Several faculty members at the University of Missouri's School of Journalism are taking steps to revitalize the Science Journalism Center so that it can help both students and professionals have a greater understanding of science issues.

Brant Houston, a journalism professor and executive director of Investigative Reporters & Editors, Inc., based at Missouri, said in a telephone interview that he wants the center to serve as a bridge between journalists and scientists.

Begun in 1986, the Science Journalism Center once advertised that it regularly offered a science writing class to students, fielded 500 requests a year for help, especially on biomedical stories, and produced a newsletter that went to 1,700 science journalists. But since the former director, Robert Logan, left two years ago for a position with the National Institutes of Health, university officials concede that some of those efforts have waned. The center is funded almost completely by outside grants, according to Houston.

Houston said he is working on both funding and administrative options to revive the center. "We're reconstructing it," he said. "We hope that in January we will be able to begin kicking off at least a couple of programs."

One is the revival of a newsletter that will be distributed to journalists. Houston said that two graduate research assistants have been working on the newsletter since last spring and that much of the material is written and a new design completed.

In addition, in January, Michael Grinfeld, an associate professor of journalism, will begin teaching a course on science, health, and environmental writing. Grinfeld, who has been at the university since 2001, has written for several health-based publications, such as Parenting and Geriatric Times, according to information supplied by the university.

Two other recent arrivals to the university also have begun discussing how they could expand the school's environmental journalism offerings. Gary Grigsby cautioned that discussions he and William Allen have been having are preliminary, but he says they hope to collaborate with the revived Science Journalism Center.

Grigsby, who had been in broadcasting and later was at the University of Mississippi, assists students at the university's broadcasting news department at KOMU-TV in Columbia, Missouri. Allen, who coordinates agricultural journalism program at the university, is a former reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Houston, who is heading efforts to revive the science center, said he has not yet spent any time on curriculum, but he hopes to in the future. He said he is working to revive the center so that it can work closely with IRE and become a resource for helping journalists better understand science issues.