Bank of America Gift Supports Teacher-Training Partnership Between Bulkeley High, UConn

Posted on June 9, 2010December 13, 2021 by

Bank of America has donated $25,000 through the UConn Foundation to the Teacher Preparatory Studies Program at Bulkeley High School, a new initiative that prepares and encourages talented students, particularly from minority groups, to become teachers. The initiative is believed to be the state’s first dedicated teaching program focused on recruiting, supporting, and preparing talented high school students to pursue careers in education.

The gift was made as part of UConn’s $600 million capital campaign, Our University, Our Moment, the Campaign for UConn, which seeks to increase support for education, research and outreach.

“At Bank of America, we pride ourselves on our commitment to youth development, particularly in underserved communities,” said Kevin Cunningham, Bank of America Connecticut president. “That commitment is expressed through support of innovative programs like the Teacher Preparatory Program, which will open new doors for students at Bulkeley High.”

Through a partnership with UConn’s Neag School of Education, students in the program work with UConn graduate student interns for an entire year, shadowing teachers, tutoring students at local elementary and middle schools, attending special events at local universities and colleges, and having unique extended-day experiences that mimic college elective choices.

“Without a doubt, the program has opened doors and expanded the minds of what students believe and know is possible for them,” says Rene Roselle, an assistant clinical professor at the Neag School of Education and a consultant from Neag to the Teacher Preparatory Program. “Ideally, a large number of the students who graduate will pursue education as a career and return to urban centers to inspire others to teach.”

More than 90 percent of the students at Bulkeley High are members of a minority group. Almost 70 percent speak a language other than English at home; more than 20 percent are not fluent in English.

Neag School of Education Dean Dr. Thomas DeFranco stressed the need for the program at Bulkeley High. “We are very excited about Bank of America’s support to the Neag School of Education,” he says. “This program at Bulkeley will create a pipeline of teachers from underrepresented groups that will have a significant impact on students throughout the state.”

Students of color make up 39 percent of public school students younger than 18 in Connecticut, yet persons of color account for only 7 percent of the teaching profession statewide.

The Neag School of Education has had a longstanding partnership with Bulkeley High. As part of that partnership, UConn has been involved in Bulkeley’s efforts to prepare students for college, including working with GEAR-UP (a federal grant program designed to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in post-secondary education) and College for Every Student programs. Over the years, UConn has, in turn, sent hundreds of its education students to Bulkeley to experience teaching and learning in an urban high school.

For more information about the UConn Foundation and UConn’s capital campaign, please visit www.foundation.uconn.edu.

Building on a long-standing tradition of investing in the communities it serves, last year Bank of America embarked on a 10-year goal to donate $2 billion to non-profit organizations engaged in improving the health and vitality of their neighborhoods. Bank of America approaches giving through a national strategy called “neighborhood excellence” under which it works with local leaders to identify and meet the most pressing needs of individual communities. Bank associates volunteered more than 800,000 hours in 2009 to enhance the quality of life in their communities nationwide. For more information about Bank of America Corporate Philanthropy, please visit www.bankofamerica.com/foundation.

Swaminathan Honored by Research Profession

Posted on June 1, 2010November 26, 2024 by

Hariharan Swaminathan, head of the Department of Educational Psychology at the Neag School of Education and a renowned research expert in his field of educational measurement, has been selected as a 2010 Fellow by the American Educational Research Association.

Swaminathan, who has co-written two books on item response theory, was honored with 66 other fellows at AERA’s annual meeting May 1 in Denver.

Neag Dean Thomas DeFranco praised Swaminathan, saying the honor was well deserved. “This award is a testament to his work and expertise in the educational statistics community and honors a lifetime of excellence devoted to scholarship and research in the field of educational measurement,” DeFranco said.

“The AERA Fellows are known both nationally and internationally for their outstanding contributions to education research,” a recent AERA press release said, adding that AERA aims “to underscore to new scholars the importance of sustained research contributions in the field.”

Besides his research and administrative activities, Swaminathan teaches a sequence of graduate courses in educational statistics ranging from basic to advanced.

He has done significant work for the state on the Connecticut Mastery Tests in developing a vertical scale for assessing the growth of children as they progress through grades. He, along with colleague H. Jane Rogers and doctoral student Burcu Kaniskan, has developed a growth curve prediction system “so we can identify kids who may be at risk and start working with them,” he says, calling the measure an “early warning system” and joking that his nickname, “Swami,” is apt for his line of work.

Much of his work is on the intricacies of measurement theory. Using item response theory, his area of expertise, he has developed procedures for establishing a common measurement scale that enables comparisons of students even when they are administered different tests. He has also developed procedures for assessing bias in testing and was commissioned by the Florida Supreme Court to evaluate that state’s bar exam.

The controversy in testing today, he says, is in the matter of accountability. “We want to find out if a teacher is effective or not. … There’s a lot of interest in that – even going as far as identifying weak teachers and weeding them out.” But he quickly adds, “Not all students are created equal,” and student failure cannot be attributed directly to teachers.

Swaminathan spent 30 years as professor, associate dean and acting dean at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He was a professor at the University of Miami and a principal research scientist at Educational Testing Service. He holds a B.S. with honors in mathematics from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, and an M.S. in mathematics, an M.Ed., and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, Canada, specializing in psychometrics, statistics and educational measurement/evaluation.

He has delivered papers and taught workshops in countries that include The Netherlands, Russia, Australia, Singapore, Spain, Egypt and Indonesia. He was instrumental in designing and implementing a national assessment system for the Republic of Georgia, and has served as a consultant to numerous testing agencies, states and foreign ministries.

He received the College Outstanding Teacher award from the University of Massachusetts and the Jacob Cohen Award for Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring from the American Psychological Association. In Connecticut, he was honored by Gov. M. Jodi Rell in 2009 for outstanding contributions by a naturalized citizen.

The AERA Fellows Program is in its third year and has designated 471 for this honor among its membership of 25,000 educational researchers. Other Fellows at the Neag School are Joseph S. Renzulli and Scott W. Brown.

A Higher Ed Guide for Students with Disabilities

Posted on June 1, 2010January 29, 2021 by

Dr. Joe Madaus teaches a class on students with disabilities.

It will come as no surprise to any college student (or parent of one) that achieving success in higher education starts with the right preparation during the K-12 years. But for students with disabilities, postsecondary education presents an additional set of challenges, though they too can be met with the right strategies in place.

In their new book, Preparing Students with Disabilities for College Success, Neag Associate Professor Joseph Madaus, Professor Emeritus Stan Shaw, and University of South Florida Associate Professor and UConn graduate Lyman Dukes III have put together what they describe as a guide to transition planning. The book is aimed at both educators and parents of students who have a range of learning disabilities, autism, ADHD and emotional disturbances, with the goal of, as the title says, college success. But it is also aimed at changing the debate.

For too long, in Shaw’s view, transition planning for high school students with disabilities has focused on transition to employment, with postsecondary education virtually ignored. That, Shaw says, is a mistake. “For students with these mild-to-moderate disabilities, the data shows that if they can do well in college, it’s the one intervention that levels the playing field throughout their employment careers.”

He adds that the Neag School leads the nation in fostering access to college for students with disabilities, through its Center on Postsecondary Education and Disability (CPED), which was created in 1984. Shaw is its former director, Madaus its current one.

While their book covers a broad spectrum of topics with research articles from a variety of experts, it also highlights the need for early planning, starting in the elementary grades and continuing into high school, to better prepare students with disabilities for the college experience. “That includes proper course work,” Madaus says, “but also preparation for the SAT and other tests. It can also mean being prepared to take college courses, with good note-taking skill and time management. These are the same issues other students face. They become more challenging for the student with disabilities.”

Equally essential, the authors say, is helping the student become a better “self-advocate” for his or her particular needs. “Part of that,” Madaus says, “involves students learning how to talk to adults about their disability. But the adults also need to listen, and make the student a participant in the process of his or her own education.”

For Shaw and Madaus, the heart of the book and of their work on behalf of students with disabilities, is fair and equal access for all, a goal they’ve approached on different paths. For Shaw, it was a natural progression from his work as a civil rights activist in the 1960s. For Madaus, it began with a summer job at a camp for children with disabilities. For both, it’s a new front in a long battle to help students with disabilities move more easily into postsecondary education. As Madaus puts it, “It is all about giving them an opportunity to succeed.”

Korey Stringer Institute a Natural Fit for UConn’s Kinesiology Department

Posted on June 1, 2010February 16, 2023 by

When Kelci Stringer was looking for a home for a research institute honoring her late husband – All-Pro NFL lineman Korey Stringer – the University of Connecticut and its renowned kinesiology department were her first choice.

Korey Stringer died from complications due to an exertional heat stroke he suffered during a Minnesota Vikings pre-season training camp in 2001. At the time, the University’s Department of Kinesiology with its highly touted Human Performance Laboratory was gaining a national reputation as a leader in studying heat-related illnesses and hydration in athletes.

After speaking to UConn kinesiology professor Douglas J. Casa and calling on him as an expert witness in litigation she filed following her husband’s death, Stringer was convinced she had found the person to lead the institute. Kelci Stringer announced her decision to establish the Korey Stringer Institute at UConn in late April at the 2010 NFL Draft.

“(Doug Casa) is clearly one of the most passionate people I have ever met in my life,” Stringer said. “With his background at the University of Connecticut’s Department of Kinesiology and their reputation as a national leader in the study of heat and hydration in sports, it was practically divine intervention that I decided to work with them. They have been relentless in their efforts to help me and their commitment is unsurpassed.”

Douglas Casa, associate professor of kinesiology, speaks during the press conference at Radio City Music Hall.

Casa will serve as the Korey Stringer Institute’s chief operating officer, and is chairman of its medical & science advisory board. A survivor of heat stroke who has dedicated his career to raising awareness and preventing heat-related illnesses in other athletes, Casa has published more than 100 peer-reviewed studies and presented more than 300 times on subjects related to heat stroke, heat-related illnesses, hydration, and preventing sudden death in sport. A fellow of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association and the American College of Sports Medicine, Casa has successfully treated more than 100 cases of exertional heat stroke.

“Our goal with the Korey Stringer Institute is the eradication of death from heat stroke within organized sport in America,” Casa says with his trademark high-energy, rapid-fire delivery. “I’m not saying we will actually ever achieve it because there are things outside our control, but that is our goal every single day when we walk into the office.”

The Korey Stringer Institute was established with the support of the National Football League and Gatorade as founding partners. The NFL Players Association is also an active supporter. Part of the Institute’s mission will be to advise high schools across the country on setting up emergency action plans in case athletes succumb to heat-related illnesses on the playing field. Casa said the Institute’s website will provide up-to-date information for coaches, parents, athletes, and medical staff. The research team will also advocate for policy changes to improve athlete safety around the country.

From left, Gary Gertzog, senior VP of business affairs for the NFL, Kelci Stringer, KSI founder and widow of Korey Stringer, and James Gould, Stringer's former NFL agent. — From left, Gary Gertzog, senior VP of business affairs for the NFL, Kelci Stringer, KSI founder and widow of Korey Stringer, and James Gould, Stringer’s former NFL agent.

“The NCAA implemented guidelines six years ago in terms of phasing in practices for athletes and they have been phenomenally successful in preventing deaths during the August ‘two-a-days’,” Casa says. “But only about half the states in America have policies for high school football. There are states where you can do three, three-hour practices on the first day of football in full gear in 100-degree heat. Obviously, that is not looking out for the health and safety of those athletes.”

Casa has a talented team of advisors and graduate students working with him. The team includes kinesiology department head Carl Maresh, a national authority on exercise in stressful environments, and Professor Lawrence Armstrong, a widely respected research scientist in the field of heat exhaustion, heat stress, and hydration as it pertains to extremely active individuals such as athletes, laborers, and military personnel.

The research team uses state-of-the-art equipment to conduct its studies. Since its inception, the kinesiology department’s Human Performance Laboratory has grown from a 250-square-foot lab with a treadmill and centrifuge in the basement of Koons Hall to an 8,000-square-foot facility in Gampel Pavilion with several million dollars of equipment, including an environment-controlled exercise chamber, a complete biochemistry lab, and an array of high-tech devices for monitoring physiological stress in the human body.

Scottie Graham, left, director of player marketing and engagement for the NFL Players Association, and Scott Paddock, director of sports marketing for Gatorade.

With those kinds of resources available at UConn, representatives of the NFL and Gatorade agreed with Kelci Stringer that UConn was the proper home for the institute she envisioned to further research and prevent heat-related tragedies from happening to other athletes in the future.

“This is a group of people who are going to get it done … in a first-class way,” says Gary M. Gertzog, senior vice-president of business affairs for the NFL. “[They] align themselves with people who are top-shelf and they have done that with the University of Connecticut.”

Scott Paddock, director of sports marketing for Gatorade, says the Gatorade Sports Science Institute will be an active partner with UConn in conducting research to help keep athletes safe.

“We are proud to bring our research and scientific support to Doug and his colleagues at the University of Connecticut,” Paddock says. “Doug and his team represent the best of the best. We’ve been privileged to work with Doug. I’ve known Doug for many years and I know the passion and commitment he has for this endeavor.”

This article originally appeared in the April 29, 2010 edition of UConn Today

Neag School Tops in Northeast

Posted on June 1, 2010April 20, 2016 by

The Neag School of Education continued its dominance as the No. 1 public school of education in the Northeast, according to the 2011 annual review of the best U.S. graduate schools announced in April by the U.S. News and World Report.

U.S. News ranked the Neag School 31^st among 279 private and public education schools surveyed. In specialty rankings nationwide, Neag placed 18th in Elementary Education and 15th in Special Education.

Neag Dean Thomas C. DeFranco said he was very proud of the newest rankings. “The rankings are a testament to the high quality of our programs, the caliber of our students and the productivity of our faculty,” he said.

“As we look to ways for our rankings to climb, we will need to focus our attention on increased grant productivity. For example, last year we reported an average of $200,000 per faculty member in funded research, while the average of the top 20 schools was $370,000 per faculty member,” DeFranco observed.

Each year, U.S. News gathers two types of data: expert opinions from program directors, senior faculty, school superintendents and deans to rank professional school programs, and statistical indicators supplied by each school to measure the quality of a school’s faculty, research and students. The results are based on fall 2009 surveys of more than 1,200 programs and about 12,400 academics and professionals.

Madaus Advocates for Help for ‘Hidden’ War Wounds

Posted on June 1, 2010April 20, 2016 by

Every battlefield has yielded its share of wounded warriors, but in the aftermath of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the Gulf War and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, veterans with disabilities now receive as much attention for their cognitive and psychological impairment as they do for their physical wounds. For Neag Associate Professor Joseph Madaus, that attention must include greater opportunities for a college education.

Madaus, director of the Neag School’s Center on Postsecondary Education and Disability, served last year as the editor of a special issue of the Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, devoted to veterans with disabilities and their transition into higher education. In the journal, and in his work, Madaus advocates for an attitude change in the way colleges deal with combat veterans with disabilities. “More and more of these men and women are coming back to school,” he says. “But if colleges follow their strict documentation requirements for students with disabilities, and are reactive instead of proactive, many of these veterans could be left out when it comes to disability services. Business as usual,” he adds, “will not work.”

The disabilities in question are what Madaus calls the “hidden” type, including combat-related Traumatic Brain Injury, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression. With reasonable accommodations and modifications, many students with a broad spectrum of disabilities have demonstrated for years that learning is possible, as are successful outcomes. Now, he says, the focus must be on similar services geared toward the needs of combat veterans.

In writing for the journal, Madaus and his co-authors challenge colleges to rethink their approaches to dealing with veterans with disabilities. They urge that college Disability Service (DS) offices move away from a “medical model,” with strict documentation of a disability, toward a more “social model” that allows for a broader interpretation of guidelines within the GI Bill of Rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act. “The movement away from the medical model,” they write, “could greatly reduce the stigma associated with veterans requiring reasonable accommodations. Individuals who might go without seeking assistance might decide to pursue accommodations if the process were less rigid.”

He also suggests that veterans could be helped by what he calls a “campus champion” advocating for their cause. A college’s DS office is a logical starting point. “DS offices that had excellent campus working relationships,” Madaus writes, “have made great strides in molding campuses into a more welcoming and universally accessible environment for veterans.”

But much more remains to be done, and expanding that welcoming environment should be the next priority for DS providers. Their advocacy, says Madaus, must now carry over to meeting the more nuanced needs of today’s veterans with disabilities. “I would encourage DS providers to get involved, examine how they’re doing things, collaborate with other offices and become leaders on their campuses to improve services.”

Those improvements could have an impact that goes well beyond veterans with disabilities. Positive changes that begin with a small group of students often produce benefits that extend campuswide. “Those with disabilities,” Madaus says, “provide the benefit of increased diversity on campus. I believe that the presence of these veterans at any college or university enhances the overall education of the entire student body.”

Magnet Schools Provide Academic and Social Benefits, Study Reports

Posted on June 1, 2010February 10, 2022 by

Casey Cobb, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership, speaking with John Brittain during the conference titled Public School Choice in a Post-Desegregation World: What have we learned and where are we going?

Both white and minority children in Connecticut’s magnet schools showed stronger connections to their peers of other races than students in their home districts, and city students made greater academic gains than students in non-magnet city schools, Casey Cobb and a team of colleagues found in research commissioned by the state.

Cobb, associate professor of education policy and director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis at the Neag School of Education, says an analysis of school climate variables indicating positive racial attitudes favored magnet school populations.

“The likelihood that they would interact with persons of other races was much higher,” Cobb says. “That’s the intent of magnet schools, to bring persons from different backgrounds to create a more vibrant community.”

Cobb, whose research focuses on school choice, desegregation and accountability, collaborated with researchers from Syracuse University and Educational Testing Service on the report of how well magnet schools have given students in Hartford, New Haven and Waterbury access to less isolated environments, racially and economically. The colleagues are also finalizing a similar study of the state’s Open Choice program.

Bruce E. Douglas, executive director of Capitol Region Education Council in Hartford, said, “I recognize and commend Dr. Cobb and his colleagues for the foundation research they did in looking at magnet schools’ ability to measure up to their purpose. … It’s been referenced at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard University as one of the seminal pieces of research that verify integrated education through magnet schools works.”

Since the 1996 Sheff v. O’Neill court mandate, voluntary enrollment magnet schools have become a primary strategy to comply with the order, spawning dozens of the popular schools with themes such as science, the classics and the arts.

Cobb’s team showed that city students attending magnets scored higher on state tests, had less absenteeism, higher college aspirations and lower dropout rates. Overall, the magnet climate was more in step with that of a wealthy, suburban non-magnet high school.

Although, racial attitudes differed little between ninth-graders in magnet schools and their peers in non-magnets, 12^th-grade students of color in magnets felt significantly closer to white students and more likely to have white friends, the report concluded. Likewise, white magnet students felt significantly closer to students of color and reported having multiple friends of color.

The researchers did note that magnet school students in the lower grades reflected some discomfort about teacher-student relationships and the sense of safety and belonging in their new schools, but those issues disappeared among students in the later grades.

Taking advantage of oversubscribed admissions lotteries for magnets and state test scores, the researchers were able to compare students randomly offered a magnet school seat to those who were not. In addition, statistical controls were used to expand their sample. The results, which appeared in the December issue of the Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis journal, showed that magnet students significantly outperformed non-magnet students on high school tests in reading and math, and on middle school tests in reading.

Cobb says magnet schools can be costly investments and serve a small percentage of children in isolated circumstances, but their successes cannot be denied as decision makers debate how to build on desegregation efforts in the future.

“We need to pay attention in looking at the magnet school model as a viable option. They can be expensive, but they certainly have some tangible benefits,” Cobb says.

Bifulco, R., Cobb, C. D. & Bell, C. (2009). Can Interdistrict Choice Boost Student Achievement? The Case of Connecticut’s Interdistrict Magnet School Program. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 31(4), 323-345. doi: 10.3102/0162373709340917

This article is available only if your library pays for access rights to the journal. Please contact the author if you have any questions.

Gifted Ed in the U.S.: A Case of Bright Child Neglect

Posted on June 1, 2010April 20, 2016 by

Drs. Del Siegle and Catherine Little. Photo by John Ehlinger.

The nation is failing its 3 million brightest students with dramatically uneven funding, policies and oversight of gifted education at the state and local levels, a Neag School of Education team found in a recent survey representing 47 states.

Del Siegle and Catherine Little, associate professors in gifted education at Neag, conducted the research with the assistance of graduate students Jaclyn Chancey and Hope Wilson. The “State of the States in Gifted Education” report was done for the National Association of Gifted Children, for which Siegle has served as president, and the Council of State Directors of Programs for the Gifted.

“What we found was a fragmented collection of policies and resources that vary greatly between states and local districts and that are almost universally under-funded and under-resourced,” Siegle said.

The ramifications are very local and very global. The report warns that the national lack of commitment, “if left unchecked, will ultimately leave our nation ill-prepared to field the next generation of innovators and to compete in the global economy.”

The federal government allocates less than 3 cents to the gifted for every $100 of education spending. And even in states that define giftedness and mandate services, key policies and most funding are set at the district level. Of the states that reported funding for gifted students, per-pupil expenditure varied sharply from $2 to $750 for the 2008-2009 school year.

The plight of any given gifted child is largely a matter of miles – where he or she lives. “For every local district that makes an outstanding commitment to gifted learners, we have scores of districts that do nothing,” Siegle said. “Whether a bright child’s talents are developed depends solely on where he or she happens to be lucky or unlucky enough to attend school.”

The flagging economy and the No Child Left Behind federal mandate have played heavy roles in leaving bright students in the lurch, Siegle has noted in pieces published by The Hartford Courant, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Associated Press. “It is tragic that, in schools throughout our country, brilliant minds sit in the dark, waiting for a teacher to flip the switch that leads to excellence,” Siegle wrote in the Inquirer.

Little said that in this climate it’s harder than ever to get financial attention. “Gifted education sits on the chopping block with arts education and those things that are looked at as peripheral,” she said, with the dollars going to help low performers reach a standard in reading and math rather than achieving growth for all.

Only five of the 47 states required teachers to receive any training on working with the gifted before entering the classroom, “at a time when we know that most gifted students spend the majority of their school days in general education classrooms,” the researchers said. Ongoing training for how best to serve a gifted population also is not stressed in most states.

The state of Connecticut, which did not respond to the survey, requires schools to identify gifted students but does not require them to provide services, the researchers said.

Once a leader in educating the gifted, Connecticut no longer designates a state consultant for gifted education or provides program funding, and districts have cut gifted programs in higher numbers each year, said Sally M. Reis, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology at the Neag School. The fallout is that “many learn to underachieve in school, expending minimal effort and never learning to work,” Reis said.

Because the main infrastructure for education in our country is local, there is little chance for a national policy on gifted education to evolve, Siegle and Little agreed. The opportunity lies with states sharing their successful models and advocating at the legislative level.

Siegle notes advocacy victories on the federal front, however, including the Equity in Excellence Act Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., introduced just weeks ago that would deliver gifted services to high performers who are disadvantaged.

Neag Professor Spearheads Hartford Promise Neighborhood Efforts

Posted on June 1, 2010April 20, 2016 by

Read and Raise efforts spawned Neag School interest in working to establish a Promise Neighborhood in Hartford.

Neag kinesiology professor Jennie Bruening knows what the late Jaime Escalante, the math teacher who inspired the film “Stand and Deliver,” and Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone, both know: Low academic performance in deprived communities can’t be chalked up to the kids.

So, Bruening, inspired by Whatever It Takes, a book about the Harlem project, started drawing together like-minded people in Hartford to talk about creating a zone there. She has organized about 60 activists and local leaders who are compiling data about existing programs, demographics and needs with the hope of procuring one of President Obama’s Promise Neighborhood grants.

“I didn’t know about the Harlem Children’s Zone until about two years ago,” Bruening says about the holistic approach to rebuilding a community so that its children can stay on track through college and go on to the job market. But when she read the book, she thought, “Wow, doesn’t this make sense.” She and other organizers represented Hartford at the “Changing the Odds” conference sponsored by the Harlem Zone last year and returned in January with a larger group of Hartford and UConn representatives to visit the 97-block project.

Daryl Rock, superintendent of the Promise Academies in the Harlem Children’s Zone and a University of Hartford graduate, says Bruening and her group have a good energy. “There are a lot of Harlems throughout the country where people in those communities are not doing well in school and wind up in the criminal justice system,” Rock says. “If they get the right adults to implement it, it can work.”

For Bruening, this recent labor is a natural offshoot of her Husky Sport program in Hartford’s North End. Since 2003, she and her students have been going there to be mentors to kids at an elementary school, a recreation center and a Saturday program at the Catholic Worker House. Their mission is to help kids find balance by way of nutrition, education, life skills, sports and physical activity.

“I’m not trying to say that Husky Sport is anything near to what’s going on in Harlem, but it’s parallel thought,” Bruening says.

Longtime neighborhood leaders see Bruening as a perfect fit to get the Hartford project off the ground. “First of all she’s got moxie, compassion, drive,” says Chris Doucot, a North End stalwart who runs the Catholic Worker House with his wife Jackie Allen-Doucot. “She’s level-headed. I think it took somebody who is not a part of Hartford’s past to get the ball rolling on this. She wasn’t mired in the rivalries and the tit for tats. She stands outside that.”

The Husky Sport focus is not a one-shot deal. Students see the kids six days a week and are often greeted with hugs. “Anyone who’s from UConn has an instant in,” Bruening says. “And then you have to prove yourself from there.”

And prove themselves, they do. Students often stay beyond their undergrad years in the field of kinesiology and grow in the program, she says.

Beryl Bailey, director of preK-5 literacy in the Hartford schools, calls Bruening’s UConn students experts in urban education. “She’s mentoring them in the lessons of life that you really can’t get in a college classroom. She provides more than that education they’re paying for,” Bailey says.

Plus, Bailey learned something herself from Bruening’s Husky Sport message to students at Clark School, where Bailey was principal. “She won me over on recess because I thought our kids played too much. They need to sit and read. But that physical activity provides blood to the brain, I got that from Jennie.”

Bruening came to UConn’s Sport Management program in 2002 and directs its laboratory. She is also a fellow with Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society, where she is spending her sabbatical this semester.

Once a part of the city is chosen to beta test the zone project, a community organization will take the lead, she says. “I’m the one pulling all the people together, but I’m not going to be the face of all this.”

Lee Hunt, who is working with Bruening and is executive director of the Blue Hills Civic Association, says that decision is key. “Whoever would be that lead organization, that would be their calling. So they need to be seriously invested in the community and willing to be imbedded in this community.”

With the city’s political past, its divisions and its 30 percent poverty level, the climb will be steep, the organizers agree. So, they are gauging the successful programs and service providers already in place and planning to build on those to create the holistic neighborhood renewal.

“The kids are the link into the family, but the whole family becomes part of the zone,” Bruening says.

In March, Bruening met with faculty and students in the Neag School about a long-term role in the project, drawing on its strengths in research, evaluation, student teaching, outreach, enrichment and learning programs, while factoring in the challenge of academic cycles. She called it an opportunity to be a group partner vs. offering a fragmented approach, a chance to build on how UConn already serves the Hartford community.

About 20 Promise Neighborhood grants will award $500,000, with a $500,000 match required from local sources, for start-up planning. But even if they don’t get the federal money this round, the group is committed to making the Hartford Promise Neighborhood idea happen.

“This isn’t something political that’s going to make someone’s reputation. This is a legitimate chance to change some things that are desperately wrong and unfair,” Bruening says.

Education Leadership Roundtable

Posted on June 1, 2010November 26, 2024 by

Clockwise from bottom center: Moderator Robert M. Villanova '86 Ph.D., Kathleen Binkowski '87 (ED), '95 Ph.D., Alan Bookman '81 Ph.D., Miriam Morales-Taylor '08 (ELP), Alan Addley '04 (ELP) and Pam Aubin '99 6th Year. — Clockwise from bottom center: Moderator Robert M. Villanova ’86 Ph.D., Kathleen Binkowski ’87 (ED), ’95 Ph.D., Alan Bookman ’81 Ph.D., Miriam Morales-Taylor ’08 (ELP), Alan Addley ’04 (ELP) and Pam Aubin ’99 6th Year.

UCONN Magazine and the Neag School of Education brought together five alumni and graduates of the educational leadership certificate program to discuss leadership in Connecticut public schools, moderated by Robert M. Villanova ’86 Ph.D., director of the Executive Leadership Program in the Neag School and former superintendent of schools in Farmington, Conn. Participants included Alan Addley ’04 (ELP), superintendent in Granby (2,700 students); Pam Aubin ’99 6th Year, superintendent in Montville (2,800); Kathleen Binkowski ’87 (ED), ’95 Ph.D., superintendent in Plainville (2,600); Alan Bookman ’81 Ph.D., superintendent in Glastonbury (7,000); and Miriam Morales-Taylor ’08 (ELP), deputy superintendent in Hartford (22,000). According to the Neag School of Education, nearly 30 percent of current state superintendents have completed education leadership programs at UConn.

Read the full article here.