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.
Indiana University in Bloomington received an anonymous gift of $1.5 million to establish the Tanner-Operman Chair in Honor of Roy Sieber. It is the first endowed professorship in the university’s department of art history. Professor Sieber served on the faculty in the art history department for 30 years. He was also was associate director for collections and research at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art.
The Tampa Bay Bridge to the Baccalaureate received a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation for programs to increase the number of community college students who transfer to the University of South Florida to pursue bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields. Participating two-year institutions includes St. Petersburg College, Hillsborough Community College, and State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota.
Washington State University received a $100,000 grant from the Seattle-based Bullitt Foundation to develop a smartphone app that will educate farmers in Nigeria how to boost crop yields and produce more food. The grant project is under the direction of Cornelius Adewale, a doctoral student at Washington State.