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.
Susan Cavallero, an assistant professor at historically Black Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, recently received a grant from the National Institute of General Medicine Sciences to study the cardiometabolic benefits of exercise. The funding will support her lab in conducting basic and translational research on vascular metabolism during exercise using molecular and cell biology, imaging, and metabolic analyses in tissue culture and animal models over a four-year period.
Wiley University in Marshall, Texas, received a $173,000 gift from the HBCU’s oldest known alumna Blanche Ingram, who graduated from Wiley in 1945 and celebrated her 100th birthday in 2025. Ingram’s gift will support Wiley’s $5 million UNCF Endowment Match Campaign. Inspired by Ingram’s donation, Wiley University President Herman J. Felton, Jr. and his wife Katherine Bush Fulton have pledged an additional $27,000, bringing the total investment to $200,000.
Coco Gauff, a renowned professional tennis player, has donated $150,000 to the United Negro College Fund to provide scholarships to student athletes playing competitive tennis at historically Black colleges and universities. Gauff’s latest investment follows her previous gift of $100,000 to the UNCF in 2025, which established the Coco Gauff Scholarship Program. Earlier this year, the program awarded scholarships to 10 student athletes attending Alabama A&M University, Albany State University, Clark Atlanta University, Howard University, Livingstone College, and Tuskegee University.



