Armed with a new $485,000 grant and one year to spend it, the College of Health Professions at 麻豆传媒 will be able to offer immediate financial assistance to more minority and disadvantaged students for the 2010-11 academic year.
The grant news recently came from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Health Resources and Services Administration, said Richard Muma, professor and chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences.
Muma, who wrote and will direct the grant for the College of Health Professions (CHP), said the grant helps fulfill part of the CHP's 2005 Diversity Plan. One of the plan's major recommendations was to find financial assistance to support a more diverse student body in health professions.
The grant will support disadvantaged students enrolled in communication sciences and disorders (CSD), medical technology (MT), undergraduate nursing, physical therapy (PT) and physician assistant (PA) over the next year.
"The College of Health Professions has long been concerned about increasing the diversity of its student body," said Muma, who also helped develop and implement the college's 2005 plan to increase diversity.
Muma said that 100 percent of the award is federal money. One-third of the funding comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. No state funds will be used. CSD ($157,000), PT ($120,000) and PA ($160,000) will receive most of the funds. Nursing and MT will share the balance.
The two most amazing things about the grant, Muma said, are its size and the fact that the entire amount must be spent in one year.
"This translates into awarding larger scholarships to students," he said. "Recruiting and graduating disadvantaged students translates into practitioners who are likely to go back and work in disadvantaged settings, such as underserved urban and rural areas of Kansas."
Data used to apply for the grant indicated that between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2009, collectively in the College of Health Professions, 45 percent of students and 42 percent of graduates were classified as disadvantaged.
Collaboration on the data about students and graduates came from Kathy Coufal, CSD professor and chair; Jean Brickell, MT associate professor and chair; Mary Koehn, School of Nursing associate professor and chair; Camilla Wilson, PT associate professor and chair; and Sue Nyberg, PA associate professor and chair.
"This grant is a terrific example of our department chairs working together on behalf of College of Health Professions students," said Peter Cohen, dean of health professions.
Funds applied for in this grant program, said Muma, will be used to offset cost of attendance for disadvantaged students for at least 30 percent of full-time students who are experiencing severe financial hardship, a determination based primarily on low-income thresholds established by the DHHS.
Additionally, through the CHP's diversity plan, recruitment, retention and support efforts will be increased to attract disadvantaged/minority students, with a goal of having the number of minority and disadvantaged students and graduates increase each year -- eventually matching their representation in the community, Muma said.