RCAP has created two financial assistance opportunities for graduate students: the Surgeon General C. Everett Koop HIV/AIDS Research Grant and the Ryan White Legacy Scholarship. Both of these types of support will first be awarded in Spring 2012.
Call for Proposals for Koop Student Research Grant Announced
In 1986, U. S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, MD, completed a report on the growing AIDS epidemic. He urged the federal government to expand age-appropriate sexuality education for young people and to mount a publicity campaign about the importance of using condoms to prevent the transmission of HIV. Despite strong opposition, Dr. Koop moved forward with his widespread education plan. In 1988, he prepared the pamphlet, Understanding AIDS, and sent it to nearly every household in the United States. Those 107 million copies provided the U. S. population with plain-spoken, non-judgmental, and much needed answers about AIDS transmission and prevention. This pamphlet represented the federal government’s first and only effort to reach every resident with information regarding a serious health issue.
Surgeon General C. Everett Koop HIV/AIDS Research Grant
To honor the legacy of C. Everett Koop, M.D., former U.S. Surgeon General, RCAP established an endowed research grant that will support doctoral student research related to HIV/AIDS prevention. This grant was announced on the eve of Dr. Koop’s 95th birthday, October 14, 2011. Beginning in the 2012-2013 academic year this grant will be awarded annually by RCAP on a competitive basis to help support research of doctoral students nationally. Koop was the federal government’s chief spokesperson regarding AIDS while serving as U.S. Surgeon General in the 1980s. He was the recipient of the 2010 Ryan White Distinguished Leadership Award in 2010.
Ryan White Legacy Scholarship
RCAP and the IU School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation has created the Ryan White Legacy Scholarship in the honor of the 20th anniversary of the death of Ryan White, a rural Indiana teenager who died of AIDS, April 8, 1990. Income from these gifts will be used to support graduate scholarships to students pursuing a Master of Public Health degree at Indiana University-Bloomington, in the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, with preference to students studying AIDS/STD prevention or sexual health.
