Here is this week’s news of grants to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.
Historically Black North Carolina Central University in Durham received a three-year, $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for programs to assist veterans in obtaining bachelor’s degrees in nursing. The funds will be used for academic and social support services as well as mentoring programs.
The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York, received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to help fund the National Black Writers Conference. The next conference, entitled “Writing Race, Embracing Difference,” is scheduled from March 31 to April 3, 2016.
The Morehouse School of Medicine, a historically Black educational institution in Atlanta, received a $2.9 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a program aimed at reducing diabetes and cardiovascular disease in African American communities in Atlanta. The program is under the direction of Tabia Henry Akintobi, an associate professor of community health and preventive medicine. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in public health from the University of South Florida in Tampa.
The department of African studies at Howard University in Washington, D.C., received a four-year, $1.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to strengthen foreign language instruction and international studies programs. The grant also will provide fellowships to students studying critical foreign languages and will support the addition of two new African language course offerings.