Like most kids heading into seventh grade, Jesús Cortés-Sanchez was not yet thinking ahead to a future career. What mattered most then was enjoying time with his friends. Even into his high school years, the idea of going to college was not on his mind. An undocumented student ineligible to apply for federal student aid, he viewed college as an unrealistic, financially impossible feat. All of that would start to change when a recent Yale School of Music graduate named John Miller began recruiting students to a new band program he had established at Cortés-Sanchez’s middle school in New Haven, Conn.

Two research projects co-led by professors in the Neag School of Education have recently been awarded a total of more than $2.5 million in federal funding, made available through the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Jason Courtmanche ’91 (CLAS), Ph.D. ’06 has been serving in a variety of capacities at the University of Connecticut for 23 years. A lecturer in the University’s English department, an assistant coordinator of the Early College Experience English program, and affiliate faculty in the Neag School’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, he primarily serves as director of the Connecticut Writing Project (CWP), which immerses Connecticut teachers in an intensive writing program where they grow as writers, learn about teaching writing, and have the opportunity to become published in one of CWP’s literary magazines.

The Neag School of Education has made a concerted effort to increase diversity in the teacher preparation program, with a view to putting more teachers of color in classrooms.

Catherine Little of UConn's Neag School of Education says the 'help so-and-so' strategy to keep gifted students busy in the classroom often has limited benefit to the peer tutors.