Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
Texas Woman’s University in Denton has been awarded a four-year, $736,848 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to bolster college attendance and success rates for students who are parents. The grant is expected to fund 377 monthly child-care vouchers over each nine-month period. Students will have the opportunity to find a child-care center that best fits their needs and budget.
South Carolina State University received a $250,000 donation from radio personality Charlamagne Tha God. The funds will be used to establish The Ford Family Endowed Scholarship Fund in memory of his mother. The scholarship fund will benefit women majoring in English, communications or anything related to mental health.
The John L. and James S. Knight Foundation, a national foundation that invests in journalism, the arts, and local communities to foster informed and engaged communities, announced a $250,000 investment in support of The Gwen Ifill College of Media, Arts, and Humanities at Simmons University in Boston. Simmons University’s on-campus traditional undergraduate programs are restricted to women.
Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, has received a $114,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to prepare a conference for women of color leaders in higher education that will convene in January 2021. The grant will be used to collect and analyze existing research about the representation of women of color leaders in various industries and study why there is a disproportionately low representation of women of color in academic leadership compared to the corporate sector.
St. Catherine University in St. Paul. Minnesota, where traditional on-campus undergraduate programs are restricted to women, announced it has been awarded more than $2 million over five years from the U.S. Department of Education for a Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) grant. St. Kate’s will use this grant to support a Career and Future Readiness plan that will provide undergraduate students with the knowledge, skills, and experience to matriculate successfully and graduate career-ready in their chosen field, with the financial acumen needed to reduce debt and make fiscally sound choices.