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.

Bryn Mawr College, the highly rated liberal arts educational institution for women in Pennsylvania, will receive between $150,000 and $180,000 each year for the next five years from the National Science Foundation to support the college’s Center for Science Information. The funds will support undergraduate fellowships, faculty and student research, and on-campus programming.

The University of Hawaii at Manoa received a gift from an anonymous donor to support the university’s Cancer Center. The donation was made with a bank cashier’s check. In the memo line the university was directed to use the funds for breast cancer research. In the line on the check where the donor usually places his or her name, was written “God.”

The School of Medicine at the University of Nevada at Reno has been offered $1.9 million in funds over five years from the state of Nevada for research on improving women’s health in the state. The funds were made possible by a settlement with pharmaceutical companies relating to claims regarding postmenopausal hormone therapy products.

The School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Rochester in New York received a $2.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for research on maternal anxiety during pregnancy and its effects on gender differences in human health. The research, led by assistant professor Emily S. Barrett, will examine if anxiety during pregnancy alters levels of hormones in the fetus. Dr. Barrett is a graduate of Amherst College in Massachusetts. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in biological anthropology from Harvard University.