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.
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst received a four-year, $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund one-year internship programs for college graduates from underrepresented minority groups interested in conducting biomedical and biobehavioral research.
Claflin University, the historically Black educational institution in Orangeburg, South Carolina, received a donation of $250,000 from its president Henry N. Tisdale and his wife Alice. The gift will be used to fund an endowed professorship in the sciences and to provide support for other academic programs and scholarships.
One scholarship, named for Alice Tisdale, will go to a student in the field of education and another scholarship, named for Henry Tisdale, will be for a student in mathematics.
Historically Black Alcorn State University in Mississippi received a donation of two robots from the Nissan vehicle assembly plant in Canton, Mississippi. Students in Alcorn State’s degree program in robotics and automation technology will learn how to program and operate the donated robots, which stand five feet tall and weigh about 815 pounds each.
East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, received a $191,514 grant from the National Science Foundation for a study on how race affects access to commodities such as jobs and real estate.
The grant program is under the direction of Mamadi Corra, an associate professor of sociology at the university. Dr. Corra has taught at East Carolina since 2003. He holds a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of South Carolina.
Historically Black Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida, received a $110,000 donation from Sodexo Inc. According to the university, “the gift will be used to support the UNCF Combined Charities Campaign, an annual drive for unrestricted funds, and it will be directed to enhance student support services.”
