Guilford Resident Awarded UConn Innovation Award

The Neag School of Education announces the 2020 recipient of the Rogers Educational Innovation Fund as Jason Gilmore of Guilford, Conn., an art teacher at McDonough Middle School in Hartford, Conn.

The Rogers Educational Innovation Fund, designated by Neag School of Education Professor Emeritus Vincent Rogers, provides a $5,000 award available annually in support of innovative projects carried out by Connecticut teachers at the elementary or middle-school levels. This gift is intended to support and expand the innovative, collaborative work of Connecticut’s classroom teachers and the Neag School of Education.

“Jason Gilmore’s commitment to bring art to his students, and to empower their voices through their creations of murals for Hartford’s McDonough Middle School is extraordinary,” says Suzanne Wilson, Neag Endowed Professor of Teacher Education and chair of the 2020 Rogers award selection committee. “His vision of engaging students in public art in ways that allow them to express their dreams, hopes, and aspiration for themselves, their families, and their community is inspiring.”

Gilmore will receive $5,000 in support of his proposed project, titled “The Mural Intervention Project.” The project focuses on giving sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders at McDonough — a low-income, 98% free/reduced lunch school — the opportunity to “give time to visualizing their hopes, dreams, desires, and the many emotions they experience on a daily basis” while collaborating on a community mural that will provide the school building with a “collective student voice in visual format.”

Gilmore will be formally recognized at the 2020 Neag School Alumni Awards Celebration, taking place on the Storrs campus later this month. Read more about the Rogers Fund at rogersfund.uconn.edu.