Neag kinesiology professor Jennie Bruening knows what the late Jaime Escalante, the math teacher who inspired the film “Stand and Deliver,” and Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone, both know: Low academic performance in deprived communities can’t be chalked up to the kids.
So, Bruening, inspired by Whatever It Takes, a book about the Harlem project, started drawing together like-minded people in Hartford to talk about creating a zone there. She has organized about 60 activists and local leaders who are compiling data about existing programs, demographics and needs …

Janet McAllister, a TCPCG student teacher at Southington High School last spring, works on a hydroponics system with her environmental science students.

A large jump in the number of applicants to a Neag School of Education teacher preparation program means 50 more highly trained science and math teachers will enter Connecticut’s schools over the next several years. This comes at a time when both the state and nation are reporting critical teacher shortages in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics most often referred to as STEM; and just weeks …

Three significant gifts totaling close to $500,000 will help support the CommPACT School Reform Initiative, based at the Neag School of Education. The innovative program, designed to improve student achievement and school climate, recently received $250,000 from The NEA Foundation, $195,000 from the Lloyd G. Balfour Foundation and more than $50,000 from AT&T Cconnecticut.
CommPACT was developed in 2008 by an unusual collaboration involving the teachers’ unions, three school administrator organizations and a research university and is funded, in large part, by a state appropriation.
AT&T Connecticut’s gift of $53,500 will support …

Patients, Students and Research Benefit

A new location, more space and additional technology are just some of the adjustments made at the Nayden Rehabilitation Clinic to launch it as an independent health care provider in eastern Connecticut and expand its services.
Until December, the clinic was affiliated with Windham Hospital, which was responsible for billing and administrative oversight. But now, with a major investment by the University of Connecticut and the state’s approval, the clinic is solely run by the Neag School of Education’s Department of Kinesiology.
“We’ve invested more than $1 million …

The Charles B. Gentry Building is now a comfortable, attractive home for Neag School faculty, staff and students. The $10 million overhaul of the original side of the building came in on time, and reopened in January (In 2003, a large wing and atrium was added to the building’s west side).
During the holiday break, faculty, who were spread out over campus during the summer and fall semesters, were moved into their new offices and are grouped according to common areas of interest. The renovated space, which is architecturally compatible with the …