Changing the World (January - February 2014)

what your investment in ut makes possible

TRENDING UPWARD With the Moody Foundation as a partner, UT’s communication programs reach for new heights

jan/feb 2014

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CHANGING THE WORLD What your investment in UT makes possible

CONTENTS GETTING TO THE TOP A major contribution aims to take a college to No. 1

MAGNUM OPUS

Cover: Moody Foundation trustees Ross Moody

and Frances Moody-Dahlberg want to see the newly renamed Moody College of Communication achieve top national rankings in areas it does not already lead.

CREDIT: Marsha Miller

Above: Plenty of burnt orange tchotchkes were on

hand as students, faculty, and alumni gathered in November at Walter Cronkite Plaza to celebrate the Moody gift and officially dedicate Moody College.

CREDIT: Moody College

One of the top photo archives finds a permanent home at UT

‘HEALTH IS WEALTH’ President’s Associates funding lets a student follow her calling

A NEW WAY TO SERVE SENIORS Using technology to bring therapy to housebound seniors reprinted from jan/feb 2014

CHANGING THE WORLD What your investment in UT makes possible

GETTING TO THE TOP A major contribution aims to take a college from the top 10 to No. 1.

Above: The Moody Founda-

tion’s commitment benefits the School of Journalism’s acclaimed Texas Newswatch initiative and many others that develop student talents.

Opposite: In and out of the

classroom, learning opportunities gaining support include student media projects, undergraduate research, and leadership organizations.

CREDITS: From left, Texas News-

watch; Moody College; © René Burri/Magnum Photos

58 |The

C

ommunication majors at

UT

are feeling

M oody

these days , and

that’s a good thing. The Moody Foundation has made a $50 million commitment to the college, and in recognition there is a proud new name on campus: the Moody College of Communication.

With 4,700 students, Moody College has national top 10 programs in areas ranging from advertising to public speaking and film production. The gift affects every aspect of the college, not least its ability to recruit high-caliber professors and students.

Moody Foundation trustee Ross Moody, BBA ’84, says the University started him on a lifelong path of discovery, and he wants to help UT do the same for others. The Galveston-based foundation elected to support the College of Communication because of its reputation, he

says, “not only among its Texas peers, but among its national and international peers as well. It’s a huge honor to have the Moody name attached to a college that is so well known.”

Moody and his fellow foundation trustees— sister Frances Moody-Dahlberg and their father, Robert L. Moody, Sr.—want to see the college go even further and achieve No. 1 rankings in areas it does not already lead. Thus $10 million will be invested in an “idea fund” for developing new curricula and courses, including online education, research, and student activities.

Additionally, each of the college’s five departments— Advertising and Public Relations, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Communication Studies, Journalism, and Radio-Television-Film—will receive a $1 million excellence endowment.

“The Moody gift will help us support important programs such as the Knight Center for Journalism in the

Americas, the Texas Program in Sports and Media, and our student-run journalism website,” says Glenn Frankel, director of the School of Journalism.

Graduate student recruitment will get a $13 million boost, while $7 million will support undergraduate work and create the Moody Scholars Program for first- and second-year students.

“The scale of this gift is extraordinary,” says Drew McWhorter, advertising graduate student and president of the AdGrad Council.

Facility improvements, including a pedestrian bridge over Dean Keeton Street, will see an investment of $5 million. The remaining $10 million will be split among the college’s research and community outreach centers, such as the Speech and Hearing Center.

Hugo Rojo, a public relations junior and director of the student-run firm Texas Tower PR, is excited that the gift will directly benefit student organizations.

“It reinforces the college’s commitment and focus on student leadership,” he says.

The Moody family is linked to another generous family with ties to the college. In 1923, W.L. Moody Jr. purchased the Galveston Daily News from Alfred H. Belo, founder of The Dallas Morning News and, as of 2012, namesake of the college’s Belo Center for New Media. As Moody’s businesses grew, he established a private foundation that grew to be one of the largest in Texas, awarding grants to education, children’s health, preservation, and other areas.

Moody College dean Rod Hart says that in this era of media convergence, he leads “a liberal arts college for the digital age,” and that the foundation’s commitment is an investment in its students, both current and future generations. “This is truly a legacy gift,” he says.

MAGNUM OPUS RENOWNED PHOTO TROVE GIVES SCHOLARS, HISTORIANS MUCH TO FOCUS ON.

N

eed another reason to be proud of UT? Some of the most memorable images of the past century, pictures that shaped history and revolutionized photography’s influence on modern culture, have found a permanent home on the Forty Acres.

Known for its collections of papers and personal effects of literary writers, artists, and cultural figures, the Harry Ransom Center also is the guardian of items ranging from the world’s first photograph to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s Watergate documents.

Now, bolstering the center’s stature as one of the nation’s finest research libraries, Michael Dell, ’84, and his wife, Susan, Life Members; Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman; and John and Amy Phelan have donated the Magnum Photos collection, containing nearly 200,000 press photos.

Valued at an estimated $200 million, the donation is the single largest gift to the Ransom Center so far.

Magnum Photos, founded by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and others in 1947, was the first cooperative agency to be established and operated by photographers. Membership in the collective continues to give photographers unprecedented creative, editorial, and economic independence, empowering them to document events while preserving their own points of view.

The collection spans from 1929 to 2004 and contains famous photos from wars and conflicts, historic occasions, and the U.S. civil rights movement. Cultural and political icons from Pablo Picasso to Marilyn Monroe and Fidel Castro to Queen Elizabeth II are represented.

The three couples purchased the collection from Magnum Photos in 2009, and since then the University has been preserving it and making it accessible for research. It has been integrated into curricula, accessed by students and scholars, and promoted through lectures, seminars, and fellowships. “The Ransom Center has served as an extraordinary steward,” Michael Dell says.

Stephen Enniss, who came to the University in September to take the center’s helm following the retirement of longtime director Tom Staley, says housing the Magnum photos and making them available gives the photographers’ work new life.

Enniss calls the collection an invaluable resource for students and scholars “and all who wish to understand the cultural and historical moment through which we have recently come.”

Moody is the largest college of its kind in the U.S.

Above: The Magnum archive contains seminal images such as this one taken by

Swiss photographer René Burri of Ernesto “Che” Guevara during a 1963 interview in Guevara’s Cuba office when he was the country’s minister of industry.

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

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CHANGING THE WORLD What your investment in UT makes possible

‘HEALTH IS WEALTH’ A can’t-miss opportunity sets the path of a global citizen.

E Above: President’s Associ-

ates funding helped Lola Olatayo complete an internship in Washington, D.C. The neurobiology graduate plans to become a doctor and promote accessible health care internationally.

CREDITS: From left, Alexander

Wang; iStockphoto

60 |The

very college student sets out with certain goals , but for some ,

the combination of supreme talent and limited funds can make for hard choices. A White House internship was a key step in one UT student’s plans for a career in global medicine. But it almost didn’t happen.

Lola Olatayo, BS ’13, believes the most sustainable change comes from within, and the opportunity to see up close the workings of a presidential administration built on change was too good to pass up. Good or bad, she reasoned, the insights from the experience would be valuable given her plans.

“I want to be a global leader,” the recent neurobiology graduate says.

Olatayo had already beaten the odds to secure the posting. Out of thousands of applicants, she was one of 150 selected. There was just one problem: living in the expensive Washington, D.C., area last summer during the unpaid internship.

“If I didn’t find the funds, I wasn’t going to go,” she says. So she appealed to President Bill

Powers for help. Tapping President’s Associates funding, Powers came through for her.

“It is the foundation for the work you want to do in the future, and it shouldn’t be something you don’t do because you don’t have the resources,” he told her.

Pooling the president’s assistance with support from the Texas Exes and others meant that “I went into the White House with a confidence that my university was behind me,” Olatayo says in a phone interview from France, where she is now working on a master’s degree in international development through the UT in Paris program.

The University had prepared her, she says, to hold her own in every way at the White House

ADVANCING HEALTH among students from Ivy League institutions.

“That in and of itself really let me know that something special happened in my time at UT.” Next Olatayo will continue her studies in China. After that she’d like to spend a year traveling and working in sub-Saharan Africa before heading to medical school. Ultimately she hopes to work hands-on in patient care while training civilians to be doctors. “I want to help Africans help Africans,” she says.

“I wanted to live a life that was bigger than myself.” – Lola Olatayo Olatayo’s family moved from Nigeria to Houston when she was 6. When she was 11, she returned to Nigeria for a year to study. While there she contracted malaria. She thought she was going to die, as did many people stricken with the disease in her homeland. But her family had resources for medical care, and she recovered.

“Health is wealth, and it was the difference between life and death,” she says.

It was then she decided to be involved in global medicine and promote accessible health care.

Back in Houston, she finished high school in two years, graduating at age 15. She won a full-ride Gates Millennium Scholarship at any university she chose. Harvard, Yale, and Columbia were among her options, but something was missing.

“They were cold,” she says. “They spoke of my academic accomplishments, but that’s about it.”

Olatayo wanted a school that shared her passion for changing the world. She picked UT. “I wanted to live a life that was bigger than myself,” she says. “I wanted a school that understood that.”

Olatayo’s time at the University was a whirlwind that included volunteering at hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics, founding an organization that mentors high school students, joining the Friar Society, and campaigning for the Travis County ballot measure that helped lay the groundwork for the Dell Medical School, an effort she calls the defining experience of her UT career.

“It showed me the power of my own voice,” she says. “I had something to say, and I could articulate it in a way that got people to care.”

The experience was one of several opportunities she had to work with Powers. “He has a special place in my heart,” she says. “He really does put students first.”

Join President’s Associates at giving.utexas.edu/pa.

A NEW WAY TO SERVE SENIORS

I

nformation technology is increasingly ingrained in our lives, from the grade schooler’s iPad to the account manager checking in from vacation. Now Namkee Choi, the Louis and Ann Wolens Centennial Chair in Gerontology in the School of Social Work, is using IT in an innovative way for older generations.

Funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, as well as support from the St. David’s Foundation and the Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte Foundation, she is bringing psychotherapy to aging adults’ homes via Skype video calls.

Research has shown that medically ill, homebound older adults are more vulnerable to depression than their more active peers. Isolation and multiple stressors, Choi says, can contribute to the problem.

“They are isolated from meaningful social engagement or social activities, even if there are a lot of people coming to their house, such as home health care workers or informal caregivers,” Choi says.

Studies indicate that depressed older adults who take multiple medications prefer talk therapy to antidepressants. Even so, there is a stigma attached. Choi experienced that firsthand as a Meals on Wheels volunteer, delivering meals and buying groceries for homebound seniors.

“One of my clients, an 86-year-old woman, kept telling me, ‘I am so depressed.’ But she was reluctant to go to any clinic-based therapy. In any case, she could not drive and could not afford other transportation.”

That prompted the idea for the video call study, which focused on depressed, lowincome homebound older adults. Employing Problem-Solving Therapy (PST), which helps people overcome deficits in their problem-solving skills to cope better under stress, the study compared the video call sessions to in-person PST and telephone support calls.

Calling it “wellness at home” to help seniors 90 percent of move past any stereotypes or embarrassment, participants Choi also reassured prospective participants that depression is a treatable illness and nothing to be said it changed ashamed of. But there was another hurdle. The their lives. seniors were reluctant to use technology. “Most of the people told me they hoped they got the inperson PST,” Choi says.

Over 36 weeks, the study evaluated the acceptability of the treatment to participants, the likability of the procedures used, and any negative aspects. The result: a significant reduction in depression symptoms. And surprisingly, Choi saw higher evaluation scores from the tele-group than the in-person group.

“About 90 percent of them said it was a life-changing experience,” she says. “Some people cried as they talked about how much they’ve changed and how PST helped them get out of depression.”

Choi says they appreciated the privacy of tele-PST, along with the convenience.

Another bonus was the technology itself. Despite earlier misgivings, participants said they loved using the computer and the video call system.

“The therapy gave me confidence to try new things,” reported one 84-year-old participant. “I feel empowered.”

A longer version of this story by Karen Kalergis originally appeared in the School of Social Work’s magazine, The Utopian. Support the school at utexas.edu/ssw.

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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.

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