Monthly Archives: September 2022
Higher Education Grants or Gifts of Interest to African Americans
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.
Brown University Acquires Papers and Artwork of Mumia Abu-Jamal
In 1982, Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. His death sentence was later overturned and he was given a life sentence without parole. While in prison, Abu-Jamal has written extensively on the failures of the U.S. criminal justice system.
How Higher Education Contributes to Occupational Segregation by Race in the United States
In 2017, only 10 percent of Black students, who originally declared a computer sciences field of study graduated with a computer sciences degree. In contrast, nearly 29 percent of White students whose original field of study was computer sciences graduated with a computer sciences degree.
Jeffery Robinson Is the New Provost at Rutgers University-Newark
Dr. Robinson holds the Prudential Chair in Business and is a professor of management and global business at Rutgers Business School. He joined the faculty at Rutgers-Newark in 2008, where he has specialized in management and entrepreneurship.
A Check-Up on the Progress of African American Faculty in Pediatric Medicine
African American men made up 1.3 percent of all pediatric faculty in 2000 but only 1.04 percent in 2020. In contrast, Black women were 2 percent of all pediatric faculty in 2000 and 3.4 percent of all pediatric faculty in 2020. So Blacks were 4.4 percent of all pediatric faculty in 2020, about one third of the rate that would exist if parity existed with the overall Black population.
Four African Americans Have Been Selected to Serve as Deans
Chio Sheppard has been appointed dean of students at Prairie View A&M University in Texas and Shuneize Slater was named dean of the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Jerri Haynes is dean of the College of Education and Human Development at Jackson State University in Mississippi and Janekia Mitchell is the new dean of student services at Gadsden State Community College in Alabama.
Huge Dataset of Voting Records Show Significant Racial Gap in Turnout Rates
Researchers at the University of Virginia and Brigham Young University analyzed 400 million voter records and found that minority citizens, young people, and those who support the Democratic Party are much less likely to vote than Whites, older citizens, and Republican Party supporters. Moreover, those in the former groups are also more likely to live in areas where their neighbors are less likely to vote.
Anthony Hollman Names Commissioner of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
Since 2018, Dr. Holloman has served as the vice president for university advancement and athletics and executive director for the Fort Valley State University Foundation in Georgia. The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference has 14 member institutions, all but one of which is a historically Black educational institution.
A Quartet of Black Academics Who Are Taking on New Assignments
Wesley Harris a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was elected vice president of the National Academy of Engineering. Shawn Lee Williams at Alexandria Technical and Community College in Minnesota, Tiffany Steele at the University of Rochester, and Aaron Faculty at Arizonza State are taking on new faculty roles.
Four Black Women Share an Award From the Association for Women in Mathematics
The four women mathematicians sharing the award are Erica J. Graham, an associate professor of mathematics at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, Raegan Higgins, an associate professor of mathematics at Texas Tech University, Candice Price, an associate professor of mathematics and statistics at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and Shelby Wilson, a senior professional at the Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Bowie State University Offers Several New Online Degree Programs in Technology
Bowie State University students can now enroll in new undergraduate programs that are designed to prepare them for positions in the burgeoning technology sector. Applications are now open for students to apply to earn bachelor's degrees in cyber operations engineering; data science; and software engineering.
Seven African Americans Who Have Been Named to Administrative Posts in Higher Education
Taking on new administrative roles are Kara Brown at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Jamaul Simmons at Winston-Salem State University, Renada Greer at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Michael Taylor at Southern University-Shreveport, Marsetta Lee at Talladega College, Consuella Askew at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and Jay J. Ellis at Grambling State University.
Two HBCUs Team Up With Gilead Sciences to Battle HIV Infections in the Black Community
Research shows that inequities drive higher rates of HIV infection, as well as worse HIV clinical outcomes among Black Americans. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated such health inequities. Gilead will fund research at the Morehouse School of Medicine and Xavier University with a total of $4.5 million in funding over a three-year period.
Shaina Phenix Awarded the Miller Williams Poetry Prize from the University of Arkansas Press
Shaina Phenix, an assistant professor of English at Elon University in North Carolina, is the winner of the 2023 Miller Williams Poetry Prize from the University of Arkansas Press. Phenix will receive a cash prize, and her manuscript To Be Named Something Else will be published in the Miller Williams Poetry Series in the spring of 2023.
Alabama State University Partners With Central Alabama Community College
Historically Black Alabama State University in Montgomery signed an agreement with Central Alabama Community College that will allow the institutions to work together to build a seamless pipeline for community college students to study and obtain a degree at Alabama State.
Four Black Scholars Are Taking on New Roles Relating to Diversity in Higher Education
Taking on new positions in higher education relating to diversity are Russell T. Griffin at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, Adrienne Morgan at the University of Rochester in New York, Karin Lee at the University of Alabama, and Kathy Goodridge-Purnell at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tennessee.
African American Volleyball Player for Duke University Subjected to Racial Slurs by Fan in Utah
An African American volleyball player for Duke University was repeatedly heckled with a racial slur every time when went back to serve near the student section during a match against Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. When officials at the arena were told about the abuse, they did not act to end it in a timely matter and the racial abuse continued throughout the match.
Thomas Jinnings: The First Black Student at Harvard?
Who was the first African American student at Harvard? This question is not as easy to answer as one might think – and, with the recent discovery of a name buried in an 1841 Harvard catalogue, a new possible answer has come to light.
