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.
Jackson State University, the historically Black educational institution in Mississippi, received a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation for its Institutional Change Through Faculty Advancement in Instruction and Mentoring program. The funds will be used to bolster the research of junior faculty members and allow them to use undergraduate interns in their research projects.
The City University of New York received a $541,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a program to increase the diversity of its faculty. The funds will support a program for faculty mentoring and professional development. This will include research/writing seminars aimed at helping junior faculty get published.
A consortium of eight colleges and universities in Missouri received a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation aimed at doubling the number of students from underrepresented groups who earn degrees in STEM fields within the next five years. Participating institutions are Washington University, St. Louis Community College, Truman State University, the University of Central Missouri, the University of Missouri-Columbia, and the University of Missouri-Kansas. The state’s two historically Black educational institutions – Harris-Stowe State University and Lincoln University – are also members of the consortium.
Historically Black Alabama State University received a five-year $901,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to take part in a research project led by the University of Pennsylvania that will examine the way cells exert and are influenced by the physical forces in their environment. The Alabama State part of the project is under the director of Derrick Dean, a faculty member in the Integrated Bio Engineering and Advanced Materials Center at the university.
Spaulding University in Louisville, Kentucky, received a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to provide scholarships for students from disadvantaged backgrounds who are enrolled in full-time master’s and doctoral degree programs in health-related fields.
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst received a five-year, $2.3 million grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities for community-based health research in conjunction with Springfield Public Health Department’s Men of Color Health Awareness program. The research will focus on efforts to help African American men cope with stress. The project is under the direction of Louis Graham, an assistant professor of community health education at the university.
Historically Black Bowie State University in Maryland received a $445,000 grant from the U.S. Army Research Office. The funds were used to purchase a supercomputer. The new technology will aid in research projects involving parallel computer programming models.
Wayne State University in Detroit received a $2,660,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health for research on technology-based health interventions to improve asthma management among young African American adults. The research will be under the direction of Karen McDonell, an assistant professor of family medicine and family health sciences at the university’s School of Medicine.
Northeastern University in Boston received a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation for scholarship and mentoring programs aimed at helping transfer students from underrepresented backgrounds who are studying in energy-related degree fields.
