Investing in Mental Health

ROGERS FOUNDATION GIFT ADVANCES INITIATIVES IN MEDICINE, NURSING AND PHARMACY

BY LORI FERGUSON

IN JULY OF 2022 , The University of Texas at Tyler made an exciting announcement: The Robert M. Rogers Foundation had committed $10 million to support mental and behavioral health education initiatives in the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, and the Ben and Maytee Fisch College of Pharmacy.

The gift’s impact reverberated across the institution, eliciting excitement among faculty, staff and students alike. “Our behavioral health outcomes are among the direst in the country, and a large percentage of physical health outcomes have an underlying behavioral health component,” observes Dr. Brigham Willis, founding dean of the School of Medicine. “Increasing educational opportunities for behavioral health practitioners is an important foundational step for the entire school, and this gift will enable us to do that.”

Willis is particularly excited by the interdisciplinary nature of the gift, which touches upon all facets of mental and behavioral health education. One segment of the gift will go toward establishing the Robert M. Rogers Scholarship and mental health curriculum in the School of Medicine, while other funds will support faculty positions in the School of Medicine as well as the School of Nursing and the Fisch College of Pharmacy. Additionally, the department of psychiatry will be known as the Robert M. Rogers Department of Psychiatry.

“As a new school, resources and support for new programs can be difficult to secure, so the effect of philanthropy at this point in our development is profound,” Willis notes. “We have wideranging needs — we want to develop curriculum, expand clinical services and flesh out departments to help people in communities across East Texas — so support like that shown by The Rogers Foundation is essential.”

Dr. Julie Philley, executive vice president for health affairs and vice provost, is equally enthusiastic. “This gift reaches across disciplines, allowing us to train doc tors, nurses and pharmacists,” she says. “Delivering mental health care takes a team, and this transformational gift will enable us to work together for the common good.”

East Texas is a large region comprised of 35 counties, and most of the population lives in small towns without access to mental health resources, Philley continues. “This gift will allow us to meet people where they are as well as partner with other entities committed to delivering mental health training and services.”

For Dr. Barbara Haas, dean of the School of Nursing, the import of the gift is undeniable. “At present there’s a huge shortage of mental health care providers, and with one-third of adults seeking mental health care services, there’s clearly a need,” she says. But more providers cannot be trained if there aren’t sufficient educators, Haas points out, which is why the Rogers Foundation gift is so important. “The gift will allow us to create an endowed chair for psychiatric mental health nursing, which in turn will allow us to recruit high quality mental health nurse practitioners to serve as faculty,” she explains.

“Transformational gifts like the Rogers contribution assist UT Tyler in fulfilling our mission of providing excellence in education, research and advanced health care delivery,”

The consolidation of The University of Texas at Tyler and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler under one administrative umbrella expanded the institution’s mission and vision. ¶ The merged university integrates the talent and assets of each institution to more comprehensively serve the educational, health and research needs of East Texas. ¶ A new visual brand was introduced to accurately represent the new institution. ¶ “We gathered valuable input from internal and external constituencies to develop a brand that represents our full integration as one cohesive family,” says President Kirk A. Calhoun, MD, FACP. “The new brand also projects us as a competitive, unified entity within the UT System.” ¶ The new logo demonstra tes UT Tyler affiliations with both UT System and UT Health

East Texas, and the color blue represents UT Tyler’s brand equity and distinguishes the uni versity from the health system. ¶ Since the previous academic logo was also shared by the athletics program, it was necessary to refresh the athletics visual identity. Working with the athletics program, students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the university, UT Tyler officials developed an identity system that reflects athletics’ strong history of success, visually includes the mascot “Swoop” and strategically connects to the academic brand. ¶

“With UT Tyler now competing in NCAA Division II, our new athletic marks contribute to our building on the already positive reputation of UT Tyler’s athletics program,” says Dr. Howard Patterson, vice president for athletics. The new athletics marks are also used in spirit settings. ¶ The university is gradually in-

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