Jamelle Elliott: Where She Is Now
“I learned that what you think is your best is not good enough. There’s always something you can do better, whether in a drill, in a game, or in life. You can practice harder, do it better, and accomplish more than you originally thought you could.” – SPM Alumna, Jamelle Elliott in UConn Today
Student Organizations Husky Sport & Leadership In Diversity, Team Up to Win Ignite Competition for the Second Year in a Row
“The University’s annual Ignite fundraising campaign, a crowdsourcing campaign that engages students and alumni in raising money specifically for UConn student organizations, was held in tandem with UConn Giving Day. The Ignite campaign’s first-place slot was secured by two Neag School-affiliated student organizations: Husky Sport and Leadership in Diversity (L.I.D.). The combined effort of these two student groups locked in first place for the second year in a row among all Ingite student organization fundraisers University-wide, raising more than $5,000 in donations. Having come in first place, they also will receive an additional $5,000 in matching prize money from UConn.” – Neag School of Education
Student-Professional Feature: Ngozi Taffe
In Higher Education, it is not uncommon for students to balance their studies with a full- or part-time job. Many students enrolled in the program of the University of Connecticut’s Department of Educational Leadership (EDLR) are not only students, but working professionals in the field. The “Student-Professionals” series will highlight these hard-working student-professionals and how they balance their responsibilities. This feature focuses on a student-professional in the LLEP Program.
Ngozi Taffe, Director of the Project Management Office in ITS, is working to complete her doctorate in UConn’s Learning, Leadership, and Educational Policy (LLEP) Ph.d. Program. Taffe, who earned a BS in Information Technology and an MBA both from UConn, has returned, after working for 15 years in the corporate world, to implement and support new projects at UConn.
Formerly the Director of Financial Systems at UConn, Taffe’s role evolved to Director of Project Management about a year ago. While the implementation of policy and software has stayed the same, Taffe works to solve more complex issues within the educational arena and change technology for the better to keep up with evolving policies. In her doctoral program, Taffe specializes in studying college persistence within minority populations and addresses the “element of grit that comes to both areas.” Essentially, she’s interested in building software for people while researching about people.
By connecting her research interests to real-life experiences, she is learning “to listen to people express experiences in voice, research factors, and other successes, and capitalize and create a roadmap on those successes.” A road that leads Taffe towards understanding and solving bigger societal issues.
While Taffe’s work is “very rewarding,” balancing school, work, and family obligations continue to be a “juggling act.” On top of being a student-professional, Taffe is both a spouse and a parent and works to fill both shoes while also accomplishing her own personal goals. Taffe does admit though that this kind of lifestyle is not for everybody, but being the continuous learner that she is, she loves to engage in critical research and push her intellectual boundaries. She states, “the benefit of what you’re doing is what drives you.”
“As an adult learner, with several levels of responsibility, there’s a benefit of working and going to school.”
With Neag’s flexibility in providing classes after business hours, Taffe encourages students to take advantage of the available opportunities to gain professional experience while advancing your education. By aligning your work with your academics, with some level of overlap, you learn to make necessary trade-offs which can deepen your level of understanding while pushing you to achieve your long-term goals.
Taffe’s recommendation for other students looking to become student-professionals is to surround yourselves with supportive advisors who understand and appreciate the challenges you’re going through; align yourself with a support/peer group that shares similar interests and goals. As Casey Cobb, her advisor comments,
“She has found a way not only to balance work, life, and student demands, but also found interconnections among all those areas.”
Humans of HESA: Brenna Turer
Long before Brenna Turer (HESA ‘19) found her path in UConn’s Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) master’s program, she knew she would work in education. As an undergraduate at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, she earned her English/Language Arts teaching certificate and was planning to become a middle or high school teacher. At the same time, she worked as a resident assistant (RA) on campus and found herself increasingly drawn to working with students outside of the traditional teaching role.
Upon completing her bachelor’s degree, she decided to follow that growing passion and took a position as a Hall Director at High Point University in North Carolina. That role solidified her desire to pursue student affairs as a career, and so she began to apply for graduate programs. “I wanted a program that would let me continue my practice and also gain the theoretical grounding that would help me support students in all areas of learning,” says Turer. The UConn HESA program, she decided, was just that program.
The most rewarding part of the HESA program, says Turer, has been the relationships she’s built. For her graduate assistantship, she works in UConn Residential Life as an Assistant Residence Hall Director.
“There are some RAs I’ve been supervising since my first semester here at UConn,” says Turer. “I’m so fortunate to get to work and learn with them. A lot of them are getting these awesome jobs or applying to graduate programs themselves now. I feel lucky to be a part of that growing process.”
She also emphasizes the importance of the relationships she’s formed within HESA. “I came in thinking that my faculty advisor, Dr. Castillo-Montoya, would really be the only person I could go to,” she says. “She’s been amazing, but there’s also support all around; other members of my cohort, other faculty members, and practicum supervisors. It’s been especially great to be on the student end of things again, sharing class time with other HESA students.”
Graduate school is not without its challenges, but Turer says she’s managed to learn from the difficult parts. “There was new leadership in my residential area this year, and change can be challenging when you’re working with a group of people,” says Turer. “I learned how to advocate for my students and their voices, and also to help them be open to the change themselves.” As a student and practitioner at the same time, she faces diverse demands on her time that make balance and prioritization key. “A student in a previous HESA cohort once told me, ‘whatever you do, find your people,’” says Turer. “Sometimes it can be hard to find time to spend with ‘my people’–my partner, my friends–but it’s so important. I love going hiking on the weekends, visiting different breweries, just going on adventures.”
Turer’s advice to incoming HESA students is keep things in perspective. “HESA is such a fantastic community and it’s easy to get so wrapped up in the day-to-day, but sometimes you need to remember that there’s life outside of HESA,” says Turer. “Get off campus sometimes; remember that this is one of many parts of your life.” She also highlights the importance of finding your own way in the world of student affairs.
“You don’t always have to follow the ‘typical’ student affairs path; there are so many different paths you can take!” says Turer. “Know who you are, trust yourself, try not to compare yourself to others, and it will all work out.”
HESA Hosts Ice Cream Social In Appreciation
In honor of Graduate Student Appreciation Week, the Higher Education Student Affairs (HESA) program hosted an ice cream social to celebrate its graduate students as well as the campus partners who work to support learning, growth, and development among the HESA students. The event took place on the UConn Storrs campus on April 4, 2019. Visit UConn Neag’s Facebook album to view all the photos from the event.
Humans of HESA: Alfredo Ramirez
Alfredo Ramirez (HESA ‘19) didn’t begin his undergraduate career thinking he would eventually pursue a master’s degree in higher education and student affairs. But thanks to his undergraduate experience at Montclair State University, Ramirez realized he had a passion for the field. As an undergraduate, he was actively involved in a host of student clubs and organizations such as residential life, student government, student programming, the student leadership office, and many more. These experiences led Ramirez to his current path in UConn’s Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) master’s program.
Ramirez has a busy schedule in the HESA program, including coursework, a faculty-led mentorship, and a graduate assistantship. In his assistantship for the Department of Student Activities-Leadership and Organizational Development, Ramirez works one-on-one with UConn students as they complete their undergraduate experience and transition into the next phase of their lives. “I enjoy getting to support my students and watching their growth as leaders from day one of the semester to the last day of the year. There is a special component of watching some of my students graduate and prepare to take the next steps in their journey, and it means so much to me that they allow me to be a part of their journey,” says Ramirez.
Balancing school and the rest of his life can be a challenge, says Ramirez. At the end of the day, though, Ramirez is thankful for the opportunity to build relationships with other members of his HESA cohort and to improve himself as a professional in this field. Ramirez says that his HESA cohort, faculty, and his advisor Dr. Castillo-Montoya have been an enormous source of support, in school and beyond, as well as his family, fiancee, and friends.
While the majority of his time is dedicated to HESA, Ramirez makes sure to spend time with friends and family. Originally from New Jersey, Ramirez enjoys exploring New England’s unique attractions: watching the Red Sox at Fenway Park, eating an authentic lobster roll, and visiting local breweries. Ramirez’s favorite local spot is the popular diner the Cosmic Omelette in Manchester, CT. Ramirez also enjoys baking, reading, and theatre. Nevertheless, says Ramirez, “it’s important to come back to these little things– they ground you.”
To prospective HESA students, Ramirez notes that graduate school is not easy: “In order to really learn, you have to know that you want to come here. You have to really want it– it can’t just be for fun.” Ramirez likens graduate school to being behind the scenes at an amusement park: “when you step from a student leadership position out of undergrad into a masters student affairs program, you go from being a participant of all the great things a park has to offer to the person who is making the decisions which can be a tough transition for folks. The process though is worth it.”
When faced with challenges, Ramirez urges students to keep an open mind in all areas of their personal and professional lives. “Navigating the system can be difficult at times,” he says. “It’s important to maintain your own sense of self and allow your personal values to flourish in the many relationships you will build.” Ramirez reminds students to “not be afraid to change or ask yourself questions. This is what grad school is all about.”
Batista Earns Graduate Student of the Year Award
Congrats to LLEP student Pauline Batista for recently receiving the Graduate Student of the Year Award from the UConn NAACP Youth & College Chapter. This honor recognizes her strong character, commitment, and academic achievements towards UConn students and the community!
Staying in Storrs: Adult Learning Alumnus, Kevin Thompson, Ph.D.
The University of Connecticut’s Department of Educational Leadership is fortunate to have well-connected alumni who continue to work with the university post-graduation or who have returned after years of work in diverse professional settings. The “Staying in Storrs” series highlights our talented EDLR program alumni and the work they are currently doing with UConn. This feature focuses on the Adult Learning Ph.D. Program.
Dr. Kevin Thompson, Assistant Professor in Residence in the UConn School of Business’ Management Department, is no newcomer to the UConn community: he is also an alumnus. He earned his Ph.D. in Adult Learning from the Neag School of Education and decided to bring his expertise back to UConn to work with the next generation of business professionals.
After 30 years in the corporate world and earning a Ph.D., Thompson decided to leave his senior management position and return to Storrs to share his skills and knowledge with business students. He says he hopes to provide students with the same experiences and opportunities he received during his time as a student. Thompson’s mission to help students achieve success is clear in his research.
“My research focuses on how to enhance learning for the millennial generation and how service-learning impacts career success,” says Thompson.
Using his research as a foundation, Thompson has introduced experiential, project-based learning to the Business School curriculum. In December of 2018, Thompson was awarded the UConn Provost Award for Engaged Scholarship for Non-Tenure Track Faculty, which recognized his dedication to pairing community engagement and student success.
During his time as a Ph.D. student in the Adult Learning Program, Thompson said he wrote a paper that compared and contrasted adult learning scholarship and practice. Ever since that paper, he has been fascinated by the role scholarly research plays in improving lives and increasing student success. Thompson says his experience as a UConn student played a big role in his professional success. “I find that relationships can be even more important for career success than your level of technical expertise,” says Thompson. “In my Ph.D. program, I was able to develop relationships with both other students and faculty that are an essential part of my support network to this day.”
Thompson says that the most fulfilling part of his faculty position is the regular experience of engaging with students and helping them achieve their learning and career goals. “Not a day goes by that this effort does not bring me satisfaction,” says Thompson. “It drives me to try to create an even more valuable experience for the students I teach.”
Overall, Thompson describes his UConn experience as “inspired” and says that it’s important to take opportunities to pause and reflect on one’s life and career.
“It is heartwarming and inspiring to know that I’ve come to a place in my career where I can leverage all that’s been given to me for the benefit of UConn students.”
The War on Women Coaches
EDLR’s Dr. Laura Burton co-authors original commentary on women in sport by The Conversation
Research Shows That Charters Do Best for California’s Low-Income and Minority Students. Now Lawmakers There Want to Slow Their Expansion
RESEARCH Series: Community Partnerships
On the topic of community partnerships, Drs. Jennifer McGarry and Justin Evanovich strongly agree: relationships must be the priority. McGarry and Evanovich co-direct Husky Sport, a campus-community partnership between UConn’s Neag School of Education and a community in Hartford’s North End that uses sport and nutrition education to promote equity, empowerment, and growth, both for students in Hartford and at UConn.
The partnership as a whole, which has been going strong for nearly sixteen years now, has never been a “top-down” experience, says McGarry: “It has been community relationships from the beginning. It was never ‘this is what we do, can we do it at your school?’ It was getting to know kids, families, teachers and coaches in other spaces– in afterschool and weekend programs, in community sports– and starting from there. The partnership was built slowly and intentionally with the kids, the families, and eventually the teachers.”
Since 2005, the project has been generously grant-funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s SNAP-Ed program, and currently Husky Sport is present in the North End of Hartford six days a week leading in-school, after-school, and weekend programming. While the in-school programming takes place at the Fred D. Wish Museum School, Husky Sport staff and students also lead programs at multiple after-school and weekend partner sites such as the Hartford Catholic Worker and Salvation Army North End Corps.
Partnerships such as this incorporate many different components, including research, but Evanovich emphasizes that research cannot be the core directive if equity is the goal. “Genuine community partnerships and research can easily be in conflict with one another,” he says. “We have to put relationships first, we can’t lead with research. If we did, we’d be putting the university, the college students, and the faculty at risk of being exploitative. We have to own that risk and actively fight against it, and that starts with valuing the voices of people in the community, with prioritizing their goals. We want quality experiences and opportunities to be there for the young people; if we’re not placing that first, we can lose the focus of what it is we’re trying to do.”
With this understanding in mind, the research that does take place within the Husky Sport program is carefully and intentionally facilitated. The research falls into three main areas. The first focuses on the Hartford students’ experience with the various Husky Sport programs, as well as the experience of their families, and uses a sport-based youth development framework. The second line of research focuses on the experience of UConn college student participants in a critical service learning framework. The final area focuses on the campus-community partnership itself, which is a topic of increasing interest in campuses and communities around the country. “The research, much like the partnership, is always evolving,” says McGarry. “With our college-student-focused research, for example, we used to use a service learning framework, but we’re now emphasizing more of a critical service learning approach. We hope this research impacts the way people understand and problematize service.”
Another important aspect of the partnership is internal assessment, an area in which Evanovich feels they have made great strides over the years. “Firstly, a lot of our ‘assessment’ is informal, it’s in our everyday relationships. Lots of exchanges of ‘how did it go, how did you like this, what would you like to see?’ It’s a process of analysis that’s part of the everyday fabric of our partnership,” says Evanovich. “And when we do conduct more formal assessment, we’ve made huge improvements. We try never to have students sit in their seats and complete a survey using a pencil. Everything’s active: it aligns with our Husky Sport pillars of activity. Everyone’s up and moving, placing stickers, competing in relay races– it’s fun and engaging.” Evanovich credits many of these improvements to the learning that took place during an exchange program between UConn and the University of Western Cape in South Africa. “Folks from UConn were able to go to communities in the Western Cape and see those techniques being implemented,” says Evanovich. “And we’re still growing: now we’re working on faster turnaround for change based on feedback from kids, teachers, and families.”
The partnership has faced its fair share of challenges since its inception in 2003. “Navigating changes that are out of our control can be difficult,” says McGarry. “Husky Sport is affected by shifts in leadership in the school, the university, the city, and even the state and federal governments. At one point, the school we had been at for about nine years closed, and then those students were reassigned to three different schools, and we had to split our program up among multiple locations. Then the following year, those students were shifted back into one school. It forces us to be creative; we changed our strategies and approaches and found ways to make things work. It can be challenging, but when we figure it out it can be very rewarding.”
Like any good partnership, Husky Sport is always a work in progress.
“We are always learning,” says Evanovich. “With everything we do, we can’t just be a university coming in from the outside as experts. The community we’re partnered with is within a six-block radius, and it’s full of love and care and skill and hard work, but it’s also systemically and historically oppressed. We can’t run disconnected youth development programs; we can’t talk about food that people can’t access, we can’t talk about sports that people can’t play. We have to make sure we prioritize the talents, the strengths, and the realities that the people in this community bring to the table every day.”
Looking ahead, McGarry and Evanovich hope to improve and expand the partnership while staying in the same community. They are currently in the conceptual stages of a partnership with Neag’s Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s Teacher Education Program which would bring more Neag students to Fred D. Wish School, and they are also preparing for more change: the Wish School’s student body is about to grow, and it will shift from being a K-8 to a PreK-5 school. Both McGarry and Evanovich point to their fellow Neag faculty and staff as leaders in community-based research, partnership, and change. “We have many talented folks as colleagues,” says Evanovich. “Their ongoing support and collaboration is vital to Husky Sport.” The Department of Educational Leadership is proud to support Husky Sport’s work toward equitable, community-led, positive change in Hartford, Storrs, and beyond.
Silence, Power and Privilege in the Classroom
Last week, Drs. Milagros Castillo-Montoya and Erica Fernández, two EDLR faculty members who are connected with UConn’s El Foco research community, organized and supported Dr. Gilda Laura Ochoa, the featured guest speaker who joined UConn’s faculty, staff and students for an engaging discussion on education, during the annual plática. The event pushed participants to identify power, privilege and silences within the classroom and encouraged students to be successful while and reminding teachers to be mindful.
Read the full story by The Daily Campus.
Courses and Curriculum: EDLR 3345
UConn’s Department of Educational Leadership (EDLR) offers a rich and diverse curriculum that prepares both undergraduate and graduate students to be educational leaders in our ever-changing world. The “Courses and Curriculum” series highlights innovative courses within EDLR’s catalog that are changing the education game for the better.
In EDLR 3345: Financial Management in the Sport Industry, taught by Professor Laura Burton, Ph.D., is an undergraduate course which provides Sport Management majors with an understanding of the financial principles relevant to the sport industry. The course examines basic financial concepts and issues related to sport, and offers an overview of ownership, taxation, financial analysis, feasibility and economic impact studies within the sport industry.
Burton identified a need for this content and added the course to the curriculum, five years ago. While Burton’s research is centered around leadership in sport organizations and gender issues in sport, EDLR 3345 pushed her outside of her traditional area of expertise, offering a great opportunity and challenge. Having an applied math-based course helps to answer real-world questions within the sport industry, one that the students are benefiting from.
As sport organizations attempt to create a more inclusive space, in regards to social and gender identity, people in higher level positions are faced with some important questions. In what ways can professional sport organizations maximize revenue? And who benefits? What communities are disadvantaged? Burton explains how not only do students consider the financial impact of budget cuts within the sport industry, for example, but the social impact as well. Such a fundamental course provides students with the tools to build on their understanding of budgets and further develop these ideas in other related and unrelated fields.
By using practical applications and case studies, Burton is able to create real-life scenarios depicting real-life budgeting dilemmas. In one such budgeting case, Burton presents a $40,000 budget cut and challenges her students to make the cut in the most effective manner. The experiment suggests that such a cut would leave athletes without scholarships, slash salaries, and limit job availability.
One of the biggest challenges Burton says especially with a course that is math-related is helping students get over the “math-hating mentality.” Burton admits that there was a lot that she had to learn and continues to learn alongside her students. Within education, it’s easy to experience feelings of frustration and anxiety when learning something new, but she continues to push herself and her students and says,
“Sometimes we forget what it feels like to be the student and sit in the seat.”
Courses and Curriculum: EDLR 5105
UConn’s Department of Educational Leadership (EDLR) offers a rich and diverse curriculum that prepares both undergraduate and graduate students to be educational leaders in our ever-changing world. The “Courses and Curriculum” series highlights innovative courses within EDLR’s catalog that are changing the education game for the better.
The Department of Educational Leadership’s (EDLR) master’s program in Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) boasts a robust curriculum that prepares students to be well-rounded and reflective student affairs practitioners. EDLR 5105: Structured Group Dialogue in Student Affairs is both an innovative and integral part of the HESA curriculum, giving students a space to consider how dialogue, and intergroup dialogue specifically, can be a tool to explore their own racial identity and socialization, as well as the identities and processes of socialization of others. Students in the course are continually asked to reflect on the personal, professional, and educational implications of their learning. These insights and processes help the students learn how to dialogue with others who have varying perspectives given their own identities and socialization– a much-needed process on college campuses today.
Students in EDLR 5105 engage in dialogue with each other as an entire class as well as in smaller, intra-class groups. One of the major aspects of the course is the Intergroup Collaboration Project (ICP), which, as the closing project for the course, encourages action as a result of learning. Students work alongside their cohort members in assigned groups to create visual representations of their learning, specifically around race and intergroup dialogue in student affairs practice. Through the ICP projects, students dialogue across differences to arrive at an understanding of that year’s selected theme: in 2016, the theme was “allyship;” in 2017 it was “social responsibility;” and in 2018 it was “disrupting race talk.” These visual representations are then shared with the larger UConn community in the form of a HESA Gallery Walk, which engages the larger UConn community in dialogue about race and higher education.
The course is co-taught by Dr. Milagros Castillo-Montoya (she/her/hers) and Danielle DeRosa (she/her/hers). It was Castillo-Montoya who lead the charge several years ago to update HESA’s existing groups-based course. As part of her research on teaching in higher education, she had begun to explore intergroup dialogue, and in the winter of 2015 she was part of a six-person UConn delegation that attended the University of Michigan’s intergroup dialogue training program. Upon her return, she worked with the department chair to incorporate her valuable training into the course, which was first offered in its renovated form in the fall of 2016. The course, which follows the University of Michigan model, is co-taught by design: its two instructors have different social identities which are aligned with focus of the course. In UConn HESA’s case, the central focus of the course is race.
The course is divided into four phases: Forming and Building Relationships, Exploring Differences and Commonalities of Experience, Exploring and Dialoguing About Contentious Issues, and Alliance Building and Social Responsibility. In each phase, says DeRosa, students are both learners and teachers: “My favorite part of teaching this course is learning with and from our students. Students in the HESA program think deeply about the ways in which college campuses can be more inclusive. As a community, we are each able to contribute from our own unique perspectives and lived experiences.”
Castillo-Montoya reaffirms the importance of bringing one’s unique identities and experiences to the course. “My lived experience as a Latina, first-generation college graduate from a low-income background informs my teaching of this course. So does my research expertise in teaching and learning in higher education,” says Castillo-Montoya. “From these experiences, I understand that the content of the course isn’t something ‘out there’ to be learned; it is inside each of us as we unpack our own assumptions and understandings about ourselves, others, and society relative to race. Then we can consider how those things impact our practice”
For DeRosa, her experience working with Husky Sport, a campus-community partnership between UConn and a community in the North End of Hartford, has been important to her ability to complexly and responsibly co-teach this course. “I have had to examine my own positionality as a white woman engaged in work in a neighborhood mostly comprised of people of color. I’ve had to do a lot of the work that we are asking our students to do in the course, and this is work that I continue to invest in; the process of learning about and unlearning our own socialization never ends. It can be helpful to share the journey of understanding my own racial identity as I connect with students.”
Kayla Moses (she/her/hers, HESA ‘20), a student in the course this past fall, says she has learned a great deal about the impact of socialization and the power of her identity. “Within the context of this course, I became more aware of how the world around us, along with our personal stories, can impact the way that we think and develop,” says Moses. “I became more aware of my position as a woman of color and how that has affected my learning. This course allowed me to not only expand my understanding of how my identity can help me relate to my current and future students of color, but also to realize that sharing the load with white peers and colleagues is the only way that this work can be done effectively.”
Fellow student Steven Feldman (he/him/his, HESA ‘20) says that the course opened his eyes to important differences between one-on-one and group dialogue. “In one-on-one conversations, it is more difficult to avoid or disengage from conversations about race, but in group conversations, it is easier to fall into racialized scripts of behavior,” says Feldman. “When this happens, white folks like me tend to stay silent either because we do not feel like we have the tools to talk about race yet or because we are experiencing the discomfort of talking about race. This course challenged me to reflect on my identities and consider the consequences of my words and behaviors in group contexts.”
Castillo-Montoya and DeRosa, who just completed their third year teaching this course together, say it was their best co-teaching semester yet. Along with several of their students, they recently presented on the course at the 2019 ACPA (College Student Educators International) Annual Convention in Boston, Massachusetts. “Having this course makes UConn HESA one of only a handful of programs in the country that includes education on intergroup dialogue as part of their curriculum for future higher education and student affairs practitioners,” says Castillo-Montoya. “Practitioners in the field are increasingly competent in social justice and inclusion, and we want our graduates to be well prepared for their work with diverse students on diverse college campuses.”
“EDLR as a department has supported the development of this course from the outset,” says department head Dr. Jennifer McGarry. “We sent several faculty members to participate in the intergroup dialogue training at the University of Michigan, supported time and space to share about that experience, and encouraged the faculty who took part to integrate their learning with other opportunities to study, participate in, and lead dialogue about race. EDLR is committed to the course, the instructors, and the students: we see this teaching and learning as integral to who we are and what we value.” EDLR 5105 aligns with the Department of Educational Leadership’s mission to “inspire and cultivate innovative leaders for positive change” and Neag’s mission to develop leaders dedicated to improving education for all. The Department of Educational Leadership is proud to have talented teachers such as Dr. Milagros Castillo-Montoya and Danielle DeRosa doing the important work of opening and deepening dialogue on college campuses and beyond.
Neag School Accolades – February-March 2019
Congratulations to our Neag School alumni, faculty, staff, and students on their continued accomplishments inside and outside the classroom, outlined in this month’s issue of Neag School Accolades.
Joseph Cooper Releases New Book: From Exploitation Back to Empowerment
The Neag School of Education covers Sport Management’s Dr. Joseph Cooper, who recently released a new book, From Exploitation Back to Empowerment: Black Male Holistic (Under)Development Through Sport and (Mis)Education which was inspired by his research on the intersection between sport, education, race, and culture and the impact of sport involvement on the holistic development of Black male athletes. Read the full story here.