Background

Jennifer McGarry is Professor in and Head of the Department of Educational Leadership at UConn’s Neag School of Education. She has been an athlete and coach and has studied sport throughout her professional career, focusing particularly on the different participation rates and access to sport that people have based on gender and race. Her current interests include youth sport and sport-based youth development. She researches both the youth that participate in sport-based development programs and the college students and adults that run them. McGarry directs Husky Sport, a CSCH partner that has been in operation for 14 years and which aims to engage youth, families, college students, and partners through shared learning in various areas of youth development. She also oversees multiple undergrad and graduate sections of a sport-based youth development service learning course in which students have class time and time in Hartford to work with kids in Husky Sport.

Involvement with CSCH

McGarry’s work falls under several of CSCH focal areas. Between getting kids moving with Husky Sport and helping fund programs through a nutritional education grant from the US Department of Agriculture, her work focuses on creating a whole child environment through her programs at schools.

“In terms of the whole child model…the work that I do can’t just be physical activity, it can’t just be nutrition, it can’t just be the school climate or the connectedness to school, it has to be all of those things and others, all of the academic pieces as well… none of those things can work in a vacuum and really make an impact, they have to be together.”

“The concept of the Collaboratory…made sense to me given what I do,” she adds. “And not just the content but the idea of being a Collaboratory and working with other people across disciplines is important to me.”

Fun Facts

McGarry likes to play sports with her four kids.