Here is this week’s news of grants or gifts to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.
The University of California, Irvine received a grant from the Contending Modernities initiative at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana to study faith-based women’s groups and activists in the African nation of Cameroon. The three-year grant will explore the relationship of women activists with external groups.
The University of Maryland Eastern Shore, a historically Black educational institution in Princess Anne, received a $147,479 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to bring the latest digital technology to the university’s fashion design and merchandising programs. The grant is under the direction of Grace Namwamba, chair of the department of human ecology at the university. Dr. Namwamba, who joined the university’s faculty in 2015 after teaching at Southern University in Louisiana, is a graduate of Egerton University in Kenya. She holds a master’s degree in home economics education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Ph.D. in family and consumer science education from Iowa State University.
Niagara University in New York received a donation of more than $4.1 million from the estate of the late Rose Bente Lee Ostapenko, the founder of a 17-unit fabric store chain. The gift will fund the Rose Bente Lee Ostapenko Center for Race and Equality that will integrate issues of race and equality into the teaching/learning environment at Niagara. The donation will also fund the creation of a new position at the university; associate director of equity and inclusion.
Historically Black Delaware State University received a five-year, $1.85 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to increase diversity in graduate programs in biomedical sciences. The grant will supply scholarships and stipends for master’s and Ph.D. students in these programs.
