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.
Historically Black Tuskegee University in Alabama received the largest planned gift in university history. The university received a gift valued at $1,590,000 from the state of Dr. Orlando Lawrence Clark, a 1943 alumnus of Tuskegee. At Tuskegee, Clark was a member of what is now the U.S. Army Reserves. He went on to earn a medical degree at Howard University and became a commissioned officer of the U.S. Public Health Service. Dr. Clark died in 2014. The funds will be used to establish the Dr. Orlando Lawrence Clark Endowed Memorial Scholarship Fund for students in the biomedical sciences.
Wayne State University in Detroit received a $3.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund research to develop interventions to reduce barriers to optimal asthma management for African American adolescents.
Delaware State University, the historically Black educational institution in Dover, received a five-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation to support its Transforming Education through Active Learning (TEAL) program. The grant is under the direction of Charles Wilson, chair of the department of biological sciences at the university. Dr. Wilson earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Delaware State in 1984 and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Delaware in 1994.
The University of Nevada, Las Vegas received a five-year, $4.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation for programs to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups who pursue degrees in STEM disciplines. The university will partner with Northern Arizona University, the College of Southern Nevada, and Coconino Community College in Flagstaff, Arizona, on the grant project.
Historically Black Howard University in Washington, D.C., received a $1,198,627 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to conduct research on security engineering for resilient network infrastructure.
