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 Texas has received a three-year, $763,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop and test a digital infrastructure for preserving and managing the historical public records of the Central Lunatic Asylum for Colored Insane in Petersburg, Virginia. The institution was founded in 1868 and renamed Central State Hospital in 1910 and remains in operation. The project was the subject of a 2014 JBHE feature, which can be viewed here.
The 15 colleges and universities that are members of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the 14 colleges and universities that make up the Associated Colleges of the Midwest will share a $8.1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant program will aim to prepare students from underrepresented minority groups for graduate school and academic careers in the humanities and social sciences.
Florida State University in Tallahassee is the lead institution in a five-year. $10.4 million grant program funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. The goal of the program is to develop a community-based approach for early detection of autism among underrepresented minority groups using Black churches and government offices. Also participating in the grant program are Emory University, Cornell University, and Drexel University.
Historically Black Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, received a $250,000 grant from Boeing Inc. to help in the funding of the restoration of the Chappelle Auditorium on campus. The hall, originally constructed in 1925, has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
