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.
Houston entrepreneur, law professor, and civic leader Tony Chase has committed a gift to the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin that will honor his late father, John S. Chase, the first Black graduate of the school and the first Black licensed architect in the state. The $1 million donation will create two new permanent endowments. The John S. Chase Family Endowed Graduate Fellowship will be used primarily to recruit graduates of HBCUs to the school and increase representation in the profession. The John S. Chase Family Endowed Professorship in Architecture will help recruit and retain outstanding faculty members. John Chase taught architecture at Texas Southern University in Houston. He died in 2012.
Historically Black Mississippi Valley State University received a $100,000 donation from FedEx Logistics. The fund will be used for scholarships for students in need. Since 2019, FedEx has operated a satellite office on the university’s campus that is staffed by students.
Ohio State University and Florida State University will share a two-year, $1 million Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program grant for a research project entitled “Collaborative Research: Strategies to Improve the Recruitment and Retention of Black Male STEM Teachers.” Specifically, the research will focus on the academic and career decision-making process and experiences of Black male STEM teachers as well as the culturally responsive practices they use in their classrooms to motivate and engage ethically and racially diverse students.
Historically Black Delaware State University has received a four-year, $431,000 grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences under the National Institute of Health for a research project entitled “Image Analysis and Machine Learning Methods for Biomarkers of Age-related and Metabolic Diseases.” The research will build on recent advances in medical imaging analysis to contribute novel and non-invasive techniques for studying the human body composition and its changes.
