Changing the World (May-June 2013)

what your investment in ut makes possible

dell medical School: Teaching, Healing, advancing health

may/june 2013

changing the world What your investment in UT makes possible

Contents ANATOMY OF A UT MEDICAL SCHOOL The University enters a new era in health care innovation

GROUNDBREAKING DONATIONS

Cover: The Dell Medical School aims to welcome its

first class in 2016. In addition to training new doctors, the school will conduct research to enhance medical knowledge and technology. credit: Brian Birzer

Above: The new Liberal Arts Building on the East Mall marks the first time the college has had a home of its own since Old Main was torn down in the 1930s. credit: Sandy Carson

Three new campus buildings embody the giving spirit

ANOTHER DIMENSION TO UT Radio-television-film students get first-of-its-kind 3-D curriculum

ENDLESS SUMMER The heat is on for scientists working to stretch water resources reprinted from may/june 2013

changing the world What your investment in UT makes possible

ANATOMY OF A UT MEDICAL SCHOOL

A $50 million commitment from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation vaults the University into a new era in health care innovation.

B

urnt orange scrubs — they ’ re not just for nurses anymore .

T he

Dell Medical School at UT-Austin, named for benefactors Michael and Susan Dell, aims to welcome its first class in 2016. It has the potential to improve the health of people not just in Austin but throughout

Texas and beyond by training new physicians and conducting research to enhance medical knowledge and technology. And it promises to expand health care access to people of all income levels.

Above and opposite: The

Dell Medical School, expected to launch in 2016, will draw on the University’s existing research strengths, including cell and molecular biology, neuroscience, biomedical engineering, chemistry, public health, sociology, psychology, health care delivery systems, and policy. credit: Marsha Miller

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To achieve its potential, organizers say the Dell Medical School will go beyond having the best faculty, laboratories, and teaching theaters. Cooperation among teachers, researchers, and health care providers in state-of-the-art facilities will produce expertise and management systems to improve people’s health both locally and globally.

“Central Texans of the future will enjoy better health than we do,” says UT president Bill Powers.

“Their economy will be more robust than ours. And their University of Texas will be more dynamic and prestigious even than today’s. The historical reason for all of these trends will be that between 2013 and 2016, the University—supported by key partners across the region—will have built and opened a world-class medical school.”

“It is the right investment for our family, our university, and our community,” says Michael Dell of his family foundation’s $50 million, 10-year commitment. “The effects of the medical school will be felt well beyond the campus.”

A TO P - NOTCH TE AM

A new teaching hospital and clinics for the public will ensure that classrooms, clinical education, and hospital systems are fully unified for the benefit of those who need medical care. By designing and constructing these facilities concurrently, the Dell Medical School represents an opportunity to create an environment in which to improve health through teaching, healing, and innovation.

“I’m grateful to be living through this historic and exciting period and to have the support of so many visionary partners,” Powers says. “We’re building the next great institution, both of Texas and within Texas’ flagship university. It’s an institution that will be propelled by the strength of the state and the University, and at the same time it will transform both for the better.”

A steering committee has been established to help guide the school’s creation now that start-up funding has been secured, including a property tax increase approved by Travis County voters that will generate $35 million a year for the school. Led by Sue Cox, UT Southwestern Medical Center’s regional dean for Austin programs, and Robert O. Messing, UT’s new vice provost for biomedical sciences, the committee represents schools and colleges within UT, as well as the Seton Healthcare Family and UT Southwestern. Meanwhile, a selection committee is identifying key talent and expects to have the school’s founding dean in place by the start of the 2013-14 academic year.

If all goes as planned, by 2016 Dell Medical School will begin guiding its first class of 50 students toward their MDs. Upon graduating, many of the new physicians will continue their medical education in residency programs established by Seton Healthcare at a new associated teaching hospital, where they will treat thousands of local patients. Many new doctors will remain in Texas, increasing the volume and variety of specialists in the state.

Health—the Travis County Healthcare District— is developing a master site plan for the placement of the school, the new teaching hospital, clinics, and a medical office building. The area being studied is the corner of campus near the School of Nursing, south of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, west of Interstate 35, and east of Trinity Street.

With an estimated $4.1 billion in construction and operational costs over the next 12 years, the goal is to accommodate current needs while allowing for growth, including space for privateindustry medical ventures. The master plan also is being coordinated with the state of Texas.

Among the many planning considerations are transportation, environmental concerns, and a design that integrates with the main campus and the surrounding area.

LEVE RAG ING STR EN G T HS

While Austin has lacked a medical school, medical education has occurred in the city for many years. Seton Healthcare and St. David’s Hospital sponsor extensive residency programs, and UT’s Dell Pediatric Research Institute, created via a $38 million challenge grant from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, has been advancing understanding of childhood diseases and “I’m grateful to be living through this historic and disorders since 2010. The Dell Medical School will coordinate with these and other key organizations’ exciting period and to have the support of so many existing resources.

Meanwhile, the deans of UT’s schools and colleges visionary partners.” are identifying how their programs can collaborate with — UT president Bill Powers the medical school to provide greater opportunities in education and research. The school will draw on UT’s considerable research strengths, including cell and molecular biology, neuroscience, biomedical engineering, chemistry, public J O I N T H E E F FO RT health, sociology, psychology, health care delivery systems, and health care policy. There will also be interaction with the University’s highly ranked Just as it takes a team to diagnose a patient, programs in nursing, pharmacy, and social work to prepare physicians for to perform life-saving surgery, and to successthe health care system of the future. fully deliver all types of health care, UT alumni Two dedicated buildings are planned for the school, one for education and and friends can help improve health care access, administration and another for research. Additionally, Seton Healthcare foster medical innovations, and boost the area has committed at least $250 million—a portion of which will come from economy by supporting the Dell Medical School. fundraising—to build a new teaching hospital to replace the aging University While the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation has Medical Center Brackenridge. The new hospital will serve as the medical made a $50 million commitment to the school, school’s primary clinical in-patient teaching facility and will enhance it will take the entire UT community to make it services to residents of Central Texas. It will also upgrade the only Level I a success. adult trauma center for a populous and growing 11-county area.

Learn more about the Dell Medical School at A team that includes the University, UT System, Seton, and Central utexas.edu/dell-medical-school. 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

GROUNDBREAKING DONATIONS

New campus buildings embody the giving spirit—and more are on the way.

Above, clockwise from lower left: The Liberal

Arts Building, Belo Center for New Media, and Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex have added 500,000 square feet to campus.

Opposite: Starting this fall, UT3D will offer the nation’s first comprehensive 3-D production curriculum.

Credits: Above, clockwise

from lower left: Sandy Carson, Callie Richmond, Paul Finkel; Opposite: SD Entertainment, Jackson School of Geosciences

10 |The

I

f it ’ s been a while since you ’ ve strolled the

F orty A cres ,

you ’ d be

forgiven for doing a double take or three. New homes for Communication, Liberal Arts, and Computer Science are turning heads and winning kudos, and all three were made possible through the generosity of UT alumni and

friends. Meanwhile, two more buildings are on the drawing board.

The Belo Center for New Media, serving the College of Communication and KUT Radio, as well as the Liberal Arts Building and the Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex, have opened this year, adding a combined 500,000 square feet of classrooms, study areas, laboratories, auditoriums, meeting rooms, and offices to campus.

The $55 million Belo Center could not have been built without substantial help from the Belo Foundation and members of Dallas’ orange-blooded Decherd and Moroney families.

The naming honors the third generation of Belo Corporation leaders—Joe M. Dealey, BA ’41, H.

Ben Decherd, BA ’36, and James M. Moroney Jr., BBA ’43, Life Members—whose grandfather, G.B. Dealey, established the Dallas Morning News on behalf of A.H. Belo in 1885.

The Liberal Arts Building, which gives more than 10,000 students a place to call home, is a model for innovative funding and costeffective planning and design. The building was self-funded by the college—a first at UT— which means it was built without tapping legislative or UT System funding. The total cost was reduced from $100 million to about $87 million, and $20 million of that is from private donations.

Rounding out the new trio is the $120 million Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex, which opened in March and includes which includes Dell Computer Science Hall. The Gates Foundation contributed $30 million to the project, while the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation contributed $10 million. The complex is designed to encourage collaboration and innovation. A mix of student and faculty spaces, as well as open discussion areas, surrounds large glass-walled labs.

Two additional buildings are in the planning stages, and alumni support will be crucial to both. The Cockrell School of Engineering is seeking to raise $105 million in private funds to build the Engineering Education and Research Center, an interdisciplinary teaching, research, and student project space. And the McCombs School of Business is raising nearly $60 million for a new building to house its growing graduate programs. The building will be called Robert B. Rowling Hall in recognition of a $25 million pledge from Dallas businessman Robert Rowling, BBA ’76, Life Member, his wife Terry Hennersdorf Rowling, BBA ’76, and their family. Both the EERC and Rowling Hall could open by 2017.

ANOTHER DIMENSION TO UT

FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND PRODUCTION CURRICULUM is a coming attraction FOR RADIO-TELEVISION-FILM STUDENTS

S

paceships hurtling toward you. Touchdown receptions an arm’s length away. Front-row seats at concerts. These experiences—or at least their illusion—are increasingly common in cinemas and living rooms thanks to 3-D technology. And now UT radio-television-film students will have access to the nation’s first comprehensive 3-D production curriculum.

Through a $2.17 million grant from the Moody Foundation to create UT3D, students will produce a range of 3-D content—plays, sports, documentaries, narrative pieces—and explore innovations such as glasses-free viewing for television, tablets, and cellphones.

Don Howard, associate professor and production area head in the Department of Radio-Television-Film, will serve as director of the program, which will begin offering classes to undergraduates this fall. In addition to leadership from current RTF faculty members, UT3D will draw upon industry professionals—directors, technicians, producers, and executives—to mentor students.

“3-D content and technology are headed for a revolution across all platforms.

It’s imperative to share this new toolkit with future filmmakers so they have the training and experience for the jobs of the future,” says RTF graduate Wayne Miller, BS ’77, an executive producer at Los Angeles-based SD Entertainment who helped envision the program.

The grant will be made over five years, and classes will be taught at the Belo Center for New Media on campus and at the Moody Theater in downtown Austin—the studio for the PBS television show “Austin City Limits”—where students will use the studio’s 3-D production and performance facility.

“We’re delighted to support UT3D,” says Ross Moody, BBA ’84, president of National Western Life Insurance Company and a trustee of the Moody Foundation. “Students will gain firsthand experience to start their real-world training. And when they graduate, they’ll be ahead in the growing medium of 3-D.”

ENDLESS SUMMER

THE HEAT IS ON FOR UT SCIENTISTS WORKING TO STRETCH SCARCE WATER RESOURCES IN THE NATION’S BREADBASKET

W

hen Bridget Scanlon thinks of water, she thinks of food—and how vital water is to agricultural production. A senior research scientist at UT’s Bureau of Economic Geology, she initially became interested in water because of her interest in helping to feed the poor of Africa.

Scanlon eventually was able to visit the world’s secondlargest continent, and the trip strengthened her resolve to make a difference. Now, searching for new, more-sustainable ways to mitigate the impacts of droughts, she is making great strides in understanding the processes at work in Africa—and throughout the world—through her research in North America.

With support from donor-funded endowments and other gifts to the Jackson School of Geosciences, Scanlon and her colleagues are revolutionizing our understanding of water resources used for irrigation and food production. For Scanlon, agriculture is the elephant in the room when it comes to discussions of water demand. Globally, it consumes 90 percent of freshwater resources.

“We need to get a handle on the water used in food production in order to manage water resources effectively,” she says.

Her work aims to do just that. She and her collaborators study land use and aquifer patterns in California’s Central Valley and the High Plains of the central U.S., including Texas.

Combined, these regions produce much of the nation’s food.

They also account for half of its groundwater depletion, mainly as a result of irrigating crops.

Scanlon and her team have suggested ways to make irrigated agriculture in the Central Valley more sustainable. Replacing flood irrigation systems (used on about half of crops) with more-efficient sprinkle and drip systems would help, as would expanding groundwater banking, which stores excess surface water in the same natural aquifers that supply groundBridget Scanlon water for irrigation.

When groundwater levels drop too low to support irrigated farming in some areas of the High Plains, farmers there will need to switch from irrigated crops such as corn to non-irrigated crops like sorghum, or to rangeland. “Basically, irrigated agriculture in much of the southern High Plains is unsustainable,” Scanlon says.

The transition could be economically challenging because non-irrigated crops generate about half the yield of irrigated crops and are far more vulnerable to droughts. But Scanlon is optimistic. “For agricultural water management, there’s a lot we can do,” she says. She continues to work toward understanding the various impacts people can have on agricultural water management, and hopes to eventually transfer what she has learned in Texas all the way to Africa.

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

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