Here is this week’s news of grants to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.
Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, received a five-year, $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for scholarships for students in STEM fields. The university will use the grant to fund its Science Opportunities, Activities and Resources (SOAR) program that is geared toward students from underrepresented minority groups.
The University of Pennsylvania received a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct research on preventing chronic diseases among HIV-positive African American men. The grant program will include researchers from the university’s Perelman School of Medicine, the Annenberg School for Communication and the School of Nursing. 
John B. Jemmont, professor of communication in psychiatry and the Kenneth B. Clark Professor of Communication is the lead investigator. He is a graduate of York College of the City University of New York. He holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University.
The Howard University School of Divinity received a three-year, $1 million grant from the Lilly Endowment to study African American churches in Atlanta, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Tuskegee, Alabama. The research will seek out church programs that successfully promote the spiritual, physical, 
social, and mental health of their congregations.
The principal investigator of the grant program is Alton B. Pollard III, dean of the Howard University School of Divinity. A graduate of Fisk University, Dr. Pollard earned a master of divinity degree at Harvard University and a Ph.D. in religion from Duke University.
