”

The Mexico trip was ditched because of a U.S. State Department travel warning. So, with her summer up in the air, Hennessy emailed Neag assistant professor in math education Dr. Megan Staples, “Will you please give me something to do.” Staples put her to work transcribing videotapes of teachers showing students how to justify and prove their algebraic conclusions, “but pretty quickly I was working on coding and other parts of the project,” Hennessy recounts.

That work led to more research on the JAGUAR project – Justification and Argumentation, a Growing Understanding of Algebraic Reasoning – with Jill Newton, an assistant professor in mathematics education at Purdue. Hennessy skypes with Newton and another undergraduate student at Purdue and painstakingly codes and analyzes how a dozen teachers in Connecticut and Oregon are doing with their outlined tasks to train middle school students how to justify an algebraic property.

In their three-way debates about how to code and analyze what they see on the tapes, Newton says of the undergrads, “Both of them will stand their ground. Never ever do they say, ‘You are the professor, you are the winner.’” She credits them with being superior with technology and researching their arguments beforehand.

Newton calls Hennessy a thinker, an intellectual and, at age 21, “an old soul.” She got to know her better on the Purdue trip to Tanzania in May.

She describes Hennessy’s reaction to witnessing a Rwandan genocide trial proceeding held in Tanzania. “She wants to dig in deeper and understand the complexity of the situation. To her it’s not that simple. Not black and white. People think, well, one tribe killed people in another tribe. But she wanted to look at the historical context. She’s very curious about why things are the way they are.

For her part, Hennessy says about understanding Africa, “It’s very easy to hear stories about Africa and to get a vision of Africa. Going there gave me a complete picture. And even in this short interview I’m not able to give you a complete picture. The best way to learn about Africa is to go there.”

In her teaching experience there, Hennessy says she had a blackboard, chalk and a book, but the students didn’t. They also came into secondary school, which is by law taught in English, after speaking Swahili in primary school. How did she adjust? She wrote everything she said on the board, so students had two versions of the instruction. And she broke them into small groups, making sure each cluster had a better English speaker to relay the questions.

“It wasn’t optimum because I would like every student to be able to ask me questions, but given the time crunch and what I had to work with, it was probably the best thing I could do.”

Newton says Hennessy eagerly completed all the coursework for a math methods class in Africa for which she would receive no college credit. “She’s always going to go above and beyond,” Newton says. “And she’s lovely. She’s always kind.

“On studies abroad there’s always a lot of drama. It’s almost a compliment that I can’t tell you anything about Briana. She’s just drama-free.”

This summer Hennessy is continuing the research work with Staples with support from the Summer Undergraduate Research Fund. Staples says of her research staffer, “She is genuinely excited about new experiences and is willing to take risks and explore. She really takes advantage of opportunities that come her way, and she creates new opportunities. It’s been such a pleasure to work with her.”

Under the Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s Degree Program at Neag, Hennessy, who has wanted to be a math teacher since age 14, is working on getting a B.S. in education and B.A. in mathematics in 2012 and her master’s in education in 2013. She works as a math tutor at the UConn Q Center and is the student representative on the General Education Oversight Committee.

In her life outside Neag, Hennessy step dances with the UConn Irish, has been known to ride her mother’s motorcycle and is described by colleagues as a donut gourmand. (Her favorite is chocolate-covered with sprinkles, but she says you have to go to a shop in Old Lyme to get the best donuts.)

Hennessy has that quality the best teachers have: a straightforward delivery. She speaks simply, explains the distributive property in one line. Her blog is simply called math teacher in Tanzania. It’s more than a nice quality; it’s a real talent.

“She seems able to sort out the unimportant and bring clarity to that which really matters,” Newton says. “I’m not good at that. She’s much more calm than me. She talks less, and when she talks, people listen and it’s worth listening to.”

Mentor Connection Students Get Crash Course in Archaeology

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Connecticut State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni works with Mentor Connection students, from left, Rebecca Romero, Anthony Sposato, and Nelson Merchan. Photo credit: Howard Eckels for UConn
Connecticut State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni works with Mentor Connection students, from left, Rebecca Romero, Anthony Sposato, and Nelson Merchan. Photo credit: Howard Eckels for UConn

UConn archaeology professor Nick Bellantoni had just met his three charges, high school juniors participating in UConn Mentor Connection who chose to spend the three-week program working with the State Archaeologist, when an aide told Bellantoni the New Haven police were on the line, looking for him. A skeleton had been found at a construction site in the Elm City, and they wanted Bellantoni to extricate it.

Welcome to the field of archaeology.

“It was quite an orientation to archaeology,” Bellantoni said Friday, as he and the students were packing up their equipment in New Haven, preparing to return to

UConn. “I had just met them, talked to them maybe 15 to 20 minutes, when the call came. It was quite a change of plans.”

Within minutes he and the students he is mentoring – Anthony Sposato of Plainfield, Rebecca Romero of Meriden, and Nelson Merchan of Danbury – were on their way to New Haven. By week’s end, they had uncovered not one but four skeletons that Bellantoni estimates are about 100 years old.

“I’m sure every day isn’t going to be like that,” says Sposato. “I signed on with Dr. Bellantoni because I thought it would be a good way to explore archaeology as a career, but I wasn’t expecting anything like this.”

Merchan says, “When I signed up I thought I’d just be helping out, handing him [Bellantoni] tools. But when we got to New Haven he told us to go ahead and work on the bones. I was surprised. It was a really good experience. We were in there helping uncover the skeletons. He trusted us, which is pretty cool.”

Mentor Connection, funded in part by a grant from the state Department of Education and a significant endowment gift from former UConn trustee William Berkley, was launched in 1996 to help talented high school students sort out their academic interests and prepare for college life. It was also intended to encourage such students to make UConn their first choice when applying to college. Each year since its creation, about 80 rising juniors and seniors have spent three weeks on the UConn campus, living in dorms, eating in campus dining halls, and working with faculty and staff mentors. Generally, each mentor is assigned between two and five students.

The program is run by the Neag Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development in the Neag School of Education.

For Bellantoni, the discovery was just another day’s work. Records appear to indicate the site was a burial ground located behind the old Christ Church, the first Roman Catholic church in New Haven, he says. Built in 1835, the church burned down in 1848, and was rebuilt as St. John’s Evangelical Church. Bellantoni says nails found amid the skeletons indicate they were buried between 1830 and 1860.

Now unearthed, he says the skeletons will be analyzed by scientists at Yale, then reburied. As for his students, they’ll have a story for the ages.

UConn Asst. Coach Kevin Ollie Speaks At Husky Sport Event

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Kevin Ollie with Alumni
Neag alums Gianna Smith and Brittany Hunter gathered with Kevin Ollie during the celebration. Photo credit: Shawn Kornegay

UConn assistant coach Kevin Ollie was the featured speaker at a Husky Sport celebration Friday evening at the Hartford Public Library, telling a gathered group of about 150 to persevere in life, remain dedicated to helping others, set goals and be willing to work to achieve them.

“My mother always told me that when you fall down in life, make sure you land on your back so you can see up and then get up,” said Ollie, who played for 11 teams in 13 NBA seasons.

Husky Sport, which partners volunteering UConn students with Hartford schoolchildren through various community outreach initiatives, was founded in 2003 through the Neag School of Education and now works with 30-plus Hartford-area agencies. Many of those agencies were represented in the crowd Friday.

Former women’s player Brittany Hunter (who just recently earned her Master’s from the Neag School of Education) and former men’s player Hilton Armstrong (with the Atlanta Hawks), both involved with Husky Sport before and after their playing days, attended the event.

“A community is not an easy thing to develop,” said Justin Evanovich of Husky Sport. “It’s a rigorous process and it takes a lot of work, day to day.”

Evanovich was a walk-on on UConn’s 2004 national championship team and later a graduate manager for the Huskies. He recently completed his Ph.D. from the Neag School.

Husky Sport is in the Hartford community seven days a week and runs a program for 300 children at Clark Elementary school. The program has about 1,000 UConn volunteers each year – players from all UConn sports have been involved and often appear at schools — and those volunteers have surpassed 25,000 hours of community outreach.

“As the years have gone on, we’ve developed really good relationships with the students, the teachers and the staff,” Evanovich said, “and now more than ever, the families. … We’re a supplement. We’re bringing together college students who are willing to assist [with already established community programs]. We’re a helping hand.”

Ollie praised the group for its efforts and talked a little about his journey. Undrafted out of UConn, he kept fighting to stick in the NBA and did until retiring last year to become a coach under Jim Calhoun.

“Every day I woke up and said, ‘It’s possible,'” Ollie said. “Don’t always go by what you see. Your eyes can play tricks on you. Go by what’s inside your heart. … Be better than you think you can be.”

For more information on Husky Sport, go to www.huskysport.uconn.edu. Click here to view a photo album from the event.

Article courtesy of Hartford Courant.

Dr. Casa Publishes Book on “Preventing Sudden Death in Sport and Physical Activity”

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Book Image: Preventing Sudden Death Alarming headlines surrounding sport-related deaths in recent media coverage has prompted national discussion regarding the causes of these conditions and how to prevent them. Dr. Douglas J. Casa, Ph.D., ATC, FACSM, FTNATA, a professor of kinesiology in the Neag School of Education and COO of the Korey Stringer Institute, jumped on board regarding the pressing issue by publishing the first book of its kind, called Preventing Sudden Death in Sport and Physical Activity.

The text, published in cooperation with the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), examines the causes (such as heat stroke, head injuries, cardiac issues, exertional sickling, etc.) of particular sport-related deaths with each chapter written by a clinician and a scientist, both of whom are experts in the content area. With the application of real life case studies, Dr. Casa explores a wide variety of topics and specific scenarios in which sport-related deaths could have been avoided.

“On August 8, 1985, somewhere between 11:00 and 11:10 p.m. EST, the path of my life unfurled in front of me,” said Dr. Casa. “I have nearly no memory of approximately six hours of my life, while I was in a coma, due to the severe exertional heat stroke while running a 10K race. For all the years since then, I have been on a quest to try and prevent and treat exertional heat stroke. While exertional heat stroke is one of the most common fatalities related to sports, it certainly is not the only one.”

The topics covered in the book range from asthma and diabetes to lightning, traumatic injury and cervical spine injuries. Many faculty members and graduate students from the Neag School of Education played integral roles in this publication release including Lawrence Armstrong, PhD; Stephanie Mazerolle, PhD; ATC, Jeff Anderson, MD; Tutita Casa, PhD; Rebecca Stearns, MA, ATC; Kelly Pagnotta, MA, ATC and Julie DeMartini, MA, ATC.

“This book is the culmination of the efforts of over 30 of the most respected sports medicine professionals and scientists in the world related to preventing sudden death in sports. It is another chance to recognize my gift of survival and pay it forward with information about the top 10 causes of death in sport that can assist in creating more survival stories.  I have experienced a wide array of emotions in my life, but no feeling is greater than playing a role in saving a life,” said Dr. Casa.

For more information about the book, contact Dr. Casa at douglas.casa@uconn.edu or check out the Korey Stringer Institute’s website at http://Ksi.uconn.edu/.

Summer Letter from the Dean

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Thomas DeFrancoDear Alumni and Friends,

This is my second summer as dean and it’s been a very, very busy two years. We’ve had a busy academic year filled with activities and accomplishments. Also, one may think that the Neag School of Education is slow during the summer. Spend a little time around the Gentry Building during the summer and you will quickly find out that, although most of the students are gone and some of the faculty are on their summer break, it’s still very busy. Just walk around the Gentry Building and around the UConn campus and you will see a flurry of summer activities happening.

Fall 2010

The fall semester kicked-off with a busy year of accomplishments and accolades. Through the Neag’s support, the Neag School is now the #1 ranked public graduate school of education in the Northeast, as recognized by the U.S. News & World Report. We are ranked #20 among all graduate public institutions of education and #33 among all 278 private and public graduate schools of education in the country and our doctoral program in kinesiology is ranked #1 in the country, for the second consecutive time.

The NCATE accreditation team gave us very high marks on our programs under review and featured the Neag School on their national website in a new web series entitled “Stories from the Field.”

Our CommPACT schools project, under the direction of Dr. Michele Femc-Bagwell, a partnership with the Neag School and educational stakeholders throughout the state, is receiving national attention as a school reform model focused on closing the achievement gap in some of our most challenging schools in Connecticut.

Spring 2011

The Korey Stringer Institute, under the direction of Dr. Doug Casa celebrated its one-year anniversary. The Institute is a partnership with the Neag School, the National Football League, and Gatorade. Through education, research and outreach, its goal is to endsudden death in sport, as it relates to exertional heat stroke. Dr. Casa recently published the first book of its kind, titled “Preventing Sudden Death in Sport and Physical Activity.”

The Center for Behavioral Education and Research directed by George Sugai is recognized as one of the top research centers in the country on classroom management and positive behavior support systems. The Center hosted the Connecticut Summit on PBIS (positive behavioral interventions and supports) with over 300 attendees, including education policy makers, from across the state. Dr. Sugai also appeared at the White House on a national panel on bullying with three other national experts.

May was a blurr on the UConn campus with Commencement, Honors Celebration and the Alumni Awards Banquet, all happening in a few short weeks’ time.

In 1998 we gave out 51 awards that totaled approximately $30,000 in scholarship support at the first annual Honors Celebration. At the 17th Annual Honors Celebration in April, we presented a total of 232 scholarships—with nearly $162,000 in scholarship aid to our undergraduate and graduate students, and an additional $440,000 in grant scholarships from the Noyce Foundation. We were able to host this wonderful event and provide the much needed scholarship support because of the generosity of our donors.

Our Commencement Ceremonies took place on May 7th and 8th. For the fifth year, we hosed our own ceremony, for the undergraduate and sixth year programs, at the Jorgensen Auditorium on May 8. Kelci Stinger, wife of the late Korey Stringer and CEO of the Korey Stringer Institute, gave the undergraduate commencement address.

We also hosted two graduation receptions, one for graduate students and one for undergraduate and 6th year students, in the Gentry Building. The families beamed with pride and excitement over their students’ achievements and the graduates were thrilled to be celebrating the special day and their accomplishments.

The Neag Alumni Society held the 13th Annual Awards Banquet, honoring outstanding alumni. This evening was memorable as faculty and alumni gathered to formally recognize the achievements of some of our outstanding graduates. Our award recipients are educators who have made significant contributions across all levels of education, locally, state-wide and nationally. The event, complete with a delicious sit-down dinner and entertaining music in the Rome Ballroom, honored seven outstanding alumni.

 

Summer 2011

The folks in the Neag Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development celebrated their 34th year with Confratute, chaired by Sally Reis and Joe Renzulli. Over 600 educators from across the U.S. and the world came to campus for week-long academic training with 55 education psychology classes being offered. They also celebrated Joe’s 75th birthday by painting the rock in front of the UConn Alumni Center.

The Neag Center for Gifted and Talented also hosted the 2011 UConn Mentor Connection, an inquiry-based summer program for talented teens. A group of almost 80 rising young high school juniors and seniors spent three weeks on campus participating in creative projects and research investigations under the supervision of university mentors. One group of teens, led by State Archaeologist Dr. Nick Bellantoni, unearthed a long-forgotten Catholic cemetery in New Haven.

The Neag School also officially launched a year-long Math Leadership Academy with almost 30 educators from four local school districts. Thanks to a state Department of Higher Education grant, the participants will earn 12 units of graduate coursework that began in July with three weeks of intense training in the Gentry Building focusing on math and pedagogy. During the fall and spring, the academic training will continue with weekly seminars, carrying three credits. The year will culminate in a symposium, open to graduates of the program, Neag students and friends.

Wrap-up

Success is built on many things. First, over the past decade, President Austin and Provost Nicholls have been strong supporters of the Neag School and see the value and importance in having a strong school of education at the University of Connecticut. I’m very fortunate to have a strong administrative team, the best and brightest in the university, staff who are willing to help both faculty and students achieve their goals, faculty who are scholars in their respective fields, and people like yourselves you care very much about education.

When Mr. Neag gave his gift he stated, “I saw this gift as an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of thousands of schoolchildren in Connecticut and the nation.”

In the Neag school we take his pledge very seriously. We are dedicated to developing highly effective teachers, principals, superintendents, researchers, physical therapists and exercise scientists in order to improve the academic performance and health and well being of ALL children and adults in Connecticut and across the nation. Simply put, this is our core mission.

While this letter mentions a lot of activities and accomplishments from the year, it’s only a brief overview of the many accolades from the year. My heartfelt thanks to all of you who have contributed to our success and well-being. We have an amazing family here in the Neag School and we look forward to another productive academic year.

Until then, enjoy the rest of your summer and stop by the Gentry Building for a visit (before or after the Dairy Bar). We would love to see you.

Warmly,

Thomas C. DeFranco

Dean

Neag School of Education