Grants or Gifts Relating to Women in Higher Education

Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.

Salem College, the liberal arts educational institution for women in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, received a $1 million gift from an anonymous donor to honor Lucy Rose, an alumna and trustee of the college. As a result of the gift, the biology and environmental studies wing in the new science and mathematics building on campus will be named in Rose’s honor.

Mount Holyoke College, the liberal arts educational institution for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts, received a grant from Google Inc. to support the college’s Megas and Gigas Educate program that pairs incoming students in computer science with upperclass mentors. The funds will be used to train student mentors to support incoming students. The grant program is under the direction of Heather Pon-Barry, the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Mount Holyoke College. Dr. Pon-Barry holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard University.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg received a five-year, $453,359 grant from the National Science Foundation to study methods to increase the number of women and underrepresented minorities who earn degrees in STEM disciplines. The research is under the direction of Sarah Ovink, an assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Tech. Dr. Ovink has been on the faculty at Virginia Tech since 2011. She is a graduate of Kalamazoo College in Michigan and holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Davis.

Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro received a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to fund scholarships in order to increase the number of women and minority students pursuing careers in engineering.

The University of Oklahoma received a $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for research on a new technique to detect breast cancer that uses a low-level radiation process. The grant will provide funds to build a patient imaging system and to conduct clinical trials.