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.
Prairie View A&M University, the historically Black educational institution in Texas, received a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a project entitled “Building a Community of Mathematics and Science Teachers through the Application of Social Cognitive Career Theory.” The five-year project will effectively prepare 24 racially and ethnically diverse students to be mathematics and science teachers. The grant is under the direction of Camille Burnett, an assistant professor of mathematics education in the university’s department of curriculum and instruction.
Historically Black Florida A&M University received a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency to establish the Florida Panhandle Capital Readiness Collaborative, which will provide technical assistance and programs across 12 counties to help underserved entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses.
Tennessee State University’s College of Engineering received a $2.25 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a program to create a five-year pilot engineering curriculum that includes a pre-engineering program and an immersive engineering studio based on course-based undergraduate research experiences aiming to focus on student retention and graduation. Funds will also be used by the historically Black university to establish a STEM Enhancement Institute that will provide support to students who struggle with their STEM courses in their pre-engineering program.
Historically Black Alabama A&M University received a $185,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense for a project entitled “Equivariant Hopf Bifurcation in Symmetric Artificial Neuronal Networks Characterized by Multiple Unbounded Distributed Time Delays.” The grant is under the direction of Israel Ncube, a professor of mathematics at the university.