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.

Spelman College, an educational institution for women in Atlanta, received a $2 million donation from the Arcus Foundation to establish the first-ever Queer studies chair at a historically Black college or university. The chair will honor Audre Lorde, the poet, author, civil rights activist, and feminist icon. Lorde was a graduate of Hunter College in New York City and earned a master’s degree at Columbia University. She taught in the City University of New York System for many years. She died in 1992 at the age of 58 after a long battle with breast cancer.

Boise State University in Idaho received a three-year, $300,000 grant from the Office on Violence Against Women of the U.S. Justice Department to help fund the university’s Gender Equity Center. The grant will fund a new project director position who will lead programs relating to cross-campus and community collaboration on preventing and responding to stalking, sexual assault, and relationship violence, as well as develop educational materials and marketing for campus-wide campaigns.

The School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis received a $791,317 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study factors that keep pregnant women from getting tested for COVID-19, to evaluate whether it is important to test women regularly during their pregnancies, and to determine whether pregnant women with COVID-19 need more specialized prenatal care. Megan Foeller, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and Indira Mysorekar, the James P. Crane Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the university, will serve as co-principal investigators.