Communication Scholars Program

The primary purpose of the Health Communication Scholars Program was to improve training of graduate students interested in health communication to engage in interdisciplinary collaboration and secure grant funding for research projects. More structured education and experience with this process as graduate students would better prepare these students for expectations they will face as junior faculty–to work with colleagues in other fields, find creative ways to align research interests, and propose projects for competitive funding. The structure of the program would be based on the School of Nursing Center for Health Communication pilot program for faculty, which requires interdisciplinary collaboration for pilot research to support future grant proposals. The Health Communication Scholars Program has continued to operate since its creation in 2013, now as a permanent program of the UT Center for Health Communication. Every year the program features a grant writing workshop with faculty speakers from across campus and a competitive grant process that awards research funding to top graduate student teams. The program was also published in the premier journal Health Communication to disseminate this as a model to other academic institutions.