UConn alumni groups across the country will be volunteering in their communities during the month of April.

Faculty in the Neag School teacher education program this March brought together more than 70 people — from current students and alumni to local educators and school administrators — for an interactive discussion focused on the theme of “Teaching in Turbulent Times.” Prompted by ongoing discussion in recent months among faculty and educators about political divides surfacing in today’s classrooms, the event — led by Dorothea Anagnostopoulos, executive director of teacher education at the Neag School — was intended to serve as an opportunity for a diverse range of people in the education field to network and speak openly, offering suggestions and concerns.

The Neag School of Education has long dedicated itself to providing aspiring educators with in-depth, firsthand experience in the classroom as part of its rigorous teacher education program. Its partners include numerous schools across the state of Connecticut at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. For the past 10 years, E.B. Kennelly, a public neighborhood elementary school in Hartford, Conn., has been one of those school partners — and an exemplary one at that, having been recognized this past year with the National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER) Richard W. Clark Exemplary Partner School Award for 2016. The award recognizes a partner school collaboration that is advancing the complex work of developing, sustaining, and renewing partner schools.

A three-year public health campaign to encourage people to consumer fewer sugary drinks led to a drop in sales of those drinks by nearly 20 percent.

Pediatric cancer researcher Dr. Ching Lau is spearheading IBM's global crowdsourcing research effort to find new treatments for childhood cancer in the U.S.