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.
Jackson State University, a historically Black educational institution in Mississippi, received a $250,000 grant from the Tom Joyner Foundation that will be used to provide scholarships aimed at increasing the number of STEM educators in high-need school districts throughout Mississippi. More than 30 master’s degree students in the College of Education will receive financial aid as a result of the grant.
Historically Black Tuskegee University in Alabama received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fund a forum aimed at broadening the adoption of organic farming throughout the southeastern United States. Tuskegee University will partner with the California-based Organic Farming Research Foundation to organize and implement a forum at the 2020 Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas. The project is under the direction of Kokoasse Kpomblekou-A, a research professor of plant and soil science at the university.
Rutgers University in New Jersey received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to design the New Jersey Population Health Cohort Study. The project will collect biometrics, survey responses and other granular data over time on major outcomes such as stress, resilience, trauma and cognitive function from a broad cross-section of the population across multiple generations, with additional targeting of low-income residents and diverse groups.
Historically Black Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina received two grants from the U.S. Department of Education totaling $1,750,000. The grants will be used for programs aimed at addressing a nationwide shortage of rehabilitation counseling professionals. One grant will be for counselors providing services for the deaf and hard of hearing. The second grant will focus on providing counselors for rural areas. The program is under the director of Yolanda V. Edwards, chair of the department of rehabilitation counseling at the university. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from South Carolina State University and a Ph.D. in rehabilitation counseling from the University of Iowa.
