The Hochsprung Center for the Promotion of Mental Health and School Safety at Russell Sage College is pleased to announce that the first recipient of the Hochsprung Doctoral Fellowship is Sarah Brockway. Sarah is a candidate in the Russell Sage Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership. Sarah is a Lecturer and Assistant Fieldwork Coordinator in the Occupational Therapy Department at Russell Sage College. Sarah’s doctoral research is titled, An exploration of leadership in the implementation of the Okanagan Charter: An International Charter for Health Promoting Universities and Colleges.

The Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung Center for the Promotion of Mental Health and School Safety Doctoral Fellowship was established in 2021 in honor of Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung. Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung was the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and a member of Cohort 6 of Russell Sage College’s Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership. On December 14, 2012, she and 25 others were victims of one of the nation’s most tragic school shootings.  The mission of the center is to explore, develop and share solutions that promote the mental health of each child and safe learning environments for all children.

The Hochsprung Doctoral Fellowship is a monetary award to honor advanced scholarly research in the areas of mental health and/or school safety by doctoral students that is part of their dissertation for a doctoral degree at Russell Sage College. Students in the Educational Leadership doctoral program at the Esteves School of Education are eligible and may apply as an individual or a team.

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