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.
Historically Black Prairie View A&M University in Texas received a $12.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to diversity the teacher workforce. PVAMU in partnership with Texas A&M University will use this grant to design its new Leading Equity Across Diverse Environments with Revolutionary Synergy (LEADERS) initiative to enhance and strategically target high-needs districts. It will prepare highly qualified teachers and leaders capable of supporting the academic, as well as the social and emotional needs of children and youth in grades K-12. Beverly Sande, assistant professor and principal investigator of LEADERS, said, the partnership will allow LEADERS to directly serve 265 diverse teacher residents and leaders, 211,621 P-12 students, and five large school districts.
Historically Black Tuskegee University in Alabama received a $7,930,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund the establishment of a new biomedical annex to the Carver Research Center on campus. The 8,600-square-foot biomedical research building will house Tuskegee scientists focusing on computational and genomics related to health disparities. The proposed facility will expand the number of research faculty, students (graduate and undergraduate), and postdoctoral fellows engaged in health disparities and biomedical research at the university. Construction is expected to begin next summer and will be completed in the spring of 2025.
The University of South Carolina received a $13.2 million grant from the National Institute of Health to launch the Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation (FIRST) program. The program will focus on recruiting diverse, early-stage faculty who are committed to inclusive excellence and whose work is related to health equity and disparities. The effort will also include mentorship, training, and professional development to help these new faculty members succeed at the university.
Historically Black Fisk University in Nashville received a $1.5 million donation from HCA Healthcare to support scholarships for students pursuing a degree in nursing. This donation will support students in the nursing pathway by providing hands-on shadowing opportunities, mentors, seminars, leadership sessions, and career guidance to scholars. The gift will also help support the implementation of the program by funding additional faculty support at Fisk.
The College of Engineering and Computer Science at Syracuse University in New York received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to help fund a program to recruit and train undergraduates from diverse racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. The funding will support a six-week summer bridge program to help students transition from high school to their first year in college. The program will enable students to be trained in research beginning in their first year and be paid for that research.
