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.

The University of California, Los Angeles received a $1 million grant from Revlon to support the university’s Women’s Cancer Research Program. Revlon has supported the research of Dr. Dennis Slamon, director of the UCLA Breast Cancer Center for the past 25 years.

Hampton University in Virginia, received a five-year, $622,480 grant from the National Science Foundation to increase the number of women and students from underrepresented minority groups who pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science. The funds will be used for student scholarships. The grant program is under the direction of Chutima Boonthum, associate professor of computer science at Hampton University. Dr. Boonthum is a graduate of Srinakharinwirot University in Thailand. She holds a master’s degree from Illinois State University and a Ph.D. in computer science from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

Salem College, the liberal arts educational institution for women in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, received a $1.5 million donation from the Reynolds American Foundation. Two thirds of the funds will be allocated to support the construction of a new sciences and mathematics building on the Salem College campus. One third of the donation will be earmarked for student scholarships.

Texas Woman’s University received a donation of nearly $10 million from the Woodcock-Munoz Foundation in Nashville, Tennessee. The gift is the largest single donation in the university’s history. The funds will support the new Woodcock Institute for the Advancement of Neurocognitive Research and Applied Practice at the university.

The University of Georgia, Columbia University, and San Francisco State University will share a five-year, $2.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a study of identity development in transgender populations.  The goal of the project is to develop social services and support networks for transgender individuals.