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.
Fort Valley State University has received a $986,869 grant from the National Science Foundation to recruit, retain, and provide scholarship support for students in the plant science-biotechnology program. The grant will support 30-35 undergraduate, first-year or transfer students, who will receive a renewable $4,200 scholarship for four years. These students will also participate in program enrichment activities such as guest speaker seminars, workshops, events, and community outreach activities.
The University of California Los Angeles has received a $1 million donation from the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation to support UCLA’s Congo Basin Institute. The grant will advance the institute’s core mission of finding sustainable solutions to food and water insecurity, climate change, biodiversity loss, public health concerns, and emerging diseases. The funds will also support UCLA undergraduate and graduate students studying and conducting research in Africa, where they will investigate a variety of critical issues that affect the continent and the planet as a whole.
Historically Black Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, received a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant money will be used to develop an industry-based Computer Engineering Research Lab in the electrical engineering department.
Xavier University of Louisiana, the historically Black educational institution in New Orleans, has received a $16.8 million grant renewal from the National Institutes of Health as part of the national Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) initiative. The second phase of the grant, Project Pathways II, will allow Xavier to focus on the most effective aspects of the already thriving biomedical program that this university offers its students, work to institutionalize these initiatives, and disseminate these best practices across the country.
