Sponsored by CEA and California Casualty, the second-annual CEA Teacher Appreciation Day at Rentschler Field featured complimentary hot breakfast for CEA members and guests, along with music, a fan photo booth, and games of cornhole, football toss, and ladder golf. Teachers were also treated to dozens of prizes that included CEA and UConn Neag School of Education swag, as well as tickets to concerts and Broadway shows at Waterbury’s Palace Theater, a CEA Member Benefits partner.

Uyi Osunde, principal of Windsor High School since 2016, has accepted the position of school superintendent in Stratford. A former defensive end and co-captain for the UConn football team in 2003 who played briefly in the NFL, Osunde earned a bachelor’s in psychology from UConn, then later earned a master’s in educational psychology and a doctorate in educational leadership. He is also a graduate of the Executive Leadership Program at UConn’s Neag School of Education.

Seeking mental health care can be a hard decision, especially for student-athletes in the spotlight on college campuses. The stereotypes and expectations can weigh heavily on players, putting them in a unique position few understand better than Clewiston Challenger, an assistant professor of counseling in the Neag School of Education and a former UConn football player.

Hartford Courant (Neag School alumnus, current Ed.D. student, and former UConn football player, Uyi Osunde, is the new principal)

This past fall, Neag Assistant Professor Joseph Cooper began reaching out to black male student-athletes at UConn, gathering them for a new grassroots effort called Collective Uplift, which seeks to empower, educate, and inspire ethnic minorities at UConn to maximize their full potential as holistic individuals, not exclusively in the realm of athletics, but also beyond.