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.
Washington University in St. Louis received a five-year, $3.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to test the effectiveness of intervention programs to educate adolescent girls in Uganda about HIV risk factors. Some 70 percent of all new HIV infections in the 15-to-19 age group in Uganda are young women. More than 70 percent of the people in the world living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa. The grant program is under the direction of Fred Ssewamala, a professor of social work at the university.
Texas A&M University-Texarkana received a three-year, $183,750 grant from the Texas Pioneer Foundation to establish a mentoring program for African American male students at the university. The Personal Achievement Through Help (PATH) program will provide academic support and guidance to Black male students.
The University of California, Santa Barbara received a two-year, $372,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to develop a measurement of the Afro-descendant population in Mexico.
Historically Black Tuskegee University received a $200,000 grant from Delta Sigma Theta Sorority in honor of Vivian Carter, associate professor and chair of the department of psychology at the university. The grant will support Dr. Carter’s research on smoking cessation programs in Alabama’s Black Belt region.
The University of Nebraska-Omaha received a two-year, $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for programs to increase enrollment and retention rates of students from racial and ethnic groups who are underrepresented in STEM degree fields.
Tennessee State University, the historically Black educational institution in Nashville, will share a $200,000 grant from the Tennessee Department of Education to support teacher education programs at the university. The program will focus on teachers who are experts in teaching English as a second language.
Iowa State University received a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to provide support services for students of color in the field of mathematics. The project is under the direction of Michael Young, an assistant professor of mathematics at Iowa State.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill received a $4.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation for programs to increase the availability of electricity and other energy sources in southern Africa. It is estimated that 620 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have no access to electricity. The grant will provide funds for training undergraduate and graduate students in energy poverty dynamics.
