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 University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, a historically Black educational institution, received a $200,000 grant from the Wingate Foundation. The funds will be used to manage unplanned educational and operational costs directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The University of California, Riverside has received a grant of $269,000 grant from the University of California-Historically Black Colleges and Universities Initiative. The program includes year-round mentoring for HBCU students and collaborative opportunities with UCR faculty; a paid, eight-week summer research experience at UCR; and a guaranteed fellowship for four-six years if accepted into doctoral programs in biomedical science or neuroscience. The program is under the direction of Byron Ford, a professor of biomedical sciences.
Historically Black Howard University in Washington, D.C., received a $250,000 grant from the Cigna Corporation, a global health service company, to expand the university’s Urban Superintendents Academy. The goal of the academy is to create a pipeline of African Americans to serve as leaders of the nation’s urban school systems.
Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, received a $150,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support its Freedom on the Move, a database documenting the lives of fugitives from American slavery through newspaper ads placed by slave owners in the 18th and 19th centuries. The database, which has 27,000 archival ads available, is anticipated to have more than 100,000 ads by the time it is complete.
The University of Connecticut received a three-year, $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to expand the New England Humanities Consortium Faculty of Color Working Group. The grant has the goal of increasing mentorship, community building, and dedicated time for scholarly production among faculty of color.
Honda America Corporation has made grants of $325,000 to HBCUs who would have participated in the 2020 31st annual Honda Campus All-Star Challenge. The academic competition was canceled due to the pandemic. The money provided to the HBCUs was directed to charitable organizations in their local communities that address key needs including food insecurity and medical support for families, senior citizens, and the homeless. The donations also have funded medical supplies and personal protective equipment for frontline healthcare workers in HBCU communities.
