Education & Affordable Housing
In the last year, the University of Houston has beefed up its campaign to become a Tier 1 research university. While many departments at UH will reap the benefits of achieving Tier 1 status, the UH School of Communication may find itself left out.
For the UH School of Communication, which was established in 1978 by combining the programs in radio, television, journalism, speech communication and communication disorders, being left out is nothing new.
“When I came here in late 1979, it was my opinion, based upon my previous experience in Canada where I was director of a school that this school was underfunded right from the beginning,” said Garth Jowett, director of the school of communication. “We had about 23 faculty at that time and the funding was less than I had for 15 faculty in Canada.”
Jowett could not pinpoint exactly why the UH School of Communication has never been adequately funded, but did say that the school has been perceived as a “pencil and paper department.”
When Jowett became director of the UH School of Communication in 1980, he sought to convince the university’s administration that the school needed more funding. The director seemed to be making progress towards this goal in the mid 80s, but a financial crunch during 1985 and 1986 seriously hindered the school’s funding.
“At the time of the financial crunch, the funding was again withdrawn to some extent and the school never progressed [any] further in terms of funding,” said Jowett.
The Houston Endowment, a Houston philanthropy, has donated millions of dollars to departments within the University of Houston and the University of Texas at Austin, a Tier 1 school. Among the schools at UT that have received a portion of these funds is the UT School of Communication, which bears the name of Houston Endowment founder Jesse H. Jones. Jones, a former owner of the Houston Chronicle, who amassed a great deal of his wealth in Houston, was also a donor of UT’s first and largest endowment, according to the UT School of Communication's website.
In the past three years the Houston Endowment has donated approximately $52.5 million to higher education at an average of $17.5 million per year. From that total, nearly $9 million has gone to UT while $4 million has gone to UH.
Out of the millions of dollars donated to the University of Houston, only a small sum has been spent on the UH School of Communication. The Houston Endowment’s only contribution in the history of the school was a $324,000 grant in 1996 for the UH Communication Disorders Program. Since its founding, the UT College of Communication has received over $20 million in funds from the Houston Endowment.
“I think it’s unfortunate, but not unfair because people can donate their money where they wish,” Jowett said. “I do think a lot of it has to do with the aggressiveness that the University of Texas had when seeking out those funds. To be quite honest, they had their act together long before we did.”
“It certainly would be beneficial to [UH] to have Tier 1 status," said Houston Endowment Grant Officer George Grainger. “But is that going to influence our grant making decisions? I think probably not.”
Grainger said Tier 1 status has never been an issue when it comes to grants.
Currently, the UH School of Communication is looking to attract benefactors in the area of health communication. Next to pornography, health is the single largest area of contact on the Internet. Within the next three years, the school is looking to make three faculty appointments in health communications to create a “center of excellence.”
“What we’re hoping to do is to research, study and educate students working with doctor-patient relationships,” said Jowett. “It’s a unique opportunity for us here in Houston with the large medical center that we have.”
Jowett said the fourth largest city in the country deserves to have a dynamic, well-funded school of communication at its primary university.
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