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 physicians assistant program in the College of Health Professions at the Mercer University campus in Atlanta received a five-year, $1,126,390 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to train physician assistants to work in medically underserved rural and urban communities where there are large numbers of African Americans. The grant program is under the direction of Sheena Brown, a clinical assistant professor at Mercer University.
Historically Black North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, received two grants totaling $2.4 million from the U.S. Department of Education for programs to develop culturally relevant teaching practices for special education programs.
Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond received a two-year $250,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop self-managing exercise programs for youths and young adults with sickle-cell disease. People with sickle-cell disease tend to be less active due to high levels of fatigue and this can further complicate their health problems. While people of any race can have the sickle-cell trait, the disease is far more common among African Americans than it is among Whites.
Historically Black Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, received a five-year, $4.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education for student success and academic programs. Among the projects funded with the grant money will be student tutoring services. the Minority Male Teachers Preparation Program, graduate assistantships, and study abroad programs. The grant program is under the director of Said Sewell, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Lincoln University.
Tulane University in New Orleans received a $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how neurotoxins from mining and agricultural development are affecting the health of pregnant women and their children in Caribbean nations. The study will track pregnant women and their babies for four years to examine how chemical exposure impacts brain development in the children.
Winston-Salem State University, the historically Black educational institution in North Carolina, received a $2.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation for an educational program to improve the scientific literacy of visitors to U.S. National Parks.
Historically Black Jackson State University in Mississippi received a $559,660 grant from the National Science Foundation to purchase a scanning electron microscope with a focused-ion beam.
