Alumni
Reimagining the Ballpark Experience Amid COVID-19
Andrew Girard MA ’19 has been preparing for baseball’s opening day since this past September. As the stadium operations manager for the Hartford Yard Goats, Girard oversees the maintenance and facility enhancement projects at Dunkin’ Donuts Park in Hartford, Connecticut. When he learned that the season start date would be delayed due to COVID-19, he and his team began creating systems to ensure that fans would feel comfortable and safe when they were able to return to the park.
Reading and Language Arts Center Champions Literacy Amid Pandemic
In the wake of the pandemic, schools have pivoted to online learning. Rachael Gabriel, associate professor of literacy education and director of Neag School of Education’s Reading and Language Arts Center, knew she wanted to help the education community amid this major shift.
Students Build Fictional World With Real Educational Impact
Polykosmia is a universe dreamed up by students in two classes led this spring by Stephen Slota (he/him, they/them), Neag School assistant professor-in-residence of educational technology. The project, an exercise in both worldbuilding and lesson planning, involved designing everything from mythologies to local governments to individual character arcs. Students also learned how to adapt worldbuilding activities into K–12 classrooms and how to design lesson plans that connected story objectives in a fictional world with learning objectives in the classroom.
10 Questions: Neag School Distinguished Alumna Bert Wachtelhausen
Former UConn women’s basketball player and recreational therapy graduate Bert Wachtelhausen ’81 (ED) has shaped a thriving career combining skills she honed as a Division I athlete with her longtime interests in physical health and helping others. Climbing the corporate health insurance ladder in what for many years remained a male-dominated industry, Wachtelhausen has long since shattered the glass ceiling to excel as a senior executive who now serves as president of startup WellSpark Health.
Connecticut’s 2020 Letters About Literature Contest Winners Named
The Neag School of Education, UConn’s Department of English, and the Connecticut Writing Project (CWP) at UConn are proud to announce Connecticut’s winners of the 26th annual Letters About Literature competition, a nationwide contest sponsored by the Library of Congress for students in grades 4 through 12.
Follow Iditarod’s 2020 Teacher on the Trail: Kelly Villar ’06 MA
Kelly (Heffley) Villar ’06 MA, a second-grade teacher for the past 16 years at Southeast Elementary School in Mansfield, Conn., was selected as the Iditarod Teacher on the Trail for 2020. The race officially began March 7, and Villar has been tracking her experience with blog posts and photos on the Iditarod’s Teacher on the Trail blog since arriving in Alaska in February.
Neag School Announces Recipients of 2020 Alumni Board Scholarship
Jenna Karvelis ’20 (ED), ’21 MA and Ajane Santora-Fyne ’20 (ED), ’21 MA, both students in the Neag School Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s Program, have been named the recipients of the Neag School of Education Alumni Board Scholarship for 2020.
UConn Magazine: Stressed? Be Stoic
Can the teachings of ancient Stoic philosophers like Epictetus can help us temper our response to the everyday tensions of life?
