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.
A summer bridge program at historically Black Tennessee State University has received a $80,000 grant from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. The Summer Completion Academy is a rigorous one-week program that helps first-time freshman brush up on critical math, reading, and writing skills. The grant will provide 300 students in the academy the opportunity to satisfy the learning support requirement prior to their first semester of enrollment.
Historically Black Virginia Union University has received a $2.5 million gift from alumna Dr. Virginia B. Howerton. The gift is the largest amount the university has ever received from an individual at one time. The funds will be used for strategic growth development, historic preservation on campus, and full scholarships for qualified students.
A professor at Michigan State University has received a $3.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to further his research on Ugandan and Malawian children with HIV by tracking their development using computerized cognitive rehabilitation therapies and to evaluate the therapies’ effectiveness. The research team hopes the computer games can be a means of rehabilitation and cognitive stimulation, as well as gather information to look at the dynamic learning capacity of the children, especially in response to health and enrichment intervention programs.
North Carolina A&T State University, the historically Black educational institution in Greensboro, has received a $400,000 grant from U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy to design a replacement header for an existing coal-fired power plant using an advanced alloy. The research team will also conduct an advanced computational study using computational fluid dynamics and machine learning to investigate the fatigue damage accumulation in the header under cyclic loading.
SPPARK, a summer pre-law program at the University of Arkansas, has received a grant from AccessLex Institute to support its summer in-residence program. SPPARK is designed to expand diversity in law schools and in the legal profession by immersing members of underrepresented populations in a three-week law school experience. The program’s curriculum helps participating students develop skills, network, compete for top scholarships, excel in their classes, and become productive members of the legal community.
