 Public service is a core mission of the University of Minnesota and of the University Northside Partnership, and Professor Scott McConnell lives that mission every day. Dr. McConnell is director of community engagement for the University’s Center for Early Education and Development (CEED), which offers training and information, conducts research, and designs programs to help infants and toddlers develop to their fullest potential.
The center focuses on the education, care, and development of children from birth to age eight, working to improve developmental outcomes through applied research, teaching, and outreach. For years, CEED researchers have worked with education and child care programs, and with families, to identify parenting and education practices that promote children’s language, literacy, and social development – and then worked with these individuals to find effective ways to share those practices with others who don’t yet use them. CEED staff also work with school districts throughout Minnesota and seven other states to develop effective ways of dealing with preschool children with behavioral problems, training educators and child care professionals to recognize problems and intervene as early as possible to deal positively with challenging behaviors. CEED also has worked to develop simple-to-use assessments that help parents, teachers, and others describe children’s development of language, literacy, movement, and social skills. Scott has worked with students, faculty, community colleagues, and others in each of these efforts, and continues developing collaborative relations and projects that deepen these efforts.
In addition to his leadership role with CEED, Dr. McConnell is a professor of Educational Psychology in the Special Education Program, an adjunct professor of Child Psychology, and director of graduate studies for the Early Childhood Policy Certificate program at the University. He also served as director of the University’s Institute on Community Integration for six years, and as the co-director of the Early Childhood Research Institute on Measuring Growth and Development, a five-year research, development, and dissemination effort to build procedures for describing young children's growth and development over time, and to design interventions that support optimal rates of development.
Dr. McConnell received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at the University of Oregon in 1982 and was an assistant professor of Child Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh before joining the University of Minnesota faculty in 1986. He has published dozens of articles, books, and book chapters on the assessment and treatment of social behavior deficits, social competence, school adjustment, and academic performance, including development of early literacy skills and other developmental competencies. His teaching interests focus on the application of behavioral assessment and intervention planning techniques in school psychology, and his research focuses on children's development of necessary skills for social interaction and school adjustment.
McConnell has worked with communities in North Minneapolis for many years, partnering with educators and organizations to offer training, evaluation, and other services that help those who help our children. Through the University Northside Partnership he is committed to expanding and enhancing these services. “The bottom line,” according to Scott, “is to see our research, teaching, and outreach valued by the people it is intended to help – children and parents, and the individuals, programs, and communities that serve them. When we can do work that meets the test of parents and peers, we know we are doing well.”
All Dr. McConnell’s research, teaching, and outreach activities are geared toward helping children in our communities grow to be happy, healthy, productive adults. It’s difficult to imagine a more important mission than that.
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