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(The following is the introduction given by Dr. Thomas C. DeFranco at the Neag Alumni Awards Dinner.)
Peering out at the awe-inspiring Grand Canyon on a family vacation when she was just eight years old sparked an interest in Fran P. Mainella that culminated in her presidential appointment as the first woman director of the National Park Service, a post she held from 2001 until 2006.
Mainella, a native of Willimantic, CT, and former summer playground supervisor from Groton, CT, had responsibility for 390 sites, including Yellowstone National Park, historical monuments such as the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, the Appalachian Trail and parks in Guam and Puerto Rico. She also oversaw 22,000 employees, 125,000 volunteers and a $2.4 billion budget.
At the time of her 2001 appointment by President George W. Bush, Mainella said, “I am excited and inspired by the challenges that this position holds as we work to conserve our country’s precious natural and cultural resources, and improve outdoor recreational opportunities within the National Park System …[and] I look forward to working with the dedicated women and men of the National Park Service, as well as state, local and private sector partners, to help fulfill my commitment to the conservation and restoration of our national parks.
While with the National Park Service, Mainella visited 250 out of 390 national parks, monuments and historic places in her tenure as director. She worked to strengthen programs to preserve natural and cultural resources in the parks. She focused especially on creating opportunities through volunteerism, partnership and outreach programs.
As former Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, who applauded her strong leadership as director, stated, “Perhaps your most important contribution [as director] is your effort to foster a culture of partnership within the National Park Service. Thanks to your leadership, today virtually every national park works in partnership with state and local officials, local residents and friends groups.”
When Mainella resigned as director in October of 2006, she spent her last day in Groton, where she first worked as a summer playground counselor, and relit the lamp at the lighthouse where her father was stationed in the Coast Guard in World War II.
With more than 30 years’ experience in park and recreation management, Mainella was well qualified to be the 16th parks director. After graduating from UConn’s School of Education with a BS in physical education, she taught middle school, then earned a master’s degree in school counseling. She credits the School of Education at UConn for helping her on her career.
She once stated, “I credit UConn with giving me the leadership tools so that I was ready to take quantum leaps forward from the playground to the state of Florida’s parks system to the federal government. My education gave me the courage to go for the brass ring.”
After six years of service with the National Park Service, Mainella joined Clemson University as a visiting scholar in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management. In that role, she has been leading seminars for graduate students in the program and helped to raise funds for a research and training center in park management.
As a visiting scholar, Mainella has been a committed advocate on outdoor activities. In a 2007 Newsweek Magazine article, she said, “The best way to protect our resources for the future is by helping children develop an appreciation for the outdoors. It’s part of a movement underway right now, with people across the nation working on how to get children linked back to nature. The best way to protect our parks and our environment is to foster an appreciation for the outdoors,” she continued in the article. “We can call this movement ‘no child left inside.’”
Today, Mainella co-chairs the U.S. Play Coalition, which was created out of last year’s summit on the Value of Play and believes that “…play is a basic human need and the foundation of strong intellectual, physical and emotional development.” … Play is essential to a person reaching his or her full potential.”
Fran Mainella has been a playground supervisor, teacher, national leader in parks and recreation administration, and now a parks and play advocate and scholar. She had the courage to go for the brass ring and never looked back while being an advocate for children and the outdoors.
Neag School alumnus Thomas McIntyre and Ossining High School senior Emma Kates-Shaw, both of Ossining, created an iTunes app called “Positive Parenting Practices.” Photo credit: The Journal News
In a world of “tiger moms,” timid moms and “helicopter parents,” a Neag School alumnus offers a thoughtful and proven middle ground. Thomas McIntyre, who earned his Ph.D. in Special Education from the Neag School in 1981, dispenses advice to teachers and parents of youngsters with behavior challenges through his popular website, BehaviorAdvisor.com. The site offers a wide range of helpful materials for parents, teachers and others on topics related to positive and effective ways to help kids make better behavior choices.
McIntyre recently entered another realm, creating an iPhone/iPad/iTouch app titled “Positive Parenting Practices” (available at iTunes) in which he outlines what he calls “sound, research-based principles and practices that are translated into everyday language.” The app (and his BehaviorAdvisor.com) expands parents’ knowledge of behavior change principles and the repertoire of practices for guiding children and youth toward self-regulated appropriate actions.
“While many styles of parenting can create good kids,” McIntyre says, “we now know how to achieve our goals more quickly and completely. The most effective approach motivates children in positive and respectful ways, rather than fear of punishment. That latter style fails to promote inner control of one’s behavior or teach what to do in situations.”
McIntyre’s approach stresses that a positive outcome is accomplished by showing a child that certain choices are in his or her best interest, rather than simply exerting adult dominance. “Punitive strategies,” he says, “lose their impact as kids grow older. We want our youngsters to continue to view us as a trusted source of support. During times of disagreement, if that trust bond has been built, it makes mutually agreeable resolutions much easier.”
He stresses that parents are not “soft” on discipline when they’re smart on child management. Adults can show love, concern and caring in ways that project the image of wise elder and mentor-parent.
Much of McIntyre’s work was shaped at the Neag School with Melvin Reich and the late A.J. Pappanikou, longtime professors of Special Education. “It’s human nature to want to perform at your best for those individuals whom you respect and admire,” McIntyre says. “Both of my mentors were knowledgeable, big-hearted souls who led by example, and kept reminding us that ‘it’s all about the kids,’ in this case, youngsters with severe emotional and behavioral disorders.” For McIntyre, the acquired knowledge and skill bases in behavior change principles and practices have been combined with the mentor strategies from his parents and professors that he strives to emulate.
That approach, combining parental love with a knowledge base on effective parenting, is at the heart of McIntyre’s website writings, podcasts and apps. The next phase of his “Positive Parenting Practices” app series will address the effective phrasing of directions, criticism and praise. He calls it “verbal Aikido.” Aikido is a martial arts form that stresses concern for the well-being of the other person during a struggle.
Above all, McIntyre stresses, “Kids are junior citizens who are learning how to operate effectively in this world. They make mistakes. If they goof up, the thought that should arise in the parents’ minds is, ‘How can I respond in a manner that convinces my child(ren), at the level of the heart, that another way is better than the present one?’”
In McIntyre’s view, “It is our parental obligation to our children (and our children’s children) to be constantly on the watch for better ways to lead them to a bright future. That goal can now be reached more quickly by parenting smarter, not harder.”
Pictured are Carla Klein and her late husband, John Klein.
As a native of Bridgeport, one of Connecticut’s most challenged cities, and as president and CEO of People’s Bank and its parent, People’s United Financial Inc., headquartered in Bridgeport, John Klein saw every day the effects of poverty. He also saw the solution: education.
People’s Bank became a major engine for community betterment in Bridgeport and beyond during Klein’s tenure. At the same time, his wife, Carla Klein, Neag ’72, a longtime schoolteacher in Stratford and Trumbull, retired and continued to work in education with the Bridgeport Public Education Fund to help children stay on track for college. The couple also established the John and Carla Klein Endowment for Graduate Assistants in Teacher Education at the Neag School at UConn, and both served on the UConn Foundation’s Board, among many other efforts.
Then, in January 2008, at age 58, John Klein died of esophageal cancer.
Carla Klein mourned the loss of her high school sweetheart, but was also determined to fulfill their shared goals. “John was strongly an advocate for education for everyone,” she says. “He was instrumental in creating the $20 million People’s United Bank Community Foundation during the last merger to continue to address the needs of its community.”
To honor and keep John Klein’s memory alive, the Klein family, which includes daughter Kristen Chiodo and son Eric Klein and their families, founded the Klein Family Foundation to focus their giving on areas important to them. Education had a high priority, and just recently, Carla Klein committed to a gift to the Neag School of Education to fund a termed professorship focused exclusively on urban education, with another gift over time to build an endowment for urban education.
“I had a desire to do something,” she says. “I wanted to get something started, and if we do it this way we can move forward as the funds are being put into place.”
As an indication of just how influential Carla Klein had become in education reform efforts in Connecticut, then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell appointed her to the Connecticut Commission on Educational Achievement, a volunteer organization researching achievement gaps between low-income students and their more affluent peers. Her expertise, commitment and philanthropy will continue to make a difference to legions of students and teachers throughout Connecticut.
“Carla has been and continues to be a strong advocate for children in Connecticut,” says Thomas DeFranco, dean of UConn’s Neag School of Education. “As a former teacher, and more recently in her role on the Connecticut Commission on Educational Achievement, Carla is dedicated to closing the achievement gap in Connecticut. Her gift will impact the academic performance as well as the lives of children throughout the state.
When donors give, the question often arises: Why this particular focus? For Carla Klein, two experiences, one in second grade, one in third, were pivotal. “In second grade, I was easily distracted, and a particular teacher didn’t handle my distraction in a positive way,” she remembers. “She was humiliating. I remember expressing this to my father, and he went marching into the school and it wasn’t pleasant.
“The following year I had a new teacher, wonderful and kind, and I remember how that impacted me. Just the way the teacher approached me; I felt comfortable in the classroom. It was so much nicer to have a kind, compassionate and understanding teacher, the positive immediately following the negative.”
It was also a defining time for her, one that would determine her career path early on. And even though she no longer teaches in elementary school, she is testament to the power of education, giving her time and financial assistance to help.
“We really feel quite privileged to do it,” she says. “It gives us an opportunity to honor John and his memory. He’s alive with us today because of it.”
To give to the Neag School of Education, please contact the Foundation’s development department.
Longtime schoolteacher Lucille Kuhnly is a dedicated denizen of the land of steady habits. Her grandfather, John Kuhnly, bought the family home in 1892, and at least one Kuhnly — but typically more – have lived in the grand old four-storied house in the Rockville section of Vernon for the past 120 years. Lucille Kuhnly has lived there since her birth in 1918.
She was also a stalwart of the Rockville school system, teaching there for 37 years, as head of the science department, then as a science supervisor for the entire school system. She sang in the choir at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Vernon for more than 55 years, and has been a member of its prayer group for more than 50. And her steady nature has benefited UConn; she has given to the Fund for UConn for more than 30 years.
She is humble about it: “They are small gifts,” she insists. But for institutions – particularly public ones – to have such longtime, dedicated donors is a gift in itself. And to have those gifts specified unrestricted so the university may use them for its greatest needs, makes them even more appreciated.
She gives, she says, because she appreciates the quality of instruction she received from the School of Education more than half a century ago, and because she remembers the efforts of her advisers there. She asks that her annual gift be directed to the Neag School, then leaves it up to them to decide how to use it.
She rose rapidly to prominence in the field of education in Connecticut, helping to found and later become president of the Connecticut Science Teachers Association the same year — 1952 — she received her master’s degree from the School of Education. She also helped to organize the Northern Connecticut Science Fair.
The list of her accomplishments is long and detailed, and some of the most recent plaques celebrating her achievements adorn the walls of her home. One of them, given after Rockville High School named its chemistry department for her, says, “Lucille Kuhnly inspired a generation of students to appreciate the importance of developing an understanding of the chemical sciences.”
From a young woman who was told when she was first offered a job teaching math at Rockville High that, “We’ve never had women in our physical sciences,” to the day that same superintendent realized it was more than acceptable for a women to teach in the field and made her chair of the department, she has always advocated for excellence in education.
Now she is helping other teachers through her gifts to the annual fund.
“I feel my time was well spent while obtaining my master’s degree and sixth-year diploma at UConn,” she says. “So I just like to give a little something to the people working in the education department there who are teaching the teachers of today.”
To support the Neag School of Education, please contact the Foundation’s development staff for more information.
From the March 2011 issue of Our Moment, the UConn Foundation’s e-newsletter.
The following faculty members were promoted this spring. Congratulations to all these faculty members for their hard work and dedication to the Neag School of Education.
Del Siegle, Ph.D.
Del Siegle was promoted to the rank of professor of educational psychology. He will become the head of the Educational Psychology Department in July. Prior to his new position, he was an associate professor where he was honored as a teaching fellow in 2004. Dr. Siegle was the co-editor of the Journal of Advanced Academics, writes a technological column for Gifted Child Today and has held positions such as president of the National Association of Gifted Children. Dr. Siegle received his Ph.D. in Special Education (Gifted and Talented/Educational Psychology) from the University of Connecticut and earned both his M.Ed. and B.S. from Montana State University – Billings. Dr. Siegle’s research interests include web-based instruction, motivation of gifted students and teacher bias in the identification of students for gifted programs.
Jason Stephens, Ph.D.
Jason Stephens was promoted to associate professor with tenure in the Neag School of Education. Prior to his promotion, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, teaching courses on human learning, academic motivation and research methods. In addition, Dr. Stephens is a principal investigator of Achieving with Integrity, a three-year intervention project aimed at promoting academic engagement and honesty in Connecticut high schools. Dr. Stephens received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Stanford University and holds a M.Ed. from Vanderbilt University and a B.A. from the University of Vermont. Dr. Stephens’ research centers on academic motivation and moral development during adolescence, with a particular interest in the problem of academic dishonesty.
Mary Truxaw, Ph.D.
Mary Truxaw wwas promoted to associate professor with tenure in the Neag School of Education. Prior to her promotion, Dr. Truxaw was an assistant professor of Mathematics Education. Dr. Truxaw has served as co-investigator on the Mathematics Learning Discourse Project, as well as the Math ACCESS (Academic Content and Communication Equals Student Success) Project. She currently is participating in Project PREPARE-ELLs (Preparing Responsive Educators who Promote Access and Realize Excellence with their ELLs), a grant-supported (Levine & Howard, 2010) faculty learning community working to improve preservice teachers’ capacity to teach English language learners. Dr. Truxaw earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Connecticut, her M.S. at the University of Southern California and her B.A. at the University of California. Dr. Truxaw’s research focuses on the intersection of mathematics education and language with a growing interest in issues related to urban, linguistically diverse schools.
Brandi Simonsen, Ph.D.
Brandi Simonsen was promoted to associate professor with tenure in the Neag School of Education. Prior to her promotion, Dr. Simonsen was an assistant professor of Special Education and a research scientist with the Center for Behavioral Education and Research (CBER). Dr. Simonsen received her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Special Education: Exceptional Learner from the University of Oregon and her B.A. from the College of William and Mary. Her research areas of interest include school- and class-wide positive behavior interventions and support (PBIS), targeted and individuals PBIS for students with intense learning and behavioral needs and applications of PBIS in alternative educational settings.
Thomas Levine, Ph.D.
Thomas Levine was promoted to associate professor with tenure in the Neag School of Education. Prior to his promotion, Dr. Levine was an assistant professor in the Curriculum & Instruction Department. Dr. Levine is currently nurturing a faculty learning community among 15 teacher educators to improve preservice teachers’ capacity to teach English language learners, a three-year funded project he co-leads with Liz Howard. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Connecticut, Dr. Levine was a high school history teacher and also taught undergraduate and graduate courses in both the United States and China. Dr. Levine earned his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Teacher Education at Stanford University and won the Stanford Graduate Fellowship, as well as a Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. Dr. Levine received his Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies from Clark University, his M.A.T from Tufts University and his B.A. with honors from Brown University. His current research explores how collaboration among professionals creates opportunities for learning and improvement of professional practice.
Robin Grenier, Ph.D.
Robin Grenier was promoted to associate professor with tenure in the Neag School of Education. Prior to her promotion, Dr. Grenier was an assistant professor of Adult Learning in the Department of Educational Leadership. She received her Ph.D. in Adult Education and Certificate in Qualitative Inquiry from the University of Georgia, her M.A. from the University of South Florida and her B.S. from Florida State University. Dr. Grenier’s research interests include expertise development, informal and experiential learning, and museums as places of learning and qualitative inquiry.
Kelci Stringer gives the 2011 Undergraduate Commencement Speech for the Neag School of Education.
Good morning and thank you Dr. Thomas DeFranco for that introduction, and a special thank you to my good friend Dr. Doug Casa, who is a professor here and the chief operating officer of the Korey Stringer Institute, to the faculty, family and friends and of course to the Class of 2011.
I am humbled to be here at the Korey Stringer Institute, which bears my husband’s name, and I know he would be embarrassed by all the attention, but he might give me a fist pump for the reason the institute is housed here at UConn.
I am also honored to be joining you — the graduates – for this momentous and pivotal time in your lives. It was not that long ago that I sat where you are sitting, so I know that many of you have already started counting down how soon I will be finished speaking.
But if you will just humor me for a while, I want to share with you my story in the hope that you might glean something from it that may be helpful to you as you begin a lifetime commitment to teaching others.
First let me say, I did not plan on becoming an advocate or spokesperson for any issue. I studied psychology and, after graduation from Ohio State University, I planned to work and maybe attend graduate school. In the back of my mind, I entertained getting married and having children but I can honestly say I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do beyond finding a job after graduation. In my parents’ mind, finding a job was not an option – it was a plan. Like many of the parents here today, they were like corporate investors seeking a return on their investment.
But today is about you, the graduates, so I hope that my personal story and lessons that I’ve learned will offer you hope in the days ahead as you embark on your new journey.
The author T. Alan Armstrong said, “Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character.”
Today’s graduation is “merely the demonstration of” your championship character. Whether you are a young graduate or a seasoned graduate who returned to school later in life, today we are celebrating that championship character in all of you.
You have spent hours, months and years to get to this victorious point in your life. As you put these days behind you, I hope that you will remember not just the classes you took but the lessons you have learned. College is about so much more than a career, a profession or a job. It is training for life. It is where many of us learned to play well with others, to step outside our comfort zones, to explore beyond our imaginations, and to peek inside ourselves to discover who we really are.
One of the lessons I wish I would have fully understood back then was the value of a quality education. I frankly took it for granted. But education is more than just grades and classrooms. It is a practice run for real life and the challenges you are bound to face along the way.
The University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education is the No. 1 public graduate school of education in the Northeast and on the East Coast. As future educators, that is a priceless gift America’s school children can ill afford for you to forget. Especially when you consider the following statistics.
A high school dropout will earn about $260,000 less than high school graduates in their lifetime.
High school dropouts have a life expectancy 9.2 years shorter than high school graduates.
A one-year increase in average years of schooling for dropouts would reduce murder and assault rates by almost 30 percent, motor vehicle theft by 20 percent, arson by 13 percent, and burglary and larceny by about 6 percent.
There will be a shortfall of 7 million college-educated workers in America by 2012.
The story behind the statistics is that educators are a critical component of improving the American educational system and increasing the chances of success for American students.
You have heard that my late husband, Korey Stringer, was an NFL Pro Bowler offensive lineman. But you may not know that I was a track and field athlete and I have a great appreciation for what sports teaches you about the human spirit.
PattiSue Plumer, a U.S. Olympian, was the first woman to beat one of Mary Decker‘s distance running records during the 1980s. But she saw her share of setbacks, including a broken leg after being hit by a taxi in Japan, several bouts with pneumonia, food poisoning at the Seoul Olympics, and a dog bite at the 1991 World Championships.
But she once said something that, as a sprinter, I can appreciate. She said, “Racing teaches us to challenge ourselves. It teaches us to push beyond where we thought we could go. It helps us to find out what we are made of.”
My life could not have been more of a test of that spirit than when in 2001 I lost my husband to an exertional heat stroke during a Minnesota Vikings pre-season football practice. On that hot summer July day, he was practicing in scorching heat that pushed his body temperature to 108.8 degrees.
In track and field, you train for your next race by working on your timing, your endurance and your mental readiness. And then the whistle blows; and there I was paralyzed in the blocks, unable to take off, because this was a race that I was not prepared to run.
The day after Korey died, I was a 27-year-old widow and single parent of a 4-year-old son. I was devastated, as any young wife would have been. I struggled to come to grips with this unbearable loss. My parents raised my sister and I to be very independent and responsible courageous women. But I didn’t know how to do this. There was no training, no classes; there was nothing that had prepared me for this. My family and friends were supportive, but I internalized my grief so that I could get through the pain.
I tried to give myself permission to let Korey go. But there were expectations, commitments and other people who also cared and loved him. So I unconsciously assumed some of his traits and tried to be him for others by keeping his public commitments and filling in for him because I felt that is what people missed and quite frankly it kept him close to me. One of the most difficult things I had to do during that time was to work through my grief to get to my purpose.
I found strength in a song, in the quiet whisper of the wind, the giggle of my son’s laughter, the stillness of pending peace and the famous words of Michael Gartner: “Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don’t. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.”
So a year after his death, I continued to dissect how this could have happened. While there was nothing I could do to bring Korey back, I did not want another young wife or family to have to endure the relentless pain and eternal grief of losing someone whose death could have been prevented.
What I soon discovered was that heat-related deaths had more than doubled since 1975. And in 2001 alone, the families of the University of Florida freshman football player Eraste Autin and Indiana’s Clinton High School player Travis Stowers were grieving along with my family from the loss of their loved ones from sports-related heat stroke deaths. I struggled with how to deal with the high profile public sympathy for Korey when these two young men’s lives were just as important to their families as Korey’s was to mine.
I did not simply wake up one day and just decide that our son needed me to get it together so that we could begin the healing process. It was not that systematic or calculating. Like the healing process itself, I took little bitty steps. Korey had an incredibly giving spirit and philanthropic heart. He believed in making intimate connections with people that made a huge impact. He almost rejected the practice of outward giving and photo ops that applauded his generosity.
The deaths of Autin and Stowers were the final impetus for me to seriously begin formalizing the Korey Stringer Foundation. So the foundation was created with the help of people like Doug Casa, Jimmy Gould and others. Along with our partnership with the National Football League, Gatorade and the University of Connecticut, Neag School of Education, the vision for the Korey Stringer Institute was realized.
The institute’s mission is both personal and absolute. It is to provide first-rate information, resources, assistance and advocacy for the prevention of sudden death in sport, especially as it relates to exertional heat stroke, which has a 100 percent survival rate when immediate cooling is initiated within 10 minutes of collapse.
Currently, exertional heat is among the top three reasons athletes die while playing sports. The goal of the Korey Stringer Institute is to raise awareness by teaching sports professionals and athletes how to avoid the conditions that lead to heat stroke and other heat-related illnesses, treat heat-related illnesses when they occur, and ultimately prevent all heat-related deaths.
I want to thank the institute staff and board advisors for their continuous and ongoing support and dedication to what has been a labor of love.
Finally, as you, the graduates prepare to meet the challenges that await you, I hope you won’t mind a few parting words.
As someone who became a public voice by default, I live by the mantra “tomorrow is not promised” — so here are a few lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Be honest with yourself. Even the most perfectly laid plans can be derailed and it is at that time that you will come face to face with your true self. I should have been more honest with myself. I needed to grieve in my own way. When you are secure and grounded enough to be honest with yourself, you will also be honest with others.
Don’t take yourself too seriously. I had to learn to recover my joy. Sometimes that comes with maturity or just being a parent. Children have a unique way of reminding you that you really aren’t that important.
Seize the opportunity. If you are faced with making a difference in someone’s life, like the Nike slogan, JUST DO IT! That enormously tragic time in my life became an opportunity to help transform the lives of others. It was an opportunity I could not morally ignore.
Challenge yourself. Force yourself to stretch beyond your boundaries and your limitations. As I unwillingly learned, sometimes you don’t know what you CAN DO until you HAVE TO.
Be grateful. Find the time in your busy lives to be grateful. Say thank you every chance you get because it reminds the universe that you are blessed. Grace is a lifestyle.
And finally Run YOUR Race. As Olympian Carl Lewis said, “My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you’ll win.”
To the Class of 2011 — RUN YOUR RACE. GET OUT OF THE BLOCKS, RUN YOUR RACE AND IF YOU RUN YOUR RACE, YOU WILL WIN. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE CLASS OF 2011 AND THANK YOU!!!!!!
The Neag School of Education is hosting the ninth annual Northeast Media Literacy Conference, “Media Literacy in a Digital Media Age,” on Friday, March 25, in the Bishop Center from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. This year’s event will explore the connection between understanding digital media and the rapid spread of new technology. A key emphasis will be to help youth develop critical thinking skills in understanding and interpreting media, and to educate schools, communities and youth-oriented organizations about the impact of the digital media explosion.
A special feature of the conference is the participation of 23 media leaders from 23 nations who are part of a U.S. State Department International Leadership Program out of Washington. Their visits to the Neag School and UConn offer conference participants the opportunity to make worldwide professional contacts in media literacy and related fields.
“Media literacy has been recognized nationally and internationally as an urgent need to help citizens, and particularly young people, to recognize and think critically about the great impact of the mass media upon their daily lives,” said Dr. Thomas B. Goodkind, conference creator and a Neag School of Education professor of curriculum and instruction. “Over 50 nations currently have or are developing media literacy programs, often requiring media literacy in their school curriculums and other organized programs.”
Keynote speakers are Marc Prensky, nationally recognized expert and author of Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Digital Game-Based Learning, Don’t Bother Me Mom – I’m Learning and The Role of Technology in Teaching and in the Classroom, and Renee Hobbs, well-known media literacy leader, Temple University educator and author of the recent landmark Knight Commission-sponsored Digital Literacy and Media Literacy, a Detailed Plan.
“The Northeast Media Literacy Conference has been recognized for years as a key annual meeting of media literacy leaders and enthusiasts to learn and share with each other,” Goodkind said.
The conference also features 15 workshops, exhibits and film showings. Registration includes a continental breakfast, buffet lunch, refreshments throughout the day, social hour, conference-related handouts and parking fee. Cost to attend is $95 per person; $45 for students with ID.
For more information and to register, contact Thomas B. Goodkind at t.goodkind@uconn.edu or (860) 486-0290.
Michelle Breckel, a senior majoring in special education, explains to Kyle about circles of companionship, a life skills game that demonstrates the often shifting boundaries that exist between people, ranging from the distance one keeps from strangers to the affection between a couple in a relationship. Photo by Jessica Tommaselli
By the time they’re young adults, most people have learned not to barge into an ongoing conversation with a totally unrelated comment. But for some, knowing how to connect appropriately with others is confusing.
UConn students are now reaching out to developmentally challenged 18- to 21-year-olds, demonstrating socially acceptable behavior as part of an innovative program that connects college students with high school students in special education.
Students Transitioning to Age Appropriate Routes (STAAR) is a partnership between UConn and Regional School District 19’s E.O. Smith High School in Mansfield. It brings students with learning and physical disabilities into a college setting so they can interact with students their own age. The UConn students are primarily interns in the advanced years of the Neag School of Education’s Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s Teacher Education program (IB/M), who help the STAAR students learn independent living skills. These include finance, organization, health and wellness, safety and socialization.
Federal and state laws require public schools to provide services to special education students until they are 21, which means they may be attending school with 14-year-old high school freshmen. And STAAR students may have been micromanaged while in high school, moving as a distinct clique with an instructional assistant at their elbow all day.
“College students move in groups of two to four. You rarely see 10-15 college students walking together, so even getting places as part of a more natural group has to be learned,” says Christine Lee, the Region 19 special education teacher who leads STAAR. “Part of this program is practicing social skills; we want our students to learn what’s cool, like that you don’t just grab pretty girls or call someone 20 times in a day on their cell phone.”
High schools are required to provide leading edge, research-based instruction for young people with developmental disabilities or autism. Associate Professor Dr. Joe Madaus leads UConn’s Center on Postsecondary Education and Disability, a program in the Neag School that conducts research on the transition to postsecondary programs for students with disabilities, and works with STAAR.
“He’s an expert on transition services, and that’s what our program is all about,” says Lee.
At STAAR, Neag students can conduct their own research. For example, Michelle Breckel, a fourth-year Neag special education major and this past semester’s STAAR intern, did a case study of a STAAR student for a class. “I assessed her reading skills and comprehension and researched how her disorder affects her learning and how her scores go along with that,” Breckel says.
“Michelle was a wonderful teacher,” notes the student, known as Clarissa E, “and she taught me a lot about vocabulary. I like when our UConn interns come.”
Jessica Parlin, last year’s fifth-year Neag STAAR intern, found her calling as a teacher providing STAAR students with transitional services. “Just recently one of my former students approached me at a local store and had an amazingly appropriate conversation with me,” says Parlin. “It was really rewarding to know that when she’s not at school, she’s carrying those skills over.”
The Neag School’s distinctive teaching methods include placing aspiring teachers in classrooms that don’t match their ambitions, which sometimes leads to unexpected career shifts. Parlin, for example, had planned on teaching elementary school, and was delighted that UConn afforded her the flexibility to change her major to special education.
“Jessica was the best fifth-year intern I ever worked with,” Lee says. “She is an outstanding teacher, thanks to her UConn education. In fact, I’ve never had a less than phenomenal experience with UConn interns.”
Besides the Neag interns, other students volunteer to partner with STAAR students for fun and friendship as part of the UConn Best Buddies Association. Joanna Sajdlowska, who is majoring in communication disorders, says, “People my age, 20somethings, especially at UConn, are very accepting. We may have grown up in homes with two mothers, or just a dad, or with siblings adopted from all over the world. Because of mainstreaming, my generation has been exposed to people with disabilities from a young age.”
Sajdlowska nods emphatically as Lee comments, “We know that everyone wants to connect, wants to get married, wants a job to love and be passionate about – STAAR students have the same hopes and dreams that we have.”
Since many local parents are educators who value education, Lee says, “Moms and dads [of students at E.O. Smith High School] are very eager to enroll their children. UConn is the major draw … it’s a winner in so many ways, from sports, to research, to providing positive behavior examples for our students.”
The STAAR partnership began as a pilot program with one student when Debra Hultgren, director of special services for E.O. Smith High School, suggested it to Donna Korbel, director of UConn’s Center for Students with Disabilities. Along with the center’s Christine Wenzel, Korbel has been STAAR’s main liaison, helping the program grow.
“This amazing program has become so successful in a short amount of time because of immediate and continuing support by UConn’s offices of residential life and student affairs,” says Korbel. The program operates in the basement of Sprague Hall, which Korbel describes as, “an exceptional space. There’s a kitchen, a game room and a vocational component for the STAAR students because of the laundry located there. Even with space at such a premium, Residential Life was able to find an area that wasn’t being utilized by UConn students – it’s a credit to the university that we’ve been able to support this community-based opportunity for Region 19 students.”
Three students participated in the program’s second year, and the program has nearly doubled each year thereafter, going from three, to six, to 12, to its current enrollment of 22. STAAR students come from Killingly, Danielson, Scotland, Willimantic, Coventry and Storrs. And the program continues to grow: This semester, STAAR students will be teamed up with 20 students from a class on autism spectrum disorder taught by UConn psychology assistant professor Inge-Marie Eigsti.
Neag School faculty have been busy interviewing prospective undergraduate students for Fall 2011 and recently selected most of the incoming class for the various programs. Prospective students went through an extensive selection process that included applications and portfolios, along with written and oral interviews.
For 2011, the Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s Teacher Education Program (IB/M) admitted 117 new students. In the Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates (TCPCG), 57 new students were accepted for the Hartford location and 19 for the Waterbury location. For candidates in pre-kinesiology, 56 new students were accepted.
“The spring semester every year, faculty sit down and look very, very carefully at a portfolio that is offered up by every candidate who wishes to enter the Neag School of Education,” said Dr. Wendy Glenn, director of Teacher Education at the Neag School. “These candidates are evaluated on a variety of different factors. Ultimately, they are invited into an interview that gives faculty an opportunity to meet each of the candidates and make a determination as to whether or not the student might have the potential to do well in our program.”
Faculty and administrators in the Neag School spend a lot of time evaluating and selecting candidates that leads to the admission of highly qualified pre-service teachers who are “up to the challenge of thinking innovatively and creatively about American public schools and their role as teachers in those schools,” said Glenn.
“The overall quality of applicants is improving every year, which makes this a very competitive process,” said Dr. Carl Maresh, department chair of kinesiology in the Neag Schol. “Furthermore, by the time these students submit applications to us they are already well focused on the direction they want their careers to go, which for most will also include graduate school or professional school preparation. These are very motivated and capable young men and women.”
William J. Kraemer, Ph.D., a professor of kinesiology in the Neag School of Education, is releasing a new textbook book this month called Exercise Physiology: Integrating Theory and Application. The book aims to engage the undergraduate student’s interest in exercise physiology while relating concepts to practical job results. It also is the first book in exercise physiology to teach undergraduate students about the research process and how to evaluate information in this new age of evidence based practice.
The textbook is co-written by Steven J. Fleck, Ph.D. and chair of the sport science department at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, and Michael R. Deschenes of William & Mary, who earned his master’s and Ph.D. at UConn and is a past winner of Neag’s Outstanding Kinesiology Professional and Outstanding Alumni Professional awards and is a professor and chair in kinesiology at the College of William and Mary.
Publishers say, “unlike other textbooks in the field, Kraemer, Fleck and Deschenes provide a publication that engages students with how the body works and responds to exercise, how to improve overall performance, as well as the vital health benefits of physical activity during the life span and for special physical conditions.” ”Writing a textbook for undergraduates is the most challenging task as one has to catch their interest and carefully choose the scope of understanding needed for the student. I think this book allows students to see how knowledge in exercise physiology is used in the many professional scenarios and how research is important in one’s professional practice,” says Kraemer
Exercise Physiology: Integrating Theory and Application contains instructional features and applications that facilitate student learning, while applying material to the environment and challenges students may face as young professionals.
The textbook is tailored for undergraduate courses in exercise science but can be adapted to other subject matter in which the information is important for professional preparation by students.
Kraemer has written or co-written three other book with multiple editions on resistance training and has edited one book on exercise endocrinology during his career. He has also authored and coauthored over 380 peer reviewed scientific publications in his field of exercise physiology. He also holds an appointment as a full professor in the Department of Physiology and Neurobiology, along with an appointment as a professor of medicine at the UCONN Health Center/School of Medicine with the Center on Aging.
For more information, contact Kraemer at william.kraemer@uconn.edu.
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