OCTOBER 7, 2022 — In January 2021, UTSA welcomed Rhonda BeLue, Ph.D., as the Lutcher Brown Endowed Distinguished Professor in the Department of Public Health and as first associate dean for community engagement and partnerships in the College for Health, Community and Policy (HCAP). As a professional committed to equity and inclusion, BeLue was thrilled to join UTSA’s newest college and to develop relationships within the San Antonio community.
“I thought that being part of HCAP and developing a new college was a great opportunity, and I also liked the idea of being at a school that’s accessible to multiple families. This is a state school and that means everybody in the community has an investment in UTSA,” BeLue said.
A professional committed to equity and inclusion, BeLue’s research is primarily focused on making health care and knowledge accessible to the community and on training the next generation of health care researchers and practitioners.
BeLue uses funds from her endowed position to hire undergraduate students to work on the research team in her SHARP (Safety-net Healthcare Advocacy, Research and Policy) Lab. This provides them with opportunities to gain competencies through training, collaborative scholarly products and by working with mentors or teams at safety-net or community-based organizations and to address urgent health care needs of the uninsured and other vulnerable persons.
“I really believe in training the next generation and creating future leaders, and my endowment has allowed me to do this by giving me the ability to hire students. I think this is some of my most important work,” expressed BeLue.
In addition to student training in the SHARP Lab, BeLue conducts applied research and community engagement activities in partnership with health care safety-net and community-based organizations to address health disparities in historically disenfranchised communities. For example, she recently worked with community-based organizations to provide COVID-19 vaccine education and improve vaccine updates among underserved communities that disproportionately suffered morbidity from the virus.
BeLue also uses her endowment to collaborate with people in other disciplines. In the College of Liberal and Fine Arts, for example, she is working with health communications faculty members to develop a toolkit to translate research, increase its accessibility and provide an opportunity for San Antonians to have input in what the university is working on. She explained that it is usually difficult to fully fund and sustain projects like this because grant funds typically support active experiments and not research translation.
“One of the things we are always concerned about in research is the continuity of funding. Sometimes, researchers need pilot funds to start a smaller project before we can apply for external fundings,” BeLue explained. “The endowment helps us by providing funds to start exploratory research. It gives me opportunities for growth in multiple ways.”
With UTSA’s new Tier One designation, BeLue believes the university must continue to go beyond doing research and writing scholarly journals that are only accessible to certain people. She plans to fulfill her personal mission by contributing to conversations around accessible health care for underserved populations and participating in research that is helping to improve the community-at-large for years to come.
UTSA Today is produced by University Communications and Marketing, the official news source of The University of Texas at San Antonio. Send your feedback to news@utsa.edu. Keep up-to-date on UTSA news by visiting UTSA Today. Connect with UTSA online at Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Instagram.
Día en la Sombrilla, formerly Fiesta UTSA, is a festival hosted each spring as a part of Fiesta® San Antonio events. Sponsored by Roadrunner Productions, the event features music, food, confetti, games, event t-shirts, and more.
Sombrilla Plaza, Main CampusCovidence is a systematic & scoping review tool used to streamline the process of screening and reviewing articles. Using this software, research teams can easily import studies, perform automatic deduplication, and extract data using templates. This workshop will show attendees how to start a review in Covidence, add collaborators, and get started on screening.
Virtual (Zoom)In this workshop, attendees will be introduced to Pandas, a Python tool for working with data easily. It makes it simple to organize and analyze information when data is organized and categorized, like spreadsheets or tables.
Group Spot B, John Peace LibraryEach fall and spring semester, students convene at the Main Campus at UTSA with booths, ideas and prototypes. A crowd of judges, local organizations, students, faculty and sponsors walk around and talk to the students about their projects and ask questions. Students get the real-life experience of "pitching" their project with hopes of getting funding or support to move to the next level.
UTSA Convocation Center, Main CampusJoin the doctoral candidates for the Doctoral Conferreal Ceremony and celebrate their accomplishments.
Arts Building Recital Hall, Main CampusCelebrate the graduates from the Carlos Alvarez College of Business, College of Education and Human Development, Margie and Bill Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design and University College.
AlamodomeCelebrate the graduates from the College for Health, Community and Policy, College of Liberal and Fine Arts and College of Sciences.
AlamodomeThe University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development and the commercialization of intellectual property - for Texas, the nation and the world.
To be a premier public research university, providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment.
We encourage an environment of dialogue and discovery, where integrity, excellence, respect, collaboration and innovation are fostered.