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.
Morgan State University in Baltimore announced a gift of $2.7 million that will be earmarked to the return of competitive collegiate wrestling to its athletic programs. Morgan State will be the only HBCU in the country to offer the sport of wrestling at the NCAA Division I varsity level. The gift, from former hedge fund manager Mike Novogratz, is among the largest received from a private donor to the university. It will provide funding for men’s wrestling and will support up to nine full scholarships annually. Wrestling at Morgan State dates back to the early 1950s but was discontinued as a varsity sport 24 years ago.
A team of Florida State University researchers has received a National Institutes of Health Director’s Transformative Research Award worth $3.1 million to investigate racial inequities in the nation’s healthcare system. The program is one of the first NIH-funded research projects using an established model of translational and behavioral social science – traditionally utilized to change patient behavior – to address racism in health care.
Four senior colleges in The City University of New York system will split a $5.4 million grant from the New York State Education Department for programs to increase the number of racial and ethnic minorities in teaching careers, especially in high-need school districts with teacher shortages. Hunter College, Queens College, York College, and Medgar Evers College will receive funds over the next five years to train teachers who embody and represent the diversity of New York City.
Historically Black Tuskegee University in Alabama has been awarded a four-year, $999,995 grant from the National Science Foundation to train local high school students in information technology and cyber security. The program will provide 40 high school rising sophomores and juniors and 10 teachers in the Alabama Black Belt region with technology and cybersecurity experience through the development of mobile-enabled applications.
Western University of Health Sciences College of Dental Medicine with campuses in Pomona California, and Lebanon, Oregon, received a five-year, $997,000 grant to increase diversity in the dental workforce and provide equitable oral health care in rural and underserved areas. The purpose of the grant is to attract, recruit, and retain highly qualified and committed full-time dental faculty from the disciplines of general, pediatric, or public health dentistry who are representative of a diverse patient population and workforce to meet the crucial need for equitable oral health care.
