{"id":106534,"date":"2015-12-08T15:15:53","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T20:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.today.uconn.edu\/?post_type=school-college-post&p=105710"},"modified":"2015-12-10T15:40:34","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T20:40:34","slug":"neag-school-hosts-inaugural-educational-leadership-alumni-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2015\/12\/neag-school-hosts-inaugural-educational-leadership-alumni-forum\/","title":{"rendered":"Neag School Hosts Inaugural Educational Leadership Alumni Forum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before an audience of more than 125 friends, colleagues, Neag School graduates, students, and faculty, two high-profile Neag School alumni took to the stage this Tuesday at UConn\u2019s von der Mehden Hall in Storrs to share their insights on leadership, as well as their own preparation program experience at UConn, as part of the School\u2019s inaugural educational leadership alumni forum.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Leadership Is Not About You\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Desi<\/a>
\u201cYou were never on an island by yourself,\u201d says three-time Neag School alum Desi Nesmith of his time in the UConn Administrator Preparation Program (UCAPP) at the Neag School. Nesmith served as one of the featured speakers at the Neag School\u2019s inaugural educational leadership alumni event, held at von der Mehden Hall this past November. (Photo Credit\/Shawn Kornegay)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three-time Neag School alum Desi Nesmith \u201901 (ED), \u201902 MA, \u201909 UCAPP, now chief school turnaround officer for Connecticut\u2019s state Department of Education, spoke in part about some of the challenges currently facing many school districts \u2013 particularly large, urban districts \u2013 across the country, including negative perceptions, teacher turnover, and the ever-present pressure to raise student achievement.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the pressure to perform becomes so great, we oftentimes forget what we need to focus on in the classroom at the student level,\u201d said Nesmith, who has previously served as an elementary schoolteacher and principal in Connecticut, and in 2014 received the prestigious Milken Educator Award. \u201cAs school and district leaders, what are we going to do about it? The keyword there is \u2018we.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood leaders don\u2019t do it alone. They create a community of leaders around them \u2013 people they want to support, people they want to empower.\u201d
\n\u2013Desi Nesmith \u201901(ED), \u201902 MA, \u201909 UCAPP<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to Nesmith, being a skillful educational leader is about far more than \u201chaving a business card and your name plate on the door.\u201d It requires collaboration \u2013 successfully getting parents, students, as well as teachers to \u201cbuy into your vision and help you move it forward.\u201d Leadership, he added, \u201cis not about you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nesmith also emphasized the time and investment it takes to shape qualified educational leaders, and credits the UConn Administrator Preparation Program (UCAPP) <\/a>with providing the vision and robust set of learning experiences \u2013 including a cohort model and thoughtful internship placement \u2013 that he believes are necessary to creating well-rounded leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood leaders aren\u2019t made in a day, a week, or a month,\u201d he said. \u201cIt takes time. It takes experience. Good leaders don\u2019t do it alone. They create a community of leaders around them \u2013 people they want to support, people they want to empower.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evolution of a Leader<\/strong><\/p>\n

Garth Harries \u201912 ELP, superintendent of New Haven Public Schools, also spoke about how his Neag School experience, as part of the Executive Leadership Program (ELP)<\/a>, helped shape his own evolution as a leader.<\/p>\n

\"Garth<\/a>
\u201cWhat I\u2019ve come to understand is \u2026 the need to engage the full community,\u201d says Garth Harries \u201912 (ELP), who spoke on leadership as a featured speaker at the Neag School\u2019s inaugural educational leadership alumni event this past week. (Photo Credit\/Shawn Kornegay)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Harries shared a story from his time in a previous role in New York City, where he led a controversial decision to close Bushwick High School in Brooklyn. Though he initially faced great opposition from the community, Harries ultimately opened three new, successful small schools in place of Bushwick High, and the graduation rate tripled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I left New York \u2013 before I went through the Neag program \u2013 I had one perspective on that: It was a lesson in what is possible, on the urgency of the work we do,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a lesson in the inevitability of controversy as we try our mightiest to provide the education we believe our students deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now an ELP grad and a third-year superintendent, Harries says: \u201cI\u2019ve come to see other layers of that story.\u201d<\/p>\n

In part, he told the audience, \u201cWhere I once may have taken a somewhat paternalistic sense [that] we did what was right, and in the end we were successful, what I\u2019ve come to understand is \u2026 the need to engage the full community.\u201d Harries talked about bringing the lessons he learned at the Neag School with him to New Haven \u2013 for instance, involving the teacher\u2019s union in education reform efforts, acknowledging the importance of the instructional core, and coming to the understanding that \u201cstudents are not just evidence of success; they are agents of success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following their talks, Nesmith and Harries together fielded questions from the audience.<\/p>\n

Are you an aspiring school leader? Find further information about the Neag School\u2019s Executive Leadership Program (ELP)<\/a> or UConn Administrator Preparation Program (UCAPP) <\/a>today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before an audience of more than 125 friends, colleagues, Neag School graduates, students, and faculty, two high-profile Neag School alumni took to the stage this Tuesday at UConn\u2019s von der Mehden Hall in Storrs to share their insights on leadership, as well as their own preparation program experience at UConn, as part of the School\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":106890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1878],"class_list":["post-106534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-09 21:29:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/106890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106534"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=106534"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=106534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}