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.
Historically Black Fisk University in Nashville received a $2.5 million gift from Amy and Frank Garrison. It is the largest gift from the Nashville community in the university’s 155-year history. The gift will fund the establishment of The Diane Nash – Descendants of the Emancipation Chair in the John Lewis Center for Social Justice at Fisk University. Diane Nash, a Fisk alumna, was a leader in the student wing of the civil rights movement and played a prominent role in the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins.
Jackson State University, the historically Black educational institution in Mississippi, received a $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for research on machine learning/artificial intelligence for potentially improving cancer treatment and survival. Researchers will study how light emissions could yield revolutionary discoveries of bioluminescence imaging technology and photodynamic therapy. Each could greatly enhance the accuracy of tumor diagnosis and the survival rate in cancer treatment.
Dartmouth College received a $20 million gift from Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, executive director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford University, and her husband John, the CEO of Nike. The funds will be used to support the college’s E.E. Just Program, named for the African American biologist and Dartmouth valedictorian Ernest Everett Just. The program aims to level academic outcomes and lift faculty representation by increasing the number of students of color pursuing STEM careers.
Livingstone College, a historically Black educational institution in Salisbury, North Carolina, received a $200,000 donation from William Reid Rollins, former chairman and chief operating officer of Suburban Radio Group. The gift will support students in the college’s communication program.
Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, received a $600,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Higher Education to support students from underrepresented groups who are pursuing a major or minor degree in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics-related field.
Historically Black Morris Brown College in Atlanta received a $500,000 donation from Chick-fil-A. The money will allow students to participate in a leadership development program aimed at preparing them for a career in hospitality and organizational leadership.
