By Dr. Doug Coatsworth, Associate Dean for Research

I joined the faculty of the College on August 1 as the Associate Dean for Research and as the Betsey R. Bush Endowed Professor in Behavioral Health. I have been fortunate to meet many of you when I visited campus in the spring, but because I moved during the COVID-19 pandemic, others of you I have not met in person. I look forward to when we can do that.

I would like to share with you a few of my plans for the upcoming year. My main goal as Associate Dean for Research is to help grow the research profile of the College by working with faculty, both individually and in small groups, and by enhancing cross-disciplinary collaborations with faculty in other departments at the university.

First, this fall I plan to meet individually with all interested faculty, in order to help me learn more about research interests, needs, and plans. I hope that through these meetings we can develop ways to meet faculty’s scholarship goals by building a funded program of research and through disseminating faculty’s ideas in professional presentations and publications.

Secondly, I want to create different kinds of thematic research workgroups to facilitate the generation/development of research ideas and to plan projects, write grant applications, and secure funding for those research ideas. The workgroups may comprise faculty from CSW exclusively or connect with faculty from across the university. Themes will likely emerge through the individual meetings and cross-department discussions. The number and size of these research workgroups will depend on the themes – with many opportunities to grow and expand.

Thirdly, I want to help grow the collaborations between CSW and other departments across UT. This will involve direct outreach to faculty in departments/units such as Psychology, Child and Family Studies, Public Health, Extension, and many others. It will also involve working closely with the Office of Research & Engagement and with Deborah Crawford, UT’s new Vice Chancellor for Research, to make sure that CSW can take advantage of their resources such as Strategic Research Initiatives, Communities of Scholars, etc. Our workgroups may create a new community of scholars. More than anything, we need to position the college to highlight the outstanding work that is already being done, our faculty’s emerging research ideas, and the many projects that are being formulated in our minds and are yet to come.

And for our alumni, stay tuned! We plan to share some stories from the outstanding research projects that are ongoing or will be happening soon. We might have opportunities to engage with you and your organizations.

I hope you see as much promise as I do. Again, I look forward to meeting and working with you as we grow the research programs in the department.