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.
Brown University received a grant of $450,000 from the U.S. Agency of International Development to conduct research on breastfeeding habits among women in rural Kenya. The study will be conducted in conjunction with a research team at Kenyatta University.
Historically Black Alabama State University in Montgomery received a $336,634 grant from the National Science Foundation to fund a summer program for undergraduate students in STEM majors on the Alabama State campus. The students will participate in research in nanotechnology and biotechnology.
West Virginia University received a $150,000 grant in support of a research project on nineteenth-century court cases in which African Americans were litigants. The grant will support the research of Kimberly Welch, an assistant professor of history who is writing a book entitled Black Litigants: Rethinking Race and Power in the American South, 1820-1860.
The University of Iowa received a three-year, $1.2 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to establish a Center of Exemplary Mentoring on its campus. The center will be a resource for underrepresented minority graduate students in STEM disciplines. Other schools that host NSF Centers of Exemplary Mentoring are Cornell University, Georgia Tech, the University of South Florida, and Pennsylvania State University.
Delaware State University, the historically Black educational institution in Dover, received a $1,050,000 grant from the Bernard Osher Foundation to establish an endowment for scholarships for nontraditional students. The Osher Reentry Scholars program will be geared to help students over the age of 25 who are seeking to continue their education after a five-year absence or to begin a new degree program.
Texas Tech University in Lubbock received a five-year, $1 million grant from ConocoPhillips to establish the Center for Engineering Enrichment and Diversity. The goal of the center is to recruit underrepresented minority students into engineering disciplines and to offer academic support services to these students once they have enrolled.
