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The news that most students at Williamsville East High School don’t like bullying and sexual harassment­­ — yet almost half of them don’t know what to say to stop it — didn’t surprise Principal Brian Swatland. The fall survey findings he was analyzing were part of an anti-bullying training and pilot project in the Williamsville Central School District. The three-year grant project called “Norms and Bystander Intervention Training” or NAB IT! aims to better equip students to navigate the bullying and sexual harassment situations they witness. This initiative is being led by Amanda Nickerson, director of GSE’s Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention and professor in the Department of Counseling, School and Educational Psychology.

What children think about bending the rules, telling the truth and the futures they imagine can be mysterious to the grownups in their lives. A new series of playful research-based experiments will reveal answers and shed light on how kids learn. “Living Lab to Living Room,” a new collaboration between UB’s Fisher-Price Endowed Early Childhood Research Center (ECRC) and Buffalo’s Explore & More, the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Children’s Museum, will share knowledge with families curious to know more.

Joelle Formato, EdM ’15, planned on an accounting career until curiosity inspired her to sign up for two years teaching math in a public school outside Washington, D.C. She was interested in service to others. It seemed like the right opportunity. “Five days into teaching I knew I had found my life’s work,” said Formato.

Jessica Jones chatted in the hallway reception with a fellow teacher resident and pondered the consequences of disjointed lessons about how to make an argument. Different disciplines take different approaches. This could confuse students. How could teaching be improved? That was a message from Okhee Lee, a visiting NYU scholar who came to campus last month to give the penultimate talk in the Dean’s Lecture Series.

Associate Professor Alexa Schindel started planning this semester’s ocean sabbatical work when she applied to join the S.V. TravelEdge sailboat a year ago — as soon as she got the email notice about “eXXpedition Round the World” research journey. She wrote an essay, did a video interview and won a spot on the nine-member team of volunteers who joined the crew on the women-only TravelEdge.

Valerie Nesset’s innovative approach to help people with different backgrounds collaborate led her to win a $451,667 grant to address a current problem at libraries and leave an enduring legacy: Help retirees create library programming they want. And, train librarians and their patrons to get good results together.