Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
Spokane Fall Community College in Washington State received a five-year, $650,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a program to attract women and members of underrepresented groups into engineering programs at the college. The grant will fund tuition, books, and mentoring programs for 36 students.
Cottey College, a liberal arts educational institution for women in Nevada, Montana, received a $500,000 gift from Sophia Zetmeir of Parsons, Kansas. The funds will be used to renovate lounge areas of the college’s dormitories. The lounges have not been renovated for more than 40 years.
The University of Kansas received a grant from the National Eating Disorders Association to develop a smartphone app for patients being treated for eating disorders. The association estimates that 20 million American women alive today will develop an eating disorder at some point in their lives. The app aims to improve outcomes by monitoring patient progress and providing feedback directly to therapists to enhance ongoing treatment. The project is under the direction of Kelsie Forbush, the M. Erik Wright Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the university. Dr. Forbush joined the faculty at the University of Kansas in 2014 after teaching for three years at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. She holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Iowa.