Warner School of Education

One by one, as they made their way across stage to accept their graduate degrees in education, the newly minted graduates of the University of Rochester’s Warner School of Education celebrated the May 18 commencement with smiles, joy, and a sense of triumph.

In recognition of academic achievement and commitment to education, Warner School of Education doctoral student Kristen Love is one of this year’s recipients of the Outstanding Adult Student Award given by the Rochester Area Colleges Continuing Education (RACCE) Association.

Wei Yang is among others in a cohort of master’s students in human development who are wrapping the theories they’ve learned in Warner classrooms around practices in the broader Rochester community. Through their coursework at Warner, human development students come to construct their own theory about how people change and learn over the life course. They then take these evolving theories off to real-life experiences. 

As part of a several month exploration of science in the urban community, 12 girls from East High School devoted their afterschool time this school year to investigating food, where it comes from, and the choices people make about eating. And, they are now eager to share their findings with the community in an attempt to help others make smarter decisions about food. 

Researchers at the Warner School of Education found that student motivation for attending college is related to academic success. And, they uncover unique relationships that exist between the different types of student motivation—as conceptualized by Self-Determination Theory (SDT)—and academic achievement and persistence. The study is the first to look at the academic outcomes of college students driven by relationship motivation.