One day, Laura Crow and her students are headed to a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. Another day, they’re in Manhattan shopping for fabric. “One of my missions is to make my students less afraid of New York City,” says Crow, a professor of dramatic arts specializing in costume design. “There’s so much available there for them.”

Two faculty members in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences have received National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellowships to undertake scholarly projects. They are among 74 faculty from around the country to receive NEH fellowships or faculty research awards this year.

A nine-month study by a state economist indicates that ongoing operations at the University of Connecticut and its Health Center added $2.3 billion to Connecticut’s gross domestic product in fiscal year 2008. The University also generates more than 29,000 jobs across the state and produces a net financial gain for the state of more than $76 million each year, the study found.

A new initiative is underway at the John Dempsey Hospital to meet the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs of patients who are seriously ill or coping with persistent pain.

When Patricia McCoy was a law professor in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1990s, each day she drove through a neighborhood called Hough that was changing before her eyes. Once stricken by poverty and riots and long-sullied by empty storefronts and ramshackle homes, it began undergoing a transformation, thanks to new public and private investment in the area.