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.
Clemson University received a $210,000 grant from Wells Fargo to support the university’s Call Me Mister and Emerging Scholars programs. The Call Me MISTER program originated at Clemson University with the goal of placing more male teachers from diverse backgrounds into the nation’s classrooms. The Emerging Scholars program provides high school students from three low-income counties in South Carolina with training and mentoring to prepare them for college.
Georgia Highlands College in Rome, Georgia, received a grant from the University System of Georgia to fund the college’s Georgia Highlands African American Male and Minority Excellence (GHAME) program. The initiative seeks to improve recruitment, enrollment, retention, and graduation rates of Black and other minority male students. The program began in 2008 with just seven students. Today, there are more than 110 students enrolled in the program.
The program has been a success. Black male enrollments are up 36 percent this year from a year ago. The retention rates for all African American males at the college is 49 percent. For those Black men enrolled in the program, the retention rate is 79 percent.
Historically Black Virginia State University received a $50,000 grant from Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to fund a breast cancer awareness and prevention program. The grant will fund the university’s Prevention, Education, Access, and Mammograms (PEAM) program which provides free mammograms for women in need in communities near the Virginia State campus. The program also has an education component where students at Virginia State visit local churches and community centers to increase breast cancer awareness.
The University of Alabama received a four-year, $530,368 grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a study to determine how African American churches can help reduce stigmas associated with HIV/AIDS in rural Alabama communities.
