Owls make outstanding Hawks.
Just ask Kurt Ogren, M.S. ’94, 6th Yr. ’01, the award-winning principal of the (also award-winning) Woodland Regional High School.
The school has had quite a run. In 2025, Woodland High — home to 575 students (aka Hawks) who hail from Beacon Falls and Prospect, Conn. — was named the inaugural High School of the Year by the Connecticut Association of Public Schools (CAS).
Principal Ogren also has earned numerous honors. He’s the 2024 CAS High School Principal of the Year and a 2024-25 Connecticut Federation of School Administrators’ top honoree — recognition included in Southern Alumni Magazine’s Winter 2025 edition.
So, when numerous Woodland High parents said they’d seen his photo in the alumni magazine, Ogren was curious: “Considering our proximity to Southern and the university’s great reputation for its education programs, I said: ‘I bet many of our teachers graduated from Southern, too.’”
He sent a quick email to the school’s teachers and staff — and learned that at least 25 of Woodland Hawks are, indeed, also Southern Owls, and many have more than one SCSU degree.
“People responded right away. They are proud of the Southern connection,” he says.
It’s a diverse group. Their graduation years span seven decades (1962 to 2021), and they have even more specializations. “There are teachers of fine arts, English, world languages, history, science, math, communications, and special education,” Ogren says of the list of Southern alumni. The group also includes department chairs, a security guard, a media center specialist, a paraeducator, a guidance counselor, and a building substitute.
Peter Morcey, ’62, is the latter. “If you look at the history, he was a very good pitcher for Southern back in the day,” say Ogren. He shares a snapshot of Morcey’s bio: he’s a decades-long, successful restaurant owner who later taught physical education and found he loved working with high schoolers. “He will be 85 years old this fall, and he is coming back to us,” says Ogren. “He is such a good guy with a great sense of humor. The kids like him a lot.”
Becoming an Owl
Ogren attended Springfield College for his undergrad degree. He was planning a career as a college strength and conditioning coach, when an undergraduate internship at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., revealed another possibility. In addition to working with students on the football and track teams, Ogren did a bit of teaching. He enjoyed it — and felt similarly when he later coached high school track at Hamden and Guilford. “I really like working with that age group,” he says.
Ogren was living in Hamden and working in corporate business in Norwalk and Stamford, when he decided to take the plunge. He enrolled in graduate school at Southern, taking night courses. “My experience at the Naval Academy told me that education would be a good career choice, so I decided to go in that direction,” he says.
There’s a family connection as well: wife Alicia Ogren, ’89, majored in education; Kurt’s mother, Julie Ryan Ogren, ’66, taught in New Haven for several years before leaving to raise four children; and his father-in-law Ralph Battista, ’63, M.S. ’69, was a school counselor, a veteran who attended Southern on the GI Bill.
At Southern, Jerry (Gerald) Ainsworth, a professor of health who died in 2019, was a welcoming presence and taught many of Ogren’s courses. “He was an excellent professor. I enjoyed being in classes and part of the program. There were people in their 20s, 30s, 40s . . . It was a great mix of experience,” says Ogren, who had returned to the classroom two years after earning his bachelor’s degree.
Despite the shift in his career trajectory, Ogren remains a committed athlete. He estimates that he’s run 27 marathons. He also joined the Run 169 Towns Society; members strive to run a race in each of Connecticut’s 169 cities. “It took eight years to finish, so it was a nice long-term goal. Connecticut is a beautiful state,” says Ogren.
He is justifiably proud of the Woodland High team. Woodland opened in Beacon Falls in 2001. Ogren is the second principal to lead the school, and he credits the first — the late Arnold Frank, who retired in 2013 — with developing the “Woodland Way” philosophy. The emphasis is on respect, support, kindness, and community.
The staff’s commitment to excellence is seen throughout countless programs and initiatives. These include an expanded Peer Buddies program that pairs regular education students with those in special education; the Hawk Wings Kindness Club; increased advanced placement and early college offerings (some with Southern); and an athletics program that engages more than 60 percent of students.
The school’s unique daily Advisory Program is another telling example. The program pairs each teacher and administrator with a cohort of about 10 students. They meet 20 minutes daily from the first day of freshman year through graduation when the advisers hand diplomas to the students in their group.
“You become almost like a family,” says Ogren. ■
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