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 U.S. Department of Agriculture has partnered with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund to launch a $2.5 million internship program. The program aims to attract a diverse group of candidates into careers in agriculture and other related disciplines by providing students from TMCF member-schools with opportunities to develop their professional goals and build practical work experience.
The Vulcan Materials Company Foundation has announced a $500,000 grant initiative that will support select historically Black colleges and universities in the Southeast United States. The funds will support scholarships and internships for students who win “pitch competitions” judged by Vulcan; opportunities for eligible students to design and recommend ways to make improvements in the areas of innovation and infrastructure that businesses, higher education, and government can support; internships with Vulcan; and enhanced facility spaces that turn off traditional college work spaces into tech-friendly study halls.
The Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity at the University of Washington has received a $3.6 million gift from Armond Dadgar and his partner Joshua Kalla to establish the Armond Dadgar and Joshua Kalla Term Scholarship for Educational Opportunity Program Students. The scholarship will provide financial assistance to undergraduate students participating in the university’s Educational Opportunity Program. The initiative promotes academic success and graduation for underrepresented minority, economically disadvantaged, and first-generation college students. The gift commitment is intended to cover room, board, tuition and related expenses until the student graduates and can be applied to any field of study the student chooses.
The Leadership Alliance, a Brown University-based consortium of 35 leading research and teaching institutions that works to train, mentor, and inspire students from diverse backgrounds to pursue research careers, has received a $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. The grant will provide funding for five years of expanded programing at the annual Leadership Alliance National Symposium and for the expansion of the organization’s Academic Year Workshop Program. In creating additional mentorship opportunities, the grant will support biomedical science scholars ranging from first-year undergraduates to junior faculty from groups that have been historically underrepresented in academia.
Historically Black Winston-State Salem University in North Carolina and Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina, have each received a $100,00 grant from the American Heart Association to address food insecurity in their local communities. The grants are part of the AHA’s inaugural EmPOWERED to Serve Urban Health Accelerator — HBCU Healthy Community Challenge Showcase.
