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 Virginia State University received a three-year, $416,248 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to support the university’s research in breeding, genetics, and agricultural management of soybean and specialty crops.
Winston-Salem State University, the historically Black educational institution in North Carolina, received a two-year, $325,000 grant from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The grant will fund the university’s Weight Matters program that will provide health screening, exercise classes, and financial incentives for adhering to the 18-week regimen. The grant program is under the director of Cynthia Williams Brown, chair of the department of health, physical education, and sports studies at the university.
Montana State University received a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to support programs aimed at preparing undergraduate students for graduate-level programs.
Southern University, the historically Black educational institution in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, received a $500,000 from Capital One Financial Corporation for student services development, workforce training, summer outreach initiatives, and pre-college programs in STEM disciplines for underserved students.
The University of California, Irvine received a five-year, $7.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study brain development in children from low-income families. The study will compare the language skills, memory, and other areas of early child development of children of low-income families with children from higher-income families. Researchers speculate that low-income families may have poorer nutrition, more stress, greater exposure to environmental hazards, and lower levels of parental contact than children of higher-income families. This may lead to lower levels of cognitive development.
Historically Black Texas Southern University in Houston received a $100,000 grant from the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo to support the work of the Interdisciplinary Health Professions Simulation Center.
North Carolina A&T State University, the historically Black educational institution in Greensboro, received a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, for a research project that will use big data to forecast the outbreak of diseases spread by insects or wildlife.
