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 Howard University School of Social Work received a $75,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for research on evaluating the effectiveness of racial equality standards in countering the overrepresentation of African Americans in child welfare systems.
Ruby M. Gourdine, a professor of social work at Howard University and co-leader of the grant program, states, “The rate of African-American children in the child welfare system remains disproportionate to their numbers in the general population. Too many African-American children are removed from their homes and efforts should be made to eliminate risk faced by children in fragile families in need of intervention services.”
The University of Kansas has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund a three-week institute on campus that focuses on African American poetry. The institute, entitled “Don’t Deny My Voice: Reading and Teaching African American Poetry,” will be held on the Lawrence campus of the University of Kansas from July 14 to August 5.
Twenty-five college and university faculty members or graduate students from across the nation will come to Kansas to attend the institute. The institute is under the direction of Maryemma Graham, a University Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Kansas. Dr. Graham has been on the faculty at the university since 1998. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She holds a master’s degree in English from Northwestern University and a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. in English from Cornell University. She is the co-editor of The Cambridge History of African American Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Historically Black Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles received a $1 million donation from Emma and Joe Adams to established a need-based endowed scholarship program for students at the university. Joe Adams, who was a Tuskegee Airman, was the business manager for Ray Charles.
The University of Minnesota received a $300,000 grant from the Great Lakes Higher Education Guaranty Corporation to support its Prepare2Nspire program. This program provides mathematics tutors for underrepresented students in grades 8 through 11 in Minneapolis public schools.
The program is under the direction of Lesa Covington Clarkson, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Clarkson states, “Too often, underrepresented students aren’t serve in our urban classrooms. This program will provide additional time and tools to support students in their mathematics learning.”
