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.
Texas Tech University is leading a five-institution consortium that includes historically Black Florida A&M University to establish the Engineering Research Center for Advancing Sustainable and Distributed Fertilizer Production. The goal of the project is to “enable resilient and sustainable food production for the U.S. by developing next-generation, modular, distributed, and efficient technologies for capturing, recycling, and producing decarbonized nitrogen-based fertilizers.” The other universities participating in the five-year, $26 million project are the Georgia Institute of Technology, Case Western Reserve University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Florida A&M University team is led by co-principal investigator Odemari Mbuya, a professor of agricultural sciences and director of the Center for Water Resources in the College of Agriculture and Food Sciences.
Howard University in Washington, D.C., received a five-year grant totaling nearly $3 million from the U.S. Department of Education. The grant will support Africa-focused programming, education, and outreach, as well as African language instruction at the university’s Center for African Studies. The center, under the direction of Krista Johnson, enrolls about 700 students in African language courses per year, and an additional 1,000 student registrations in African studies courses.
Historically Black Albany State University in Georgia has received a five-year, $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to provide educational services for both middle and high school students, and students up to age 27 seeking to complete their high school education in Dougherty County. The goal is to pave the way for these students to enroll in college.
The Office of Information Technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology received a $995,550 grant from the National Science Foundation to enable network and research enhancements for nearby historically Black colleges and universities. Georgia Tech will extend advanced networking services and cyberinfrastructure access to Clark Atlanta University, the Morehouse School of Medicine, Spelman College, and Tuskegee University. The project includes a robust training and support program to ensure proper adoption and success for researchers and educators at participating institutions.
