Eastern hosted an all-star band of New Orleans musicians on Jan. 10, raising $15,000 for two local antihunger organizations. The Take Me to the River All-Stars Live presented an evening of funk, soul, and rhythm in a packed FAIC Concert Hall, with all proceeds benefiting Willimantic’s Covenant Soup Kitchen and Eastern’s Shawn’s Cupboard food pantry for food-insecure students.
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Eastern biology Professors Barbara Murdoch and Matthew Graham have made a discovery that challenges long-held assumptions about one of nature’s most feared substances. The two professors co-authored a study that identifies microbial communities living in scorpion venom, a substance previously believed to be sterile.
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The Thread City Jazz Trio, Eastern’s faculty jazz band named affectionately for its native Willimantic, released its second album, “Keeney Never Stops,” last July. The album reimagines several jazz standards, as well as popular songs from the 1960s to today.
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Eastern Connecticut State University’s Department of Health Sciences and Nursing was awarded a $75,000 grant from the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority (CHEFA) to benefit the University’s nursing program. The grant will be used to purchase new simulation equipment for Eastern’s three on-campus simulation labs, which prepare nursing students for real-world clinical scenarios.
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Eastern hosted an all-star band of New Orleans musicians on Jan. 10, raising $15,000 for two local antihunger organizations. The Take Me to the River All-Stars Live presented an evening of funk, soul, and rhythm in a packed FAIC Concert Hall, with all proceeds benefiting Willimantic’s Covenant Soup Kitchen and Eastern’s Shawn’s Cupboard food pantry for food-insecure students.
Business administration Professor Fatma Pakdil and economics and finance Professor Steve Muchiri have forged an enduring research partnership. Since 2016, the pair has co-authored a series of papers intended to influence healthcare policy.
Steve Emt '03 knows all about adversity — a March 1995 car accident left him paralyzed below the waist. Today, Emt is a world-class wheelchair curling champion. When not competing on the national and international stage, he is a popular motivational speaker on the national high school circuit.
Since its founding in 1889 as a normal school tasked with preparing primary school teachers, Eastern Connecticut State University has seen thousands of teaching candidates graduate to become educators and administrators in schools across Connecticut and beyond. Over the years, many Eastern graduates have become leaders of their institutions. In the past decade alone, more than 90 alumni have served as principals and heads of school. Four recent principal appointments for the 2025-26 academic year demonstrate the leadership and devotion that have marked Eastern alumni for more than 135 years.
When Robert “Bob” Polito ’86 retired from his job as senior vice president at Webster Bank in 2019, he found he had a bit of time on his hands. COVID-19 exploded a few months later and Polito decided to try to reconnect with his favorite professor from Eastern — political science Professor Jay Cobbledick.
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont and Connecticut Education Commissioner Charlene M. Russell-Tucker recognized Eastern alum Brian Betesh ’05 as the 2026 Connecticut Teacher of the Year this fall. Betesh, a sixth-grade social studies teacher at Rogers Park Middle School in Danbury, leads efforts in interactive and project-based learning. He was selected from more than 44,000 Connecticut public school teachers, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Where does a biology degree at Connecticut’s public liberal arts university get you? For Liz Charnysh ’17 and Kristine Zlotnick ’23, an Eastern education helped launch careers in research and academia, from sequencing the human genome at the prestigious Jackson Laboratory to study of electrical currents in the brain.
Eastern students showcased their entrepreneurial skills at the College of Business’s third annual Big Idea Pitch Competition on Dec. 1 at the J. Eugene Smith Library. The “Shark Tank”-style contest featured 20 original business ideas, presented by Eastern students to a panel of faculty and staff members. Businesses showcased at the event included a hotel for pets, anti-blister soccer cleats, a social networking service for musicians, a dressing aid for individuals with disabilities, and more.
This behind-the-scenes video highlights the Department of Communication, Film, and Theatre's fall 2025 production of "The Burial at Thebes," an adaptation of Sophocles' classic tragedy "Antigone," which was staged in the Proscenium Theatre from Dec. 4 to 7.
Eastern Connecticut State University will host a major showcase of prison artworks from Dec. 8 through Feb. 28, 2026, in the Art Gallery of the Fine Arts Instructional Center. Organized by Community Partners in Action (CPA), the exhibition marks the 45th annual show of CPA’s Prison Arts Program and features 604 artworks by 162 artists from nine Connecticut correctional facilities.
