Dorothy Flannagan (left), former vice provost and dean of The Graduate School, congratulates new UTSA graduates at a 2005 Commencement ceremony. A new fellowship supporting doctoral research in psychology has been named in her honor.
FEBRUARY 15, 2022 — Ten doctoral candidates in the UTSA Department of Psychology have been selected to receive the Dorothy Flannagan Endowed Memorial Graduate Fellowship, one of three grants awarded each year by The UTSA Graduate School. Each of the students will receive $1,000 to support their ongoing research efforts, including dissertation data collection and analysis.
The 2022 awardees of the fellowship are:
This year’s fellowship commemorates the 10-year anniversary of the university’s Ph.D. program in psychology, which was officially established in January 2012. Since the first cohort of students enrolled in fall 2012, 33 students have earned their doctoral degrees.
The Flannagan Endowed Memorial Fellowship is a competitive scholarship. It is unique, as it is administered by the Graduate School instead of being a grant from an individual academic college.
The fellowship honors Dorothy Flannagan, who served as vice provost and dean of The Graduate School prior to her retirement in 2014. Flannagan joined the university as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology in 1990. She went on to serve as the associate dean of the UTSA College of Liberal and Fine Arts, before stepping in to lead The Graduate School in 2001.
A developmental psychologist, Flannagan was instrumental in securing approval for numerous graduate programs, including the Ph.D. program in her home department, which is now housed in the College for Health, Community and Policy. She also served as UTSA’s liaison to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
Flannagan passed away on July 8, 2015.
Among the projects that this year’s fellowship will support is Hart’s study of the perceived institutional betrayal experienced by female military sexual trauma survivors. Her research will be key to understanding how certain contexts of sexual trauma and the disclosure experience may play a role in veteran women’s feelings of institutional betrayal.
“I want to explore whether these feelings of betrayal influence their future help-seeking behaviors, or even potentially exacerbate the many deleterious health outcomes often associated with military sexual trauma,” Hart explained. “Being awarded this fellowship will allow me to compensate the military sexual trauma survivors who voluntarily take their time to contribute to my research. I see compensating these veterans as a way of saying ‘thank you’ for not only participating in this study, but for contributing to the field—particularly, when such a contribution requires discussing topics that are typically very hard to talk about.”
Awardee Russell will use the grant to support her research in trauma reactivity among college students.
“I am thrilled to be a recipient of the Dorothy Flannagan Memorial Graduate Fellowship,” Russell said. “This fellowship is sincerely appreciated as it will be utilized to fund my travel to a conference to present my findings.
“In my time with The Graduate School, I’ve gained a newfound appreciation for the work that goes into the development and approval process for new graduate programs,” added Rebecca Weston, associate dean of The Graduate School and associate professor in the Department of Psychology. “It’s gratifying to see not only the success of the psychology doctoral program, but the tremendous achievements of the students who have graduated from our program.”
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