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.

Simmons University, a women’s college in Boston, received a Laura Bush 21st Century Early Career Development Grant of $140,834 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The grant will fund research into the experience and use of academic libraries by African American undergraduate students. The grant program is under the direction of Rebecca Davis, an assistant director of the School of Library and Information Science at the university. Dr. Davis received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master of library science degree from the University of Kentucky, and a Ph.D. in communication and information from the University of Tennessee.

The University of Arkansas has been awarded a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to better recruit and retain women faculty in STEM fields. In 2018 at the University of Arkansas, women were roughly 42 percent of the total faculty, 18 percent of the tenured faculty, and only 6 percent of tenured faculty in the STEM fields.

Niagara University in New York received a $300,000 grant from the Office on Violence Against Women of the U.S. Department of Justice. The funds will be used for programs to reduce domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking on campus.

St. Catherine University, a women’s educational institution in St. Paul, Minnesota, announced that it has been awarded a $1.3 million competitive grant over five years from the United States Department of Education to establish a TRIO Student Support Services program. The program will provide support to students with high academic abilities, but who may experience challenges due to disabilities and neurodiverse traits, students who are the first generation of their families to attend college, and students with financial need.