The Ortega Effect
From firefighters to photographers, hundreds of UConn alums credit one brilliant, patient, unassuming professor for helping them cut through their confusion and fear to steer a purposeful course through college, work, and life.
ReadRiding the AI Wave
Is Artificial Intelligence a friendly current making life’s ride a smooth glide or a gathering tsunami headed for a certain civilization decimating crash? Depends who you ask.
ReadFamily Matters
How does Morty Ortega find the time to spend so many hours patiently listening to student hopes, dreams, and nightmares? His family.
ReadSusan Brown, Inventor of your Next Favorite Apple
All hail Snap Dragons and Autumn Crisps: What it means to be queen of the fruit breeding universe.
ReadBrooke Gemmell Shows Up
Gemmell, training for a regional horse show coming up in Virginia, is in her element, with people and animals coming together to work and play, full of purpose and good humor.
ReadBelonging and Becoming
As UConn’s head of student activities, Trisha Hawthorne-Noble doesn’t have much time to read for pleasure. Find out what made her list despite balancing extracurricular roles as a speaker and consultant, mother, and community activist.
ReadSomeone to Talk To
Bobby Melley, former Husky and Tampa Bay Ray, invented an app to help student-athletes battle isolation.
ReadGina School
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English Gina Barreca dispenses 103 bits of wisdom in her latest book, out this October.
ReadSeoul Mates
University photographer Peter Morenus and wife, Jen Morenus, assistant director of the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center, are the kind of people who have connections all over campus — and very far from campus.
ReadStowe Aways
Gail (Berson) Havelick, her husband, and nine other Husky friends who met as UConn students reunited this spring in Storrs for an ad hoc 50-year reunion.
ReadNine Innings with a Baseball Legend
Nine facts about Judy Walden Scarafile, best known for her six-decade tenure with the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League.
ReadOpportunity Found
Dieter Tejada’s atypical arc includes a guilty plea to an assault conviction, a degree from Vanderbilt Law, and an absolute, unconditional pardon.
ReadNeil Wheelock Deforest Smith Embraces the Chaos
Smith, owner of a gallery in Korea, is often asked why he studied literature instead of something more traditionally “artistic,” and his answer is always the same: “Literature is a form of art.”
ReadSlick’s Kicks
Savarino-Hoppe has started a unique foundation in memory of her daughter, Victoria “Vicky” Marie Hoppe.
ReadTom's Trivia — Fall 2025
See if you know as much as King of UConn Trivia and University Deputy Spokesperson Tom Breen ’00 (CLAS).
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