Spelman College, a historically Black women’s college in Atlanta, has received a $2.5 million grant from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to establish the Spelman Strategic and Security Studies Center. As an affiliate of the Spelman Center for Excellence for Black Women in STEM, the new academic hub will specialize in training women of color for careers in international strategic affairs and intelligence.
Over the next five years, leaders from Spelman’s Gordon-Zeto Center for Global Education, the department of political science, and the department of world languages and cultures will work together to develop the center’s initiatives. The new funding will support study abroad opportunities, critical language studies, and the development of a new minor in international strategic studies.
“This grant enables Spelman to prepare a cohort of students to take their rightful places in conversations that will shape, define, and critique international strategic affairs and national security issues and help build a better world,” said Tinaz Pavri, professor of political science and the grant’s principal investigator. “It also allows our students to contribute their talents, values, beliefs and lived experiences to national and international debates on these issues.”
