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.
Alumni and longtime university supporters Lois and Darryl Goss are creating a presidential chair in African American and African studies at the University of California, Davis. The Austin and Arutha Goss Presidential Chair in African American and African Studies is named in honor of Darryl Goss’ parents, whom he and his wife credit with teaching them the value of education and lifelong learning. The chair is funded by a $1.5 million gift from the Gosses plus $500,000 from the university’s Presidential Match for Endowed Chairs,. This will be the first endowed chair in the department of African American and African studies at the university.
Emory University’s School of Nursing is sharing in a $4.5 million grant from the World Bank as part of a multinational consortium working to reduce infant mortality in Ethiopia. Saving Little Lives at Birth (SLL) has also been named the flagship program of the Ethiopian Ministry of Health.
The Research University Alliance, funded by a $2.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation, focuses on increasing recruitment, retention, and transition into faculty careers for postdoctoral scholars who are part of minority groups that are historically underrepresented in the fields of mathematics, physical and Earth sciences, and engineering. Members of the alliance include the California Institute of Technology; the Georgia Institute of Technology; Harvard University; Stanford University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Michigan; the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Washington.
The Minority Achievement, Creativity, and High-Ability Center (MACH-III) at historically Black Prairie View A&M University in Texas has received a $1.5 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to develop a framework that will increase the number of Black males in public schools who teach students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM.
