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.
Prairie View A&M University in Texas received a $850,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a program to aid women faculty members advance into academic administration in schools of technology or engineering at 14 participating historically Black college and universities. With this grant the project is funded through 2014.
Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina received a three-year, $387,544 grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The grant will fund the biomedical research of Kassim Traore, chair of the university’s department of pharmacy and health professions. His research focuses on interactions of environmental chemicals with various cell types.
Dr. Traore is a graduate of the Rural Polytechnic Institute in Mali. He holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Howard University in Washington, D.C.
The University of Maryland Eastern Shore, a historically Black educational institution in Princess Anne, received a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to prepare high school students for undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the geosciences. The money will be used to establish a network of cooperative science centers at local high schools. The grant will also fund a summer bridge program for 13 high school seniors who plan to study in the geosciences.
The project will be under the direction of Paulinus Chigbu, an environmental sciences professor and director of the historically Black university’s Center for Research Excellence in Science and Technology. Dr. Chigbu holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Benin and a Ph.D. in fisheries science from the University of Washington.
Julius Peppers, who has played for 10 seasons in the National Football League, has donated $250,000 to the Light on the Hill Society scholarship fund at his alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The fund benefits African American students.
At UNC, Peppers won the Lombardi Award, given to the nation’s best collegiate lineman. He was the second overall pick in the 2002 NFL draft and has played in seven NFL Pro Bowls.
