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.
The University of California, Santa Cruz received a four-year, $2 million grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to increase racial diversity in the field of environmental conservation. Under the grant program, 20 undergraduate students of color will be recruited each year for intensive hands-on field experience in the discipline with the hope that they will pursue graduate studies.
Historically Black Delaware State University in Dover received a five-year, $695,700 grant from the National Institute of Aging. The funds will be used for research seeking to understand the human neurotransmission system in an effort to determine how to stem memory loss in the elderly. The research is under the direction of Hakeem Lawal, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Delaware State. Dr. Lawal is a graduate of the University of Lagos in Nigeria. He holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Alabama.
Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, received a five-year, $2.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a summer program to prepare undergraduate STEM majors for careers in secondary education in mathematics and science in urban schools. The undergraduates will participate in teaching courses to high school students from inner-city schools in Providence and Hartford, Connecticut.
The University of California, San Francisco has received more than $6 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to promote women’s health programs in Kenya and India. The project, entitled Strengthening People-centered Accessibility, Respect, and Quality (SPARQ), will seek to establish programs for women’s health that encourage women to use modern health care facilities.
