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.
Two new grants awarded to researchers at Washington University in St. Louis will support efforts to bring more Black Americans into Alzheimer’s research studies to better understand the health challenges facing the community. Joyce Balls-Berry an associate professor of neurology at the School of Medicine, has received a $3.4 million grant to recruit Black Americans and other members of under-resourced communities into a registry for research studies. Darrell Hudson, an associate professor of public health at the Brown School, and Ganesh M. Babulal, an assistant professor of neurology at the School of Medicine, have jointly received a $3.7 million grant to investigate risk factors for cognitive decline among Black Americans. Both studies are supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health.
Historically Black Morgan State University in Baltimore received a $2.75 million gift from an anonymous donor that will be used to launch the Leading the Future scholarship fund. The fund will provide scholarship aid to 83 students each semester. The gift is the second-largest donation to the university from a person who did not graduate from the Morgan State.
Benedict College, the historically Black educational institution in Columbia, South Carolina, received a $1 million grant from ServiceNow, a leading digital workflow company, for programs to enhance the digital skills of students. The grant will fund the establishment of a ServiceNow Tech Center on the Benedict campus, scholarships for Benedict students, internship opportunities, a ServiceNow Tech Scholars Program that focuses on success in the tech sector, and a ServiceNow NextGen Academy – a two-month program designed to help participants actively take part in the digital economy and move directly into employment.
Historically Black South Carolina State University’s College of Business and Information Systems has been awarded a two-year, $366,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The grant will support the creation of a 15-credit-hour certificate program in international business that will include four new courses – Export Management, International Supply Chain Management, International Business Internship, and a Global Business Environment multidisciplinary course. The grant is under the direction of David Jamison, an associate professor of marketing at the university.
