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 three-year, $600,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that will support programs for students, graduate fellows, and faculty members to conduct research with the W.E.B. Du Bois Archives at the W.E.B. Du Bois Center on campus. The center is directed by Wendy Battle-Baptiste.
The Community College of Allegheny County received a grant from the Heinz Foundation to support the college’s Men of Merit Initiative. The program seeks to increase the retention rates and academic success of male students of color at the college.
Historically Black Norfolk State University in Virginia received a $81,235 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to support the university’s FM radio station, a member of the Public Broadcasting System. The radio station has been on the air since 1980.
Livingstone College, a historically Black educational institution in Salisbury, North Carolina, received a grant from the National Science Foundation to establish a STEM Workforce Training Laboratory on campus. The laboratory will focus on bioinformatics, cell biology, forensic science, microbiology and molecular biology. The grant program will be under the direction of Lawrence Flowers, associate professor and chair of the department of biology at the college.
The University of Southern Mississippi received a $379,076 grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service to support the university’s CampusLink AmeriCorps Program. The initiative involves the tutoring of at-risk students in grades 4 through 8 at public schools in southern Mississippi.
The United Negro College Fund, which represents 37 historically Black colleges and universities, received a $250,000 donation from the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. The sorority was founded in 1908 at Howard University in Washington, D.C. The donation will support the UNCF scholarship programs.
