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.
The Thurgood Marshall College Fund has received a $500,000 grant from Honda to award scholarships for students in band programs at historically Black colleges and universities. The grant will provide 41 students with need-based scholarships of up to $5,000 per semester during the 2024-2025 academic year.
California State University has announced it will allocate over $4.6 million in funding to its 23 universities in support of advancing Black excellence across the California State University system. The funds will go towards following through on recommendations outlined in the university’s Black Student Success report from June 2023. The report identified efforts the institution can take in order to increase enrollment, retention, graduation rates, as well as foster an inclusive college experience for Black students.
Historically Black Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina, has received a $1 million donation from an anonymous donor. This is the college’s fourth anonymous $1 million gift. The unknown philanthropist requested their donation be used to renovate a residence hall and enhance campus infrastructure.
Sage, an accounting, financial, human resources, and payroll technology company, has issued a $100,000 grant to Morehouse College, a historically Black educational institution in Atlanta, Georgia. The gift will establish an entrepreneurship course which will train students how to succeed as a business owner through a technology-focused lens.
Harvard University has received two grants to support the Black Teacher Archives, a publicly-available online portal of over 50,000 digitized pages of materials from the Colored Teachers Association. The archive was awarded $373,000 from the Spencer Foundation and $1.1 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The new funds will enhance the portal’s user experience, support affiliated institutions, and invest in new research endeavors.
Historically Black Clark Atlanta University has been awarded $630,000 in federal funding to improve public safety at the university. The new funds will be used to upgrade the university’s security camera system, create a video integration communication center, replace emergency call boxes on campus, and support other schools within the Atlanta University Center Consortium.
The National Science Foundation has awarded over $2.1 million to historically Black North Carolina Central University in an effort to increase diversity in the geoscience fields. The university will use the funding to recruit students to explore the field of geosciences by taking one or two graduate level courses. Additionally, the grant will train students to address environmental problems relevant to their own communities.
The Art Collection and Gallery at historically Black Xaiver University of Louisiana has received a 2024 Emergency Mitigation and Disaster Preparedness Grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. The grant will be used to facilitate comprehensive inventory and appraisal processes so that a foundation for preservation is in place in case of an emergency. Additionally, university staff will facilitate collection care sessions with the local community to ensure the collection’s longevity and accessibility.
Historically Black Alabama State University, has received a $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support research into nanoparticle-modified polymeric materials used in several biomedical applications. The project aims to develop safer processes for creating these materials utilizing 3D-printing methods and plasma processing.
Historically Black Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles has received a $3 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to construct a new Health Professions Education Building. The new space will house the university’s medical degree program that is focused on mitigating health disparities for underrepresented populations.
