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 in Providence, Rhode Island, has received a $2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop a database of African poetry. With collaboration from various universities and libraries, scholars at Brown will work to create a central hub for poetic works, poet biographies, poetry scholarship, and news coverage of poetry written in Africa or by authors who part of the global African diaspora.
Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, has received a $500,000 gift from the Brewer Foundation to support the HBCU’s science programs. The funding will contribute to the university’s construction of a new Allied Sciences Building. The facility is set to open within the next 12 to 18 months.
Two historically Black universities, Alcorn State University in Mississippi and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, have received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to support crop disease research and training for farmers in Mississippi and Arkansas. The grant will allow scientists from both institutions to host outreach events for farmers to learn best practices for protecting crops and promoting long-term success.
Alabama A&M University has received a $999,996 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to fund research in energy storage technology. Building on prior DoD-funded projects, scholars at the HBCU will study how battery size impacts performance and how to fabricate and test batteries in various sizes. The new grant will also provide training and mentoring opportunities for six graduate and nine undergraduate students, as well as pathways to STEM careers for low-income students.
Morgan State University in Baltimore has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Maryland Higher Education Commission to support the HBCU’s new “Transitioning to Teaching” program. The initiative aims to address Maryland’s teacher shortage by providing displaced federal workers with a streamlined pathway into the teaching profession. Marylanders who have been impacted by recent federal layoffs will have the opportunity to enroll in an accelerated one-year master’s degree program in teaching and an alternative teacher certification program at Morgan State.
