In This Section:
Neag School receives grant to study Internet literacy
Elliot Memorial Scholarship established in law
Language scholarship honors Dorothy Maguire
GE endow scholarships for African American engineers
to study Internet literacy
Research team will be led by Donald Leu, noted reading specialist
Photo: Al Ferreira
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| Donald Leu, UConn professor of curriculum and instruction, is leading a study to determine new methodologies for understanding reading comprehension on the Internet. |
A three-year, $1.8 million research grant from the U.S. Department of Education to the Neag School of Education will advance the study of new methodologies for understanding reading comprehension on the Internet.
The research program, which began July 1, will identify the critical new skills and strategies needed by students to be successful at reading and learning with online information. It will also study how best to teach these new literacies.
The study team is led by Donald Leu, professor of curriculum and instruction, who is a nationally prominent specialist in reading and Internet technologies. Leu holds the John and Maria Neag Chair in Literacy and Technology, a joint appointment in the departments of curriculum and instruction and educational psychology. He also is president of the National Reading Conference, the largest professional organization devoted solely to reading research.
“Online reading comprehension is different from reading books, but as yet we know remarkably little about the differences. As a result, our schools have not built the new literacies of online reading comprehension into their curricula,” says Leu.
The Neag School is collaborating with Clemson University in the program, working with seventh-grade students in rural South Carolina and urban Connecticut — typically low-achieving readers who are most at risk of dropping out of school. The research will focus on increasing students’ ability to identify important problems and then locate, critically evaluate, synthesize and communicate information as they go about solving those problems online.
“This significant grant is a testament to the importance and value of Don Leu’s research,” says Neag Dean Richard Schwab. “It is also a critical indicator that our efforts to become one of the nation’s top 20 schools of education by strategically investing in faculty and programs are right on target.”
Leu’s research team includes Douglas Hartman, associate professor of curriculum and instruction, and three UConn graduate students — doctoral candidates Jill Castek and Julie Coiro and master’s degree candidate Laurie Henry.
“This project will provide the research base to help prepare students for the reading and information demands of the 21st century,” says Leu. “We see the Internet as this generation’s defining technology for information, communication and learning. We need to provide educators with strategies to use the Internet to prepare all students for the futures they deserve in a world in which more reading will take place online than in books.”
established in law
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| Ralph Gregory Elliot |
A new endowed scholarship has been established at the School of Law by the law firm Tyler Cooper & Alcorn and the Hartford Courant.
The Ralph Gregory Elliot Memorial Scholarship honors the late Ralph Gregory Elliot, partner of Tyler Cooper & Alcorn, longtime outside counsel to the Courant and adjunct professor at the UConn School of Law.
Elliot’s professional association with the Hartford Courant spanned more than 40 years. He was a champion of the First Amendment and a trusted collaborator with generations of Courant editors. Since 1974, Elliot had taught courses on media and the law and legal ethics at the School of Law as an adjunct professor. Last October, the school awarded Elliot its Medal of Excellence.
The scholarship is intended to provide support for students enrolled at the UConn law school, with preference given to students with undergraduate degrees from Yale, Elliot’s alma mater. Once the $30,000 endowment has grown to a sufficient size, it may be used to establish a professorship in First Amendment law.
Language scholarship
honors Dorothy Maguire
Karen Maguire ’68 (CLAS), ’71 M.A., ’81 Ph.D. has endowed the Dorothy Maguire Scholarship in Modern and Classical Languages in UConn’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, a $60,000 fund that honors her late mother.
Maguire is president and a founder of Satuit Technologies, Inc., whose products enable investment managers to track and manage their contacts with customers around the world.
She began her career in academe but became an entrepreneur who drew her business skills out of a background rich in English, French and Italian literature.
Her studies in comparative literature — she earned UConn’s very first doctoral degree awarded in the discipline — provided the opportunity to gain writing and analytical skills and exposure to a wide range of subject matter. That is why, Maguire says, she advises undergraduate students to pursue a degree in liberal arts.
“You learn to think properly and to write well,” Maguire says of her academic background, which includes having spent time living with a family in France as part of a UConn study abroad graduate program.
GE endows scholarships
for
African American engineers
The School of Engineering has received an endowment of $500,000 to establish the GE Advanced Materials Endowed Scholar Program Fund, focusing on African American students.
The permanent endowment will support undergraduate scholarships in the departments of mechanical engineering, chemical engineering and materials science and engineering. The fund will award up to $5,000 annually in scholarships to two entering freshmen and will continue to support the recipients throughout their four years of study in the School of Engineering, provided academic performance requirements are met.
“We are deeply gratified by this outstanding investment in the School of Engineering and its students,” says Dean Amir Faghri. “This gift will make an excellent engineering education affordable for a selection of superb students each year through its generosity. GE Advanced Materials is demonstrating its commitment to growing the engineering workforce in the region.”
“Materials engineering will play a significant role in the future of the world,” says John Krenicki, president and CEO of GE Advanced Materials. “We’re delighted to be helping worthy African-American students have an opportunity to get an education in engineering and science. Scholarship awardees will also have the opportunity for a summer internship at one of our many locations worldwide.”
GE Advanced Materials is a world leader in providing material solutions through engineering thermoplastics, silicon products and technology platforms, and fused quartz and ceramics.
UConn has been a source of numerous technical and business leaders for GE Advanced Materials over the years.