Campus

Through collaborations with students, volunteers, alumni, staff, faculty, and campus programs, Husky Sport will work to enhance both systemic and individual development at the University of Connecticut. Husky Sport will work to develop supportive spaces to facilitate enhancement of knowledge and practice in the fields of sport-based youth development, teaching and learning around diversity, social justice and equity. Participant development will be supported through rigorous experiential learning (Service Learning), on-going professional development (Community of Practice), and additional organizational initiatives aligned with missions of the Sport Management Program, the Department of Educational Leadership, the Neag School of Education, and the University of Connecticut (Scholarship). 

Community

Building upon the power of sport as a common denominator in relationship building and tool for supporting youth development, Husky Sport will engage in shared program planning, delivery, and evaluation that encompasses a larger number of youth participants, along a greater age continuum (K–12), and in more aspects of a child’s growth process within Hartford’s North End communities. As part of school time and out of school time support towards youth development, program pillars will include teaching, learning, and application of physical activity, healthy nutrition, transferable life skills, and academic enrichment (Sport-Based Youth Development). 

Outcomes

Husky Sport’s campus engagement should reveal progress toward the following objectives, with particular focus on college student development outcomes:

• Value stakeholder voices in co-constructing identified needs/desires within partnerships
• Develop reciprocal relationships, while actively dismantling savior-mentality and approach
• Enhance beliefs, knowledge, attitudes, and social competency among diverse participants
• Increase knowledge and application as teachers, learners, and practitioners of SBYD
• Increase student attitudes, behaviors, and intended behaviors associated with social justice
• Build diverse networks for exchange of social capital

Find at University of Connecticut Academic Vision and Neag School of Education and additional citations: (Bruening, Fuller, & Percy, 2015; Dewey, 1916; Kolb and Fry, 1975; Kolb; 1984; Bringle & Hatcher, 1996; Bringle & Hatcher, 2002; Bruening, et al., 2010; Conway, Amel, & Gerwien, 2009; Peters, 2011; Enfield & Collins, 2008; Bruening, et al., 2014; Fuller, et al., 2015)

Outcomes

Husky Sport’s community engagement should reveal progress toward the following objectives, with particular focus on youth development outcomes:

• Increased self esteem/self worth as participants gain interest, knowledge and improve their physical abilities
• Increased accountability/responsibility for self as part of a small program with considerable individual attention
• Increased connections to community/sense of belonging through working closely with mentors, mentees, and peers
• Increased knowledge/acquisition of nutrition/physical activity/life skills/academic skills from the curriculum
• Application of those skills both within program, school, home, and community activities
• Active participation/recognizing one’s own influence on self/others through power-sharing

Find at www.up2us.org and additional citations: Bruening, Dover & Clark, 2009; Perkins & Noam, 2007; Pittman, et al., 2002; National Institute on Out-of-School Time at Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, Harvard Family Research Project After School Program Quality Assessment Categories of Standards, DC Standards for Out-of-School Time, The Community Network for Youth Development’s Youth Development Framework for Practice, Team Up For Youth’s Building Blocks for Quality Youth Sports.