Special Items Funding Request - University of Houston
Existing Special Items
Advanced Technology Materials Research:Texas Center for Superconductivity
at the University of Houston (TCSUH)
(University of Houston)
Current Biennial Funding: $10,680,000
Requested Biennial Funding: $10,680,000
The Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston (TCSUH) represents the largest university superconductivity research effort in the United States with over 260 faculty, research faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students from the disciplines of chemistry, physics, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, materials engineering, and mechanical engineering working in 15 laboratories. The goal of TCSUH is to advance high temperature superconductivity science (HTS) and technology, and bring HTS products to the marketplace.
TCSUH has already received 39 patents, with 19 applications pending. Two small spin-off businesses in Texas have already resulted from TCSUH technology. Prototypes have been developed for use in space, medicine, energy, and communication with industry and national laboratory partners. The National Science Foundation awarded one of 24 national Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers to UH as a TCSUH spin-off in advanced oxides and related materials. A recent Coordinating Board outside peer review panel enthusiastically endorsed the center's progress and future scientific and economic potential. In 1997, formal partnerships were initiated with researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University on new material development.
Director: Dr. Paul Chu
Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center
(University of Houston)
Current Biennial Funding: $964,576
Requested Biennial Funding: $2,000,000
The Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center (SVEC), an industry/government/academia-sponsored NASA Commercial Space Center, promotes the commercialization of advanced thin film materials developed terrestrially and in space for economic benefit to Texas and the nation. SVEC has greatly enhanced the space industry in Texas through its innovative Wake Shield Facility program, which has flown three times on the Space Shuttle. SVEC has developed new technologies and products in the areas of semiconductor lasers for defense and environmental monitoring applications, solar cells for space and terrestrial power applications, high density computer memory, hard coatings for industrial and medical applications, and optical micro-detectors for bionic eye applications. SVEC has educated and trained more than 120 graduate and undergraduate students in an interdisciplinary R&D program incorporating science, engineering, business and law.
Director: Dr. Alex Ignatiev
Small Business Development Center (SBDC)
(University of Houston [lead institution] and UH-Victoria)
Current Biennial Funding: $4,300,000
Requested Biennial Funding: $4,400,000
The Small Business Development Center provides quality management and technical assistance to the small business communities of southeast Texas and the south Texas border.
The University of Houston SBDC has served more than 52,000 clients in 32 counties and more than 140 communities in Southeast Texas since its founding in 1984. It has helped create more than 25,000 new jobs as well as secure in excess of $450,000,000 in governmental contracts, loans, and equity capital for local businesses. More than 5,000 new businesses have been started with a survival rate that far exceeds the norm.
State funding also supports the University of Houston-Victoria SBDC, serving a 10-county region. This center manages the "Incubator Project" in cooperation with the City of Victoria and the Victoria Economic Development Corporation. The newest initiative of the UH SBDC, the Metropolitan program, funded during the last biennium, was successfully launched during FY98. The program targets low and moderate income neighborhoods to enhance the ability of entrepreneurs to start, operate, and grow businesses successfully.
Acting Director: Mike Young
Optometry Clinic
(University of Houston)
Current Biennial Funding: $1,314,634
Requested Biennial Funding: $2,000,000
The Optometry Clinic first received special item funding in FY93. The on-campus clinical program provides patient care services for about 37,000 patients annually. Because of the university's geographic location and patient base, more than 60% of the clinic clients are indigent. The clinic provides non- or partially reimbursed field-based services through other programs for the medically needy, including those in rural areas of the state. The special line item funding supports professional and support staff services, and clinical equipment and supplies that cannot be reimbursed through patient fees.
Director: Dr. Jerald Strickland, Dean College of Optometry
Partnerships to Support Public Schools:
Math Education Initiative and Consistency Management
(University of Houston)
Current Biennial Funding: $794,430
Requested Biennial Funding: $2,794,430
This initiative, originally known as MOVE-IT Math, was created at the University of Houston-Victoria with special line item funding in FY90 and supports state and federal goals of improving the mathematics capability of public school students. MOVE-IT Math's innovative curriculum has improved the math proficiency and the interest level of K-6 grade students, with 90% of the schools that received training in MOVE-IT Math adopting it into their curriculum. The next phase of the Math Education Initiative includes a collaboration with the Consistency Management program at the University of Houston, and will be known as the Partnerships to Support Public Schools. Consistency Management is a highly successful, comprehensive instructional/management reform model that combines responsibility for learning and classroom organization among teachers and students.
Directors:
Dr. Paul Shoecraft, MOVE IT! Math
Dr. Jerome Freiberg, Consistency Management
Health Law and Policy Institute
(University of Houston)
Current Biennial Funding: $595,518
Requested Biennial Funding: $700,000
The Health Law and Policy Institute is an interdisciplinary education and research institute and one of the nation's foremost centers for the study of health law and policy. It has been ranked number one in the country by U.S. News and World Report. During the current biennium, the Institute's Health Legislation Research Center is assisting the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services by evaluating the accuracy, clarity, and timeliness of hospital billing statewide. In October 1997, the institute and the center began publishing a monthly update on health issues distributed exclusively to the members of the Texas Legislature. The publication contains recent developments in Congress, other state legislatures, regulatory agencies, the courts, and research.
Director: Mark Rothstein, UH Health Law and Policy Institute
Center for Public Policy
(University of Houston)
Current Biennial Funding: $200,000
Requested Biennial Funding: $1,000,000
The Center for Public Policy (CPC) is recognized as a leading resource for information on economic growth and change in the city and the state. The center gathers and analyzes data and collaborates with other research institutions to pool human and technical resources to study and solve regional problems. It also provides decision-makers with objective analyses for addressing critical policy issues, particularly as they impact the state's major urban centers. The CPC is one of three centers conducting an on-going evaluation of the state's new charter school programs, and it also manages the largest congressional intern program from Texas. Plans for the upcoming biennium include organizing and managing a major statewide effort to reduce the severe census undercount anticipated in 2000 and open a state-of-the-art survey research center in the new LeRoy and Lucile Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting facility on the University of Houston campus.
Director: Dr. Richard Murray
Houston Partnership for Space Exploration:
Institute for Space System Operations
(University of Houston [lead institution] and UH-Clear Lake)
Current Biennial Funding: $842,074
Requested Biennial Funding: $ 2,000,000
Working through the Institute for Space Systems Operations, the Houston Partnership for Space Exploration (HPSE) advances the intellectual and economic communities associated with the NASA-Johnson Space Center and accelerates statewide economic development, education, and research programs in aerospace, energy, informational systems, and large-scale systems. Research areas include space power systems, economics of global energy systems, space exploration, aerospace engineering, and the application of space-based remote sensing to analyze the Texas environment. HPSE has established links between the University of Houston and the University of Houston-Clear Lake and other universities, colleges, and companies, and with Texas agencies within the Texas Space Grant Consortium, so that all of Texas benefits from state funds directed to HPSE.
Director: Dr. David Criswell
Institute for Energy Studies:
Energy Laboratory
(University of Houston)
Current Biennial Funding: $657,578
Requested Biennial Funding: $657,578
Over its 25-year history, the mission of the Energy Laboratory has been to support energy and energy related research at the university and to encourage the creation of interdisciplinary team research efforts. This effort has resulted in a 10:1 or better leverage ratio, support for 60+ students per year, and publications of over 100 each year on research results as well as the creation, on average, of one interdisciplinary center each biennium. Efforts will focus on bolstering the university's natural partnership with the oil and gas industry and to support new efforts in seismic exploration through the Allied Geophysical Laboratories.
Director: Dr. Glenn Aumann
Houston Partnership for Environmental Studies
(UH-Clear Lake [lead institution] and University of Houston)
Current Biennial Funding: $1,000,002
Requested Biennial Funding: $1,500,002
This research center is a partnership among the University of Houston-Clear Lake, the University of Houston, environmental regulatory agencies, regulated industries, and non-governmental environmental organizations. Funding supports the Environmental Institute of Houston, which facilitates research, training, conferences, and education on controversial environmental issues important to the Houston-Galveston region. The focus is on natural resource conservation, pollution prevention, environmental regulation, and environmental education (EE). Additional funding would expand the development of EE guidelines and implementation of a network of EE providers who will train Texas teachers to deliver factual, balanced environmental education.
Director: Dr. Jim Lester
Cultural Enrichment Center
(UH-Downtown [lead institution] and University of Houston)
Current Biennial Funding: $1,973,514
Requested Biennial Funding: $2,908,256
The Cultural Enrichment Center exists to support cross-cultural and multi-cultural education at both the University of Houston-Downtown and the University of Houston. Funding supports nationally recognized programs in African American Studies and Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston. At the University of Houston-Downtown, the program serves to underpin university-wide efforts to develop in the students an understanding of, and a true appreciation for, the cultural differences to which they are exposed each day. The MAS and AAS programs offer undergraduate instruction in 21 academic areas.
Directors:
Lorenzo Thomas, Assistant Professor of English, UH-Downtown
Dr. Tatcho Mindiola, Director of Mexican-American Studies, UH
Dr. Linda Reed, Director of African-American Studies, UH
University of Houston
New Special Items
University of Houston Flagship Initiative
(University of Houston)
Historically, the State of Texas has made a commitment to the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University to provide not only capital and operations funding but excellence funding, as well. This has allowed these universities to become two of the nation's finest flagship institutions. While these universities have served the state well, there is a demonstrated need to expand upon their numbers - to provide both the highly-skilled, high-tech workforce the state needs and to promulgate greater scientific innovation and commercialization of technology.
As the state's third largest institution, the University of Houston is primed to become one of its next flagship universities. Providing excellence funding through this exceptional item would allow UH to begin establishing the infrastructure it needs - including space, equipment, support personnel, and faculty - to become a premier national university.
Through increased funding, UH would be able to enhance the quality of student education, attract and retain more high-quality faculty, use state appropriations as leverage for greater federal research support, increase technology transfer to the private sector, attract new companies and industries to Texas, and produce spin-off companies.
Texas Learning and Computation Center (TLC2)
(University of Houston)
Requested Biennial Funding: $3,008,788
Advances in technology are taking place at exponential rates. As they occur, the development of new applications will enable profound improvements in education, research, and industry. Present at the University of Houston are the components needed to effectively produce these technology-based applications: national leaders in computer science research, instructional and informational technologists, telecommunications specialists, distance learning professionals. To provide a synergistic environment in which they can work collaboratively, the University of Houston proposes the development of a new center, the Texas Learning and Computation Center (TLC2), where scientists will launch research initiatives of national importance, corporations and government agencies will prototype technology-based applications, and educators will improve the quality of instruction through technology-based applications, especially in the areas of math and the sciences.
Director: Dr. Arthur C. Vailas, Vice President for Research
Texas Medical Center Drug Information Center
(University of Houston)
Requested Biennial Funding: $704,360
Funding for this exceptional item would provide for a single drug information center serving the Texas Medical Center and the entire southeast Texas region. Benefiting both practitioners and patients, the center would be more cost-effective than having institution-specific drug information centers, it would make better use of available resources, and would be a critically important site for University of Houston doctor of pharmacy students.
Director: Dr. Mark Stratton, Chair and Professor of Pharmacy Practice College of Pharmacy
Center for Communication Disorders and Cognitive Neuroscience
(University of Houston)
Requested Biennial Funding: $1,060,000
The Center for Communications Disorders and Cognitive Neuroscience will address the critical shortage of qualified practitioners in Houston and Texas through an enhanced degree-granting program in communication disorders, will extend outreach from the existing University of Houston clinic to day-care, senior, and community centers through the use of a mobile hearing and speech unit, will provide resources for teachers in special education and specialists working with brain-injured children and adults, and will create new health-care funding opportunities, especially from federal agencies, including the National Institute of Health, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Science Foundation. Cognitive neuroscience will inform the treatment of disorders involving brain function and visual and auditory perception, and will facilitate coordination of health-care research in the Houston community.
Directors:
Dr. Lynn Bliss, Chair, Department of Communication Disorders
Dr. Anne Jacobson, Director, Cognitive Science Initiative
Dr. Lois Zamora, Dean, College of Humanities, Fine Arts, and Communication
Community Development Resource Center
(University of Houston)
Requested Biennial Funding: $900,000
Formed in 1992, the Community Development Resource Center of the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture at the University of Houston has assisted grassroots, non-profit community development organizations in projects to expand and renew housing stock. The center has also planned and developed essential community buildings for health care, pre-school child care, social, and recreational services. The center has built demonstration houses for Habitat for Humanity and the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation. It has also planned affordable housing subdivisions in the Second Ward and in pre-school health care clinics for the Houston Independent School District and designed and constructed recreational facilities in parks and other public places. The college seeks funding for a core professional staff and related operational resources to enhance the center's effectiveness as a community development extension service and expand its capacity to provide expert and technical services to low and moderate income neighborhoods and the city's more than 30 community development corporations.
Directors:
Mr. Bruce Webb, Professor of Architecture
Mr. Drexell Turner, Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture
Public Works Institute
(University of Houston)
Requested Biennial Funding: $1,600,000
Although the visible physical construct of public works appears as various structures mostly associated with civil and environmental engineering (water systems, streets, etc.), the scope of public works also encompasses management and policy issues in the realm of economic development. Currently, there is a gap between the state-of-practice in public works and the state-of-the-art in university-based research. Funding for this exceptional item would provide impetus for an enhanced level of research on public works-related subjects in seeking practical answers to real-world problems in the civil infrastructure renewal of Texas and the nation.
Director: Dr. Ted Cleveland, Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Houston Telecommunication Training Center
(University of Houston)
Requested Biennial Funding: $1,350,000
The Houston Telecommunication Training Center will provide state-of-the-art workforce training, applied research, and education utilizing key technologies in alliances with critical industries in Texas. The center will help industry develop technologically sophisticated workers, provide technology-based course materials online, and help develop truly effective learning tools that will transform educational delivery methods and provide the competitive advantage for the workforce needed for 2010.
Director: Dr. Shirley Ezell, Associate Dean and Associate Professor, Human Development and Consumer Sciences, College of Technology
TxPHARM Program
(University of Houston)
The University of Houston, in cooperation with the University of Texas at Austin, the Texas Tech University Health Science Center, and Texas Southern University, will be implementing an external, non-traditional Pharm.D. Program (TxPHARM). The program will be offered via distance education so pharmacists in Texas with a B.S. degree can earn their doctorate. The program has been approved by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and will begin in January 1999. This program is necessary because a bachelor of science is no longer sufficient for employment as a pharmacist in Texas. In the absence of a Texas program, practitioners have been forced to enroll in out-of-state programs, the availability of which is limited and not suitable for the needs of Texas pharmacists.
Director: Dr. Mustafa Lokhandwala, Dean College of Pharmacy
