Changing the World (Nov-Dec 2011)

what your investment in ut makes possible

nov./dec. 2011

Impact.

Community. health.

Together, St. David’s Foundation and UT are promoting a healthier Texas

How is your university changing the world?

The Campaign for Texas is a major fundraising effort to increase UT’s quality, competitiveness, and impact. Right now, with help from donors like you, The University of Texas at Austin is tackling cancer, researching new diabetes treatments, developing technology for new fuels, addressing social issues, fostering the arts and humanities, and much more. So far 25% of UT alumni have given to the college, school, program, or department that is dearest to them during the campaign. Join us in supporting your university. Large or small, every gift matters.

Our goal is to be the best public university in the nation.

Our mission is to change the world.

Make a gift to UT giving.utexas.edu/CampaignForTexas 866-4UTEXAS

changing the world What your investment in UT makes possible

PROMOTING A HEALTHIER TEXAS St. David’s Foundation and UT work together to grow the health care workforce

After a sold-out performance in 2010, So Percussion returns to campus in March 2012 as part of a UT initiative that leverages donor support to develop new classical music. credit: Sally Mack

CONCERTED EFFORT Texas Performing Arts needs you to help develop, elevate, and diversify classical music LONGHORNS WITHOUT BORDERS UT donors create new opportunities for study abroad reprinted from nov./dec. 2011

changing the world What your investment in UT makes possible

Impact. Community. health.

St. David’s Foundation and UT are growing the health care workforce and promoting a healthier Texas

I credits: Top and

bottom nurse photos by Peter Hancock, middle courtesy Daily Texan/ School of Nursing; Jacobs by Angela Curtis

58 | The

mpact , community , and health are the three central tenets of Austin’s St. David’s Foundation, and by investing in programs at UT, the organization supports all three.

From its beginning in 1924, St. David’s HealthCare has grown to comprise seven hospitals, four surgery centers, and four urgent care clinics reaching from Georgetown to Kyle. In August, St. David’s also signed on as the official health care sponsor and emergency services provider for UT Athletics’ 20-sport men’s and women’s athletics program.

“As a joint owner of St. David’s HealthCare, St. David’s Foundation encourages a healthier Central Texas by investing the proceeds from the hospitals back into the community,” says Earl Maxwell, CEO of St. David’s Foundation. The foundation, like the University, is committed to transforming lives through research and public service. This year alone it will have awarded more than $34 million in grants. At the University, it has given more than $6 million through the years, enhancing the School of Social Work, UT Elementary School, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, and other programs.

By far, though, the foundation has directed most of its UT support to the School of Nursing, with about $5.3 million in grants. Those grants have been instrumental in helping the school expand its nurse practitioner program and pro-

vide much-needed primary care support to area residents, says Dr. Alexa Stuifbergen, dean of the School of Nursing.

“St. David’s Foundation has been a generous supporter of our Family Wellness Center, Children’s Wellness Center, and other programs,” she says. “We are thrilled to partner with them on very significant work. Together we’re growing the health care workforce for Texas, promoting better care where it’s needed the most, and supporting new research that will help health care providers design and deliver the most effective care.”

The two Wellness Centers offer high-quality, comprehensive health care for low-income, uninsured residents of Austin and Travis County. That care includes, thanks to St. David’s support, on-site social work services, walk-in immunization clinics, health education classes, community health outreach, and other services. At the same time, the centers serve as teaching facilities for nurse practitioner and public health nursing students.

The school’s nurse practitioner program awards master’s degrees to nurses who complete extensive additional education and training, including more than 700 hours of supervised clinical practice. Nurse practitioners are able to give physical exams, order and interpret diagnostic tests, and prescribe medication. Alongside the general family nurse practitioner concentration, the school offers a family psychiatric-mental health track to address the state’s critical need

‘The More You Give, the More You Get Back’ One Couple’s Story By A ng e l a C u rt i s

M

With support from St. David’s Foundation, the School of Nursing’s Children’s Wellness Center, top, and Family Wellness Center, bottom, offer high-quality medical care while training future nurses.

for mental health practitioners in addition to primary care providers. St. David’s Foundation funding has significantly enhanced faculty recruitment and scholarships for both in recent years, and a grant of $842,000 this year is providing further help to expand enrollment.

Meanwhile, the foundation has given a $3 million endowment to the school’s Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research in Underserved Populations, which will carry the St. David’s name in recognition. This center aims to decrease societal health disparities through faculty research and community-based health promotion programs. The new funds will bolster the center’s efforts to foster good health and prevent disease among minorities, low-income individuals, people with disabling conditions, children and adolescents, and the elderly.

In other words, it’s another perfect partnership for UT and St. David’s Foundation.

ary Virginia Jacobs could tell Trina Sommerlatte was special from the moment the young nurse walked into her husband’s hospital room. She just had no idea how special.

It was Thanksgiving weekend 2009. From the moment the two women met they shared an important interest: the health of Claud Jacobs, who was recovering from heart surgery at Citizens Medical Center in Victoria, Texas. They shared a profession, too: Mary Virginia was a retired nurse. They even shared an alma mater: The University of Texas at Austin.

But there was one more bond that nobody suspected. It was the reason the Jacobses looked so familiar to Trina that day. At first the 2007 School of Nursing graduate thought she had cared for Claud before. Or maybe it was Mary Virginia. They said no, but Trina persisted. “Names don’t ring a bell, but faces I usually remember,” she says.

Puzzled, the three speculated about mutual friends before it came to them — they had met at UT Austin in 2005. The occasion: a luncheon honoring scholarship donors and recipients.

The Jacobses had donated money for a nursing scholarship; Trina had received one. But Trina hadn’t received just any scholarship. She had received the Jacobses’ scholarship.

The couple had stepped into the future and prepared their own nurse.

“You can give scholarships all your life and never know what they can mean down the road,” Claud says. “Here my life was on the line, and that person who I helped to get an education was taking care of me. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

The next visitor to Claud’s hospital room walked in on the couple crying. “I still cry,” Mary Virginia says. Claud, too, gets teary at the memory. “It’s emotional,” he says. “You could live a lifetime and never have an opportunity like this.”

The possibility of getting something in return for their gift had never crossed the Jacobses’ minds. Rather, the Florence Nightingale Memorial Scholarship was a tribute to Mary Virginia’s mother, Florence Nightingale Moses Mason, who had always wanted to be a nurse but never got the chance. Creating a nursing scholarship at UT made sense, especially considering that three generations of Mary Virginia’s family — her grandparents, her parents, and she and Claud — had met at the University.

Mary Virginia studied nursing at UT before transferring to San Antonio’s Incarnate Word Col- A bond shared: Mary Virginia Jacobs, MSN ’80, and Claud Jacobs, BBA lege, where she earned ’64, flank Trina Sommerlatte, BSN ’07. a bachelor of science in nursing in 1966. She later returned to UT, earning a master’s in nursing in 1980. She worked as both a nurse practitioner and nurse educator before retiring in 2004.

Mary Virginia and Claud had met on a blind date in 1963. She was a UT sophomore, and he was a senior. They wed in 1964, the same year Claud received his BBA from UT. He now owns a financial-planning firm in Victoria and an insurance agency in Yoakum.

The Jacobses live in Victoria; Trina in nearby Hallettsville. All three are Texas Exes Life Members. By the time their paths converged at Citizens Medical Center, Mary Virginia had already retired. But, as she discovered during Claud’s hospital stay, old habits die hard.

“I can’t ever stop being a nursing instructor,” she says. “You look at how people do things and you check it.”

None of Claud’s nurses escaped her scrutiny, and some performed better than others.

Trina was a standout from the beginning. She walked into the room with confidence, and she washed her hands even before Mary Virginia could ask. She spoke to Claud before treating him, explaining what she would do. And her technical skills were spot-on. “I turned to Claud and I said, ‘That girl knows what she’s doing,’ ” Mary Virginia recalls.

A year after Claud’s hospital stay, the Jacobses and Trina met over lunch to reminisce.

The three discussed the importance of education, and Trina got the chance to tell the couple — again — the difference their scholarship had made. “It helped me pay for my education because I paid for everything myself — and still am,” she says. “It helped ease that burden.”

Claud’s experience with Trina reinforced something he already knew. “I’m a firm believer that the more you give, the more you get back,” he says. “All the time.” s e p t e m b e r | o c t o b e r 2011

| 59

changing the world What your investment in UT makes possible

Concerted Effort Texas Performing Arts rises to a challenge: to develop, elevate, and diversify classical music

T

exas Performing Arts director Kathy Panoff knows how many in the

public would define classical music. “Music by dead guys played by symphony orchestras,” says the trained concert flutist with degrees in music education and conducting. “The word ‘classical’

has been very narrowly defined, but classical music is truly like any other type of music, whether it’s indie rock or bluegrass. It’s a living, breathing organism that evolves with the passage of time, the context of our world, and the quality and the creativity of the musicians playing it.”

credits: This page, clockwise

from top left: Sally Mack, Nathan Russell Photography, Brenda O’Brian, Michael Wilson; Facing page, bottom: Luke Ratray, top: UT Study Abroad Office

60 | The

Panoff has made it her personal mission to combat the narrower classical music definition and now has resources to do so. Texas Performing Arts recently received a $450,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help fund a three-year initiative supporting classical music programming and engagement through interdisciplinary programming and extended artist residencies. Modern, innovative ensembles that have signed on include So Percussion, eighth blackbird, and Brooklyn Ride.

Two-thirds of the grant is being matched by the College of Fine Arts and the Provost’s Office, but a third of the funding, $150,000, is contingent on matching funds being raised from new or increased contributions. Provided enough donors step up, the initiative will ultimately be funded at $900,000.

“Research and development in the performing arts happens through the creation and performance of new work,” Panoff says. “You commission new work to be performed, test it in front of an audience, and see what survives. The reality of an arts organization’s budget is that new work doesn’t sell the way that, say, works like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony do. The classical music field has done that to itself — they have taken an either/or approach. But this grant gives us a three-year protective commitment to be able to do both.”

Among the new works being developed is a piece for double quartet by UT faculty composer Dan Welcher that will have its world premiere as part of the Texas Performing Arts 2012-13 season. It will feature the Shanghai Quartet and UT’s faculty quartet, the Miró Quartet. Another work,

composed by former faculty member Kevin Puts, is for string quartet and chamber orchestra.

The idea behind both pieces was to commission works that touring artists could perform with local quartets or chamber orchestras, thereby advancing the University’s reach and reputation. The Miró Quartet and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra will perform the Puts composition at Carnegie Hall.

A new work scheduled for the 2013-14 season pairs the Kronos Quartet with the avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson, while “Illimaq” — receiving its world premiere at UT in 2012 — is a drum kit opera written by John Luther Adams for percussionist Glenn Kotche of the alt rock group

$150,000 in additional gifts will help leverage $900,000 in total funding Wilco. The primary focal point, however, will be on large-scale interdisciplinary work, including a recreation of Nijinsky’s original ballet to Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” that will pair the UT Symphony Orchestra with the Joffrey Ballet to celebrate the centennial of the work’s premiere.

Each of the new works will be an opportunity to experience classical music in a different light, Panoff says. “I believe in my heart if you get someone in a seat without any pre-conceived ideas about the experience, then you can generate some excitement. It happens one person, one student, one community member at a time.”

As for opportunities, the Mellon grant presents another big one for the University’s alumni and friends: the chance to double their investment in the arts at UT. To contribute or learn more, contact Gina Jamison at gjamison@texasperformingarts.org or 512-471-2738, or visit texasperformingarts.org/ support.

New Donor-Driven Opportunities for Study Abroad

A

quarter-century ago, the University’s Study Abroad Office opened its doors to provide a coordinated structure and one-stop shop for students seeking to study abroad for academic credit.

Since then, the number of participating students has grown 472 percent — from 406 students in 1987 to 2,322 this year — making UT’s program one of the largest operations in the country. To celebrate, the office is offering 25 new study-abroad scholarships to qualified students each year for the next five years.

“It is our goal to make studying abroad accessible to all UT students, regardless of financial resources,” says Heather Barclay Hamir, director of the Study Abroad Office. “A significant number of students don’t even consider a studyabroad experience due to the real or perceived expense.” Funding for the 25th Anniversary Scholarships comes from the Anna Mae Hutchison Endowment, established in 1995 by an estate gift from Anna Mae Hutchison, BA ’21.

Hutchison Endowment funding also supports what the Study Abroad Office is calling the First Abroad Initiative.

Seeking a diverse range of students while operating on the principles of inclusion and access for all, the office is reaching out to students who are traditionally under-represented in international education. A growing body of research shows that studying abroad leads to greater academic success — improved retention rates, higher GPAs, better global competencies — yet students who are the first in their family to go to college are less likely to participate.

Therefore, study-abroad scholarships are increasingly being offered during the admissions process to qualifying first-generation students; 21 incoming freshmen were selected in 2010, 33 in 2011.

Barclay Hamir, the study-abroad director, says her research shows that study-abroad participation increases the likelihood that a student will graduate from UT — welcome news as the University strives to improve its graduation rate. Among entering freshmen, study-abroad participants are 46 percent more likely to graduate within 5 years, and 185 percent more likely to graduate within six years, than their peers who do not study abroad. The retention effect is strongest among academically at-risk students. “Other studies support these findings and provide data-driven evidence that supports what we in the field have assumed all along,” she says. “Study abroad can change lives.”

Students looking for such a life-changing experience may be pleased to learn that the Coca-Cola Foundation has awarded $150,000 to provide about 45 China-specific scholarships for first-generation college students at UT over the next four years. The University is one of six institutions Coca-Cola chose to share a $1 million grant in conjunction with President Barack Obama’s 100,000 Strong Initiative, a public-private partnership that aspires to send more Americans to study in mainland China. In 2010, 87 students went to China on UT programs.

Students who study abroad are up to 185% more likely to graduate

Opposite page, clockwise from top left: So

Percussion, the Miró Quartet, Texas Performing Arts director Kathy Panoff, Glenn Kotche This page, bottom: eighth blackbird, above: Government professor Peter Trubowitz with his U.S.-China Relations students

Learn more about the University’s studyabroad opportunities and how to support them at world.utexas.edu.

Changing the World is produced by the University Development Office. Please send your feedback and suggestions to editor Jamey Smith at jjsmith@austin.utexas.edu.

For more news and information about giving to UT, visit giving.utexas.edu.

s e p t e m b e r | o c t o b e r 2011

| 61