Stamford Ranks #7 Among Small Cities of the Future in the Americas

Stamford is a "City of the Future," ranking seventh among small cities in the America’s for economic growth, according to a new report.  The city ranks behind Sunnyvale, Irvine and Fremont, CA; Bellevue, WA; Ann Arbor, MI, and Fort Lauderdale. Also ranking in the top 10 are Cary, NC; Plano, TX; and Guelph, Ontario.  It was one of three top-ten showings for Connecticut's third largest city. In addition to its overall position among just over 200 cities with populations between 100,000 and 350,000, Stamford placed second among small cities for connectivity, just behind Jersey (New Jersey) and ahead of Newark, Yonkers, Paterson, Elizabeth, and Sunnyvale, Hayward, Fremont and Vallejo in California.

The city also placed ninth for economic potential in the analysis and report released this week by a division of the Financial Times.  The top cities in that category included Sunnyvale, Bellevue, Fremont, Irvine, Cary, Ann Arbor, Waterloo (Ontario), Plano and Chattanooga.

The 2017-18 rankings for the American Cities of the Future were developed by the Financial Times’ FDI unit, which studies foreign direct investment.  In total, 421 locations were analyzed for the study. Data was then collected under five categories: Economic Potential, Business Friendliness, Human Capital and Lifestyle, Cost Effectiveness and Connectivity. ‘Small’ locations (209 locations) had immediate city populations of between 100,000 and 350,000, according to the study’s methodology.

“This is really good news for Stamford,” Joe McGee, vice president of public policy for The Business Council of Fairfield County, told the Stamford Advocate. “This index is closely watched by people who look at the hot places to invest, and clearly Stamford is one of those places. That connection to New York is really advantageous to Stamford.”

Among larger cities, the top 10 in the Americas are New York, San Francisco, Houston, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Boston, Atlanta, and Sao Paulo.

A year ago, Stamford  launched the City’s new business portal,  Stamfordbusinessportal.org, created "to eliminate red tape and streamline the process for planning and starting a small business in Stamford," according to officials.  The multilingual website was designed and created by six interns during the summer of 2015, including four from the Mayor’s Youth Employment Program. The website includes links for permitting and licensing, starting a business and business incentives.

Stamford was the only Connecticut city to earn a spot on the lists.

Strong Defense: Where CT's Jobs Will Be

“As a convergence of technological advancements, changing military demand and shifting workforce demographics force a major period of transformation across the (defense) industry, Connecticut must adjust its approach to workforce development and retention, or risk losing its competitive edge to other regions.” That’s the conclusion of a 23-page policy brief issued by CT21 which analyzed the pitfalls and potential of the aerospace and defense industries - a “significant pillar of Connecticut’s economy” - and the state’s workforce, on the brink of what the report describes as “an inflection point” for the state.

“With a workforce that is aging into retirement faster than the current pipeline of workers can fill the gap, existing training programs are being strained to both produce higher numbers of qualified graduates and keep their programs current with the skills industry needs,” the report indicated.

To solve this multi-faceted challenge, CT21 calls on state officials to:

• Expand existing training programs and launch new ones
• Increase industry input into training program development
• Expand the workforce applicant pool
• Incentivize the retention of retiring industry expertise

“The full ecosystem around the defense industry in the state must come together to address these overlapping trends – and many of these collaborative initiatives are already producing significant results – but state government still has a unique role to play in bringing the right ideas to the table,” the report explains.

The report notes that the 2016 Aerospace and Defense Workforce Study conducted by Aviation Week and Space Technology found over a quarter of the nation’s A&D workforce is over the age of 55. To highlight the local impact, 35% of Electric Boat’s workforce is within ten years of retirement. Over 7,800 workers have 20 or more years of service, and nearly 950 have 40 or more.

By way of illustration, the report devoted attention to United Technologies’ Pratt and Whitney.

“Based on projections for deliveries of military and commercial engines, Pratt expects to double production by 2020 and again by 2027. As of last September, the company expected to hire nearly 8,000 new workers in Connecticut over the next decade, including 1,000 engineers and 1,000 manufacturers in the next year. Pratt operates a business model that also relies heavily on the supply chain, with 85% of its engine parts being manufactured elsewhere.”

The report calls on state government to take a range of actions, including:

1. Expand existing training programs and launch new ones
2. Increase industry input into training program development
3. Expand the workforce applicant pool
4. Incentivize the retention of retiring industry expertise
5. Create additional professional growth opportunities
6. Take steps to improve the quality of life – both real and perceived
7. Expand existing training programs and launch new ones
8. Increase industry input into training program development
9. Expand the workforce applicant pool
10. Incentivize the retention of retiring industry expertise

Among the challenges the report cites are increasing competition from other industries and variable quality of life across the state. To respond, CT21 urges that state to create additional professional growth opportunities and improve quality of life statewide. CT21 stresses that the state must “leverage the opportunity before us to truly put Connecticut on a path towards a prosperous future.”

The Connecticut Institute for the 21st Century provides continuing opportunities for its members and other organizations to understand and discuss economic activity in the state and obstacles to its success. For more information, visit www.CT21.org

Pay Equity Gap Persists in CT, Nationwide

In Connecticut, median annual pay for a woman who holds a full-time, year-round job is $50,802 while median annual pay for a man who holds a full-time, year-round job is $61,666. This means that women in Connecticut are paid 82 cents for every dollar paid to men, amounting to an annual wage gap of $10,864.  Connecticut’s gap ranks as the 37^th highest among the states. That’s according to the National Partnership for Women & Families, which released state-b-state pay gap data for Equal Pay Day on Tuesday that reveals the size of the gender wage gap and its detrimental effects on women’s spending power in all 50 states.

The gap varies by state, but the largest cents-on-the-dollar differences are in Wyoming (36 cents), Louisiana, West Virginia, Utah and North Dakota. The smallest cents-on-the-dollar differences are in New York (11 cents) and Delaware.

The data for Connecticut also indicate that the wage gap is even larger for women of color. Among Connecticut women who hold full-time, year-round jobs, Black women are paid 58 cents, Latinas are paid 47 cents and Asian women are paid 80 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men.

On average, Connecticut women who are employed full time lose a combined total of nearly $15 billion every year due to the wage gap, the National Partnership reported. “These lost wages mean women and their families have less money to support themselves, save and invest for the future, and spend on goods and services. Families, businesses and the economy suffer as a result,” the organization pointed out.

According to data highlighted by the National Partnership, in Connecticut more than 170,000 family households are headed by women.  About 24 percent of those families, or 40,431 family households, have incomes that fall below the poverty level. Eliminating the wage gap, they suggest, would provide much-needed income to women whose wages sustain their households.

If the annual wage gap were eliminated, on average, a working woman in Connecticut would have enough money for:

• More than 11 additional months of child care;
• Nearly one additional year of tuition and fees for a four-year public university, or the full cost of tuition and fees at a two-year community college;
• Approximately 82 more weeks of food for her family (1.6 years’ worth);
• More than five additional months of mortgage and utilities payments; or
• Nearly 10 more months of rent.

“Equal Pay Day is a painful reminder that women in this country have had to work more than three months into this year just to catch up with what men were paid last year,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership. “This analysis shows just how damaging that lost income can be for women and their families, as well as the economy and the businesses that depend on women’s purchasing power. Entire communities, states and our country suffer because lawmakers have not done nearly enough to end wage discrimination or advance the fair and family friendly workplace policies that would help erase the wage gap.”

In the nationwide data, the civilian industries that employ the most full-time employees – health care and social assistance, manufacturing, retail trade and educational services – pay women less than men. In the health care and social assistance industry, women are paid just 72 cents for every dollar paid to men. In manufacturing, just 76 cents. In retail trade, 79 cents. And in educational services, 88 cents. Across all industries, women are paid lower salaries than men.

The wage gap data reflects statistical analysis showing that 62 percent of the wage gap can be attributed to occupational and industry differences; differences in experience and education; and factors such as race, region and unionization. That leaves 38 percent of the gap unaccounted for, according to the analysis, leading researchers to conclude that factors such as discrimination and unconscious bias continue to affect women’s wages

The National Partnership for Women & Families is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy group dedicated to promoting fairness in the workplace, access to quality health care and policies that help women and men meet the dual demands of work and family. Equal Pay Day marks how far into the new year women must work in order to catch up with what men were paid in the year before.

CT Is a Top Ten State - In A Good Way

Awash in a sea of negativity amidst yet another state budget deficit and intensifying concern about the prospects of additional fees, taxes, and service reductions, state residents now have an opportunity to accentuate the positive, courtesy of the 2017 Connecticut Economic Review. Noting that Connecticut is “at the epicenter of the Northeast” and “at the forefront of innovation,” the publication highlights an array of statistics that produce a “dynamic blend of advantages that make Connecticut a great place to start or grow a business.”

Among the key stats:

• Connecticut ranks #3 in the country for the percentage of employees with advanced degrees - more than 400,000 employees have advanced degrees. And Hartford was identified as one of the 19 global Knowledge Capitals by the Brookings Institution.

• Connecticut ranks #4 among the top states for private R&D investment per capita, at $2,227. Massachusetts, Delaware and California are the only states that rank higher. That’s also more than twice the national average.

• Connecticut ranks #5 among the states for productivity per person, and #6 on the State Technology and Science Index, which benchmarks states on their science and technology capabilities and broader commercialization ecosystems that contribute to company growth, high value-added job creation and overall economic growth.

The state’s growing bioscience industry is responsible for more than 35,000 bioscience employees in over 2,000 companies. Connecticut also ranks #6 for academic R&D growth and #7 for state R&D investment.  Overall, the state ranks 5^th in patents per capita and has 39 percent more patents than the U.S. average. Two Connecticut companies, Alexion and priceline.com, have been named by Forbes as among the nation’s most innovative companies.

In his introduction to the economic report, Governor Dannel Malloy points out that “Connecticut has grown to become a global hub in bioscience, digital media and green technology. We enjoy a combination of a real entrepreneurial spirit, remarkable experience and one of the most educated and productive workforces in the world.”

The New Economy Index, which measures how states are positioned to drive economic evolution in today’s changing society, ranks Connecticut #8 in the U.S., indicating that the state “offers the kind of environment that is particularly conducive to growth for companies that are capitalizing on the latest global economic trends.  (The top seven are Massachusetts, Delaware, California, Washington, Maryland, Colorado and Virginia.)  The ranking is based on measures in five key areas:  Knowledge jobs, Globalization, Economic dynamism, digital economy, and innovation capacity.

Produced by the Connecticut Economic Resource Center, the publication was sponsored by Eversource.

Responding to Hunger with Capacity Building; Coalition Initiative Renewed

The University of Saint Joseph (USJ)  and Urban Alliance received a $30,000 grant from the Farmington Bank Community Foundation to support More than Food, a framework that helps food pantries with more capacity-building resources in addition to short-term food supplies to help address the root causes of hunger.  More than Food, developed by USJ, Urban Alliance and Foodshare, was initially launched with funding from the Farmington Bank Community Foundation in 2014. This latest grant supports the program over the next two years. “More than Food focuses on promoting healthy food in pantries and helping people access other resources to find a job. We’re proud to support a partnership that is trying to find a solution to the hunger problem,” said Chris Traczyk, executive director of the Farmington Bank Community Foundation.  “It’s a comprehensive, collective-impact project.”  Dr. Katie Martin, assistant professor and director of the Public Health Program at USJ, and her research team developed a nutrition stoplight system called Supporting Wellness at Pantries, or “SWAP”, which helps food pantry clients choose healthier foods.

USJ is collaborating with the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity and the Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport to pilot the SWAP system in six food pantries in CT, which together serve over 5,000 people on average every month. Under the More than Food framework, the grant from the Farmington Bank Community Foundation will help expand this work to offer trainings and implement and evaluate the SWAP system in additional food pantries.

As part of the More than Food framework, Urban Alliance has developed various training series and toolkits to equip food pantry staff and volunteers to offer case management services and resource centers that help connect clients to necessary community programs through its Beyond the Basics initiative. Also, Urban Alliance is developing a training program to help pantries create a welcoming environment that fosters the dignity and respect of each person served.

A website, www.ittakesmorethanfood.org , has been developed to share information about the More than Food framework and provide practical guidance and tools to food pantries to help them offer healthy foods with choice, connect clients to needed services, and create a welcoming culture. The recent grant award will help refine, disseminate, and evaluate materials that will be shared through the website.

The website points to the mission ahead: "When the 'emergency' of hunger has lasted over three decades, and with strong evidence that food insecurity is associated with chronic health problems, it is time to rethink the way we provide food assistance and time to examine the effectiveness of food pantries. Through our work, we are changing the conversation about hunger away from emergency food to a person-centered and strength-based approach to help people set and achieve goals in their life."

“We are very grateful for the continuing support of the Farmington Bank Community Foundation, as well as the collaborative work of our partner organizations in making More than Food a holistic way to address hunger in our area,” said USJ's Martin. Currently there are multiple food pantries in Connecticut, Texas and Rhode Island that are implementing the More than Food framework to address the root causes of hunger.

North Stonington Entrepreneur Is CT's Small Business Person of the Year

Carla Bartolucci, President & CEO of Euro-USA Trading/Jovial Foods of North Stonington, has been named the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2017 Connecticut Small Business Person of the Year, SBA’s top annual award. According to the company’s website, Jovial Foods, Inc. was founded by a husband and wife team who have always been passionate about food, farming and traditions. Carla and Rodolfo met in the 1980’s in Bologna, where she was spending a year abroad studying Italian and he was studying agriculture. Both were born into family of talented home cooks, he in Italy and she in New England, and food was at the center of their childhoods.

She began her work in the organic food industry by creating the bionaturae brand of organic foods from Italy in 1996, after losing both of her parents to cancer by her mid-twenties, her website biography says.

“As soon as I set foot into an organic food store, I knew I wanted to get involved in organic farming and food manufacturing,” Carla Bartolucci explains. “After losing my parents, I couldn’t help but feel compassion for anyone suffering from disease or hardship, and creating good food, true and pure, was my way of caring for others.”

“We are extremely excited to honor a truly amazing line up of small business owners and champions this year, said Anne Hunt, SBA’s Connecticut District Director.  It is important to recognize these outstanding small businesses in the state as they are the job creators, innovators and the fabric of our local communities!”  “We hope the small business community will join the SBA and our host, SCORE for an inspiring awards luncheon on May 2nd in New Haven, CT.”

2017 Connecticut SBA Honorees:

• Woman-Owned Small Business - Elizabeth Florian, Grassroots Ice Cream
• Family-Owned Small Business - Beverlee Dacey, Amodex Products Inc.
• CT Microenterprise Award - Katalina Riegelmann, Katalina’s Bakery
• Minority-Owned Small Business - Miguel Tomassio, Taco Loco
• Young Entrepreneur Small Business of the Year - Ashley Stone, Beauty Entourage
• Financial Services Champion - Kim Rodney, Connecticut Community Bank
• Entrepreneurial Success - Flavia Naslausky & Camilla Gazal, Zaniac Greenwich
• Exporter of the Year - Monica Goldstein, Recovery Planner
• Home-Based Business of the Year - Mary Goehring, Transcription Plus

The slate of leading small businesses owners in Connecticut will be honored at the Annual Small Business Week Awards Luncheon at Gateway Community College in New Haven on May 2.

“Your hard work, innovative ideas, and dedication to your employees and community have helped you build an outstanding business that has strengthened your state’s economy. The SBA is pleased to celebrate your achievements and recognize your personal role in driving our nation’s economic growth,” said Linda McMahon, administrator of the Small Business Association and a longtime Connecticut resident. The 2017 National Small Business Person of the Year will be announced at the ceremonies, along with three runner-ups.

Every year since 1963, the President of the United States has issued a proclamation announcing National Small Business Week, which recognizes the critical contributions of America’s entrepreneurs and small business owners.  This year, the dates are April 30 - May 7, 2017, with national events planned in Washington, D.C., New York City, Indianapolis, Dallas, and Fresno, California.

For more information and a complete list of Small Business Week events during the week of April 30 - May 7, 2017, visit www.sba.gov/ct.

https://youtu.be/50DcZn-9ce0

World’s Most Ethical Business: Three Headquartered in CT

Three Connecticut-based companies are among the world’s most ethical businesses. Norwalk-based Xerox Corp, Danbury’s Praxair Inc., and The Hartford, located in the Capital City are on the 2017 list developed by Ethisphere Institute, a Scottsdale, Arizona organization that measures corporate ethical standards.  The annual list has been published since 2007.

The Ethisphere Institute announced 124 companies spanning five continents, 19 countries and 52 industry sectors as the 2017 World’s Most Ethical Companies® honorees.

Ethisphere honors companies that “recognize their role in society to influence and drive positive change in the business community and societies around the world,” a news release announced the list stated. “These companies also consider the impact of their actions on their employees, investors, customers and other key stakeholders and leverage values and a culture of integrity as the underpinnings to the decisions they make each day.”

Xerox is one of only 13 honorees that have been named to the list for all 11 years, underscoring the company’s commitment to leading ethical business standards and practices.  The Hartford earned a spot on the list for the ninth time.

“At Xerox, we take great pride in our name being synonymous with innovation, quality and integrity,” said Jeff Jacobson, chief executive officer of Xerox. “We are committed to doing business the right way, with the highest degree of ethics and in compliance with laws worldwide.”

Among the 2017 list of companies are 13 eleven-time honorees and 8 first-time honorees. 2017 also marks the first-time appearance of a Mexico-based company.

The methodology is weighted into five key categories: ethics and compliance program (35%), corporate citizenship and responsibility (20%), culture of ethics (20%), governance (15%) and leadership, innovation and reputation (10%).  Non-profit colleges and universities, governments, governmental agencies, and NGOs are not considered for inclusion on the list.

“At Praxair, ensuring a culture of ethics and compliance is paramount to doing business the right way and is top of mind for all of our global employees,” said Steve Angel, Praxair chairman and chief executive officer. “It is a great honor to be recognized as a World’s Most Ethical Company and I thank all of our employees for their dedication to our core values and making this accomplishment possible.”

“Over the last eleven years we have seen an impressive shift in societal expectations, aggressive emergence of new laws and regulation and geopolitical swings that can further disrupt the balance. We have also seen how companies honored as the World’s Most Ethical respond to these challenges. They invest in their local communities around the world, embrace strategies of diversity and inclusion and focus on long term-ism as a sustainable business advantage. In short, these companies are transformative, not just out of need, but because they recognize that integrity is the key to their advancement,” explained Ethisphere CEO, Timothy Erblich.

Xeorx is one of 13 companies have made the list every year, including: Aflac, Deere & Company, Ecolab, Fluor, GE, International Paper, Kao Corporation, Milliken and Company, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Texas Instruments, and UPS.

The World’s Most Ethical Company assessment is based upon the Ethisphere Institute’s Ethics Quotient® (EQ) framework which offers a quantitative way to assess a company’s performance in an objective, consistent and standardized way, according to the Institute. The information collected provides a comprehensive sampling of definitive criteria of core competencies, rather than all aspects of corporate governance, risk, sustainability, compliance and ethics.

Municipal Finance to be Focus of Conference, State Leaders

State aid to municipalities will be the focus of attention Wednesday at the State Treasury’s Public Finance Outlook Conference, when Office of Policy and Management Secretary Ben Barnes is joined on a panel by House Minority Leader Themis Klarides and House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz before an audience of finance officials and municipal leaders from communities across the state. Proposed reductions and revisions to municipal aid, a by-product of the state’s anticipated deficit, have been the source of much conversation and contention in recent weeks, with leaders of the state’s cities and towns raising concerns about plans that would have them pay more for resident state troopers, teacher retirements, K-12 education and other programs.

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) recently pointed out that while the state economy grew by 17 percent between 2006 and 2015, state expenditures grew by 48.9 percent during the same period. The organization also reported that excluding K-12 education, local general government expenditures in Connecticut rank 50^th out of all states and the District of Columbia as a percentage of the U.S. Treasury’s measure of total taxable resources.

In a report recommending changes in the state’s fiscal relationship with cities and towns, CCM observed that “for over a decade prior to the Great Recession, governments in the state benefited from a strong economy and stable revenue. But this stability depended on reliable, adequate state aid and the local property tax. The lack of diversity in revenue sources and uncertainty at the state level are now eroding the capacity of local governments to meet their obligations to the public.”

State Rep. J.P. Sredzinski (R-112) wrote last month that “Monroe ranks among the top ten ‘biggest losers’ in terms of how much municipal aid was cut compared to their town budgets. For Monroe, the costs that the governor’s budget proposal will shift onto taxpayers clock in at a whopping $6.5 million for this year alone – nearly 10% of our revenue. This unprecedented transfer of costs is neither predictable, nor sustainable.”

The day-long conference on March 29 will also include a panel discussion with the U.S. Head of Government Regulations and Regulatory Policy, Bret Hester, and a review of methods to protect municipal governments from cyber hacking and theft, featuring David Geick, Director, IT Security Services, Bureau of Enterprise Systems and Technology, State Department of Administrative Services; Christopher Hauser, 2nd Vice President, Cyber Risk, The Travelers Companies, Inc.; Jack McCoy, Chief Information Officer, Town of Manchester.

An economic update, highlighting current and anticipated trends, will be provided by the state Department of Labor’s Patrick Flaherty, Assistant Director of Research and Information, and the Treasury’s Short-Term Investment fund and Municipal Employees Retirement Fund will provide updates.

The Treasurer’s Short-Term Investment Fund (STIF) is a Standard & Poor’s AAAm rated investment pool of “high-quality, short term money market instruments,” the Treasury website explains. STIF serves as an investment vehicle for the operating cash of the State Treasury, state agencies and authorities, municipalities, and other political subdivisions of the State. As of June 30, 2015, the fund administered 939 active accounts for 67 state agencies and authorities and 222 municipalities and local entities in Connecticut.

The conference will be held at Rentschler Field in East Hartford.

Achieve Hartford Aims to Push for Progress in Hartford Schools, From Top Down and Bottom Up

In the aftermath of Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin’s State of the City address and a comprehensive three-part investigative series published by the Hartford Courant examining the city’s decades-long response to the Sheff decision on integration and quality education, Achieve Hartford! is preparing for its second annual fundraising event and intensifying efforts to encourage sustainable education progress in the city. “Compare the mayor’s role in addressing the fiscal crisis, promoting regionalization, union renegotiations, the fight against blight, or key quality of life issues like resolving a flawed 311 system,” the organization said this month. “In each of these areas as well as several others, Mayor Bronin and his leadership team came together publicly and with a clear mandate directed from the top across departments to solve problems, making the combined whole greater than the individual roles and parts.  Now is a time where city leaders are called to step up as education leaders.”

In promoting their second annual “Inspire Hartford” event slated for May 11, organizers are urging attendees to “see innovation in action” and hear “uplifting stories of success.” They add: “learn how innovative ideas and new technology are training the next generation of bright dreamers and big thinkers. Get educated—and be inspired.”

The keynote speaker will be Charles Best, who leads DonorsChoose.org, the pioneering crowdfunding nonprofit where anyone can help a classroom in need. At DonorsChoose.org, public school teachers create classroom project requests and donors can choose the projects they want to support. Best launched the platform in 2000 out of a Bronx public high school where he taught history. Today, more than two thirds of U.S. public schools have at least one teacher who has created a project request on DonorsChoose.org, and 1.8 million people have donated $360 million to classroom projects reaching 16 million students.

Achieve Hartford!, which was formed in 2008, is an independent nonprofit organization founded by business and community leaders “with the belief that strong schools lead to a strong city,” noting that  “Mayors, Boards of Education and Superintendents change over time.”

“We are doing everything we can to lay out a blueprint for systemic change in Hartford that can help guide collective efforts to improve schools, and we look forward to working with the mayor, the next superintendent, and so many others critical to putting education reform in Hartford back on track,” the organization said earlier this month, while noting that Bronin indicated “strengthening our neighborhood schools must be the single most important priority for our new Superintendent, and I pledge to be a full partner.”

Last week, the search for a new Superintendent for the city was narrowed to two candidates: Acting Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez and Capital Region Education Council (CREC) Assistant Superintendent for Operations Tim Sullivan.

Achieve Hartford warned that “If Hartford leaders, stakeholders, and families put the responsibility for fixing Hartford schools solely on the new superintendent, we should not expect either finalist to be successful.  The responsibility must be shared amongst the Board of Education, City Hall, the corporate community, philanthropy, nonprofit partners, and even our robust institutions of higher education.”

The organizations stresses that it works “toward improving education in our city by innovating ways to address some of our toughest issues, activating the community to take ownership of problem solving, and holding our leaders and educators accountable for advancing student achievement.”

Summarizing recent activities, the organization’s website says succinctly, “there is a lot of conversation but, ultimately, not much action.”

“Developing great schools require not only that the school system operate with excellence, but also our entire community,” the organization’s website points out. “It takes a village to educate a child, and it is our job to help stakeholders play their unique set of roles for school improvement now, and long into the future.”

The May 11 fundraising event will take place at the Hartford Hilton.

Local College Students Selected by US State Department for Intensive Foreign Language Training

Four University of Bridgeport students have been awarded U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships, among the most competitive in the field, to spend the summer abroad at intensive language programs. The Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) program is part of a U.S. government effort to dramatically expand the number of Americans studying and mastering foreign languages deemed to be of particular importance. They include but are not limited to: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Chinese, Persian, Russian, and Urdu.

Students Ana Rena, Justin Sabo and Fernando Gonzalez have been accepted into the Arabic language study program at a site still yet to be determined in the Middle East.  According to the State Department’s website, Arabic is taught in Amman, Jordan; Meknes, Morocco; Tanfier, Morocco; and Ibri, Oman.

UB student Sung Soon Gavel won a CLS to study Korean at Chonnam National University in Gwangju, South Korea.  The CLS Korean Program in Gwangju, Korea provides students opportunities to learn Korean both inside the classroom and in an immersive cultural setting during an intensive 8-week language program set in Korea’s sixth-largest city located just south of Seoul. Students receive a minimum of 20 hours per week of classroom instruction where they learn the four major skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing in Korean.

CLS Program institutes at 24 locations around the world cover approximately one academic year of university-level language coursework during an eight- to ten-week program and are designed to meet the needs of students from a variety of language levels and backgrounds.

The scholarships are highly competitive; just 10 percent of students who apply to the program are awarded one. But since 2011, eight University of Bridgeport students, including the four 2017 winners, have won them.

“As an application evaluator for the Critical Language Scholarships, I can confirm that the pool of applicants to the program include some of the nation’s brightest students at leading universities across the country. So having one CLS winner, or even having students make it to the final rounds, would be worthy of celebration. The fact that four were granted awards is a phenomenal testament to our students’ hard work.  They make us very proud,” said Brandon LaFavor, director of UB Education Abroad Resource Center.

Formal classroom language instruction is provided for a minimum of 20 hours per week. Extracurricular activities are designed to supplement the formal curriculum, including regular one-on-one meetings with native speaker language partners for conversational practice, as well as cultural activities and excursions designed to expand students’ understanding of the history, politics, culture and daily life of their host country.

In past years, students from institutions including University of Connecticut, Connecticut College, Trinity College, Wesleyan University, Quinnipiac University and Central Connecticut State University have also been selected to participate.  Most recently, a UConn student was selected to learn Hindi in India in 2016, and two Wesleyan students were selected last year to learn Russian and Hindi.

The Critical Language Scholarship Program is a program of the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. CLS is administered by American Councils for International Education.

This year’s group of Critical Language Scholars from UB are all enrolled at the College of Public and International Affairs (CPIA) at the University. The school’s six undergraduate and four graduate programs groom students in fields related to diplomacy, including international security and global development. CPIA alumni have gone on to work for the FBI, the Department of State, Defense Department, United Nations, Council of Europe, as well as global NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) and private industry.

https://youtu.be/WUhZlih7hls