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.
Historically Black South Carolina State University received a $250,000 donation from radio personality Charlamagne Tha God. The funds will be used to establish The Ford Family Endowed Scholarship Fund in memory of his mother. The scholarship fund will benefit women majoring in English, communications or anything related to mental health.
The Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has received two grants from the National Institute of health totaling $4.6 million to support a training and mentorship program aimed at increasing the diversity of the U.S. biomedical research workforce.
Jackson State University, the historically Black educational institution in Mississippi, received a three-year, $450,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the work of the university’s Margaret Walker Center. The money will enable the center to hire an oral historian who will supervise the digitization of the center’s collection of more than 2,000 oral history interviews.
Historically Black Savannah State University in Georgia has received a three-year, $741,422 grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program. The grant will be used to add a cybersecurity track to its current computer science technology degree program as well as establish a certificate or a minor in cybersecurity for majors in other STEM fields.
Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, has received a $114,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to prepare a conference for women of color leaders in higher education that will convene in January 2021. The grant will be used to collect and analyze existing research about the representation of women of color leaders in various industries and study why there is a disproportionately low representation of women of color in academic leadership compared to the corporate sector.