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.

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis received a $1.5 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to fund an expansion of sexual assault nurse examiner training and certification in West Tennessee. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation received nearly 1,600 reports of sexual assault in West Tennessee in 2019 but there are only five nurses in the region who have received training in the area. The grant program is under the direction of Andrea Sebastian, an assistant professor in the UTHSC College of Nursing.

Spelman College, a liberal arts educational institution for women in Atlanta, received a $7.5 million donation from the Charles and Lucille King Family Foundation. The donation will fund the establishment of the Diana King Endowed Professors in Film and Filmmaking, Television and Related Media. The gift will endow a scholarship program for junior applicants and rising seniors enrolled in Spelman’s documentary film program.

Mark Vergnano, CEO of global chemistry company The Chemours Company, and his wife Betsy have made a $3 million donation to the School of Engineering at the University of Connecticut for programs to increase the number of women and students from underrepresented groups in STEM fields. The Vergnano Institute for Inclusion will build upon the school’s previous work to provide girls and students from underrepresented groups from kindergarten through college with more exposure to different STEM career options, mentorship opportunities, access to scholarships, training, and other career development resources.

Vanderbilt University in Nashville has received a $250,000 grant from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities to assess the differences in labor progress and care among Black and White women with low-risk pregnancies. The study, which will focus on the frequency of cesarean births among the two groups, will be the first to describe obstetric care in this way at a high-volume, academic medical center, and its findings will inform how health care providers can improve standards of care to ultimately decrease the disparity in cesarean births.

Tampax has announced a four-year, $800,000 scholarship program for Black women at historically Black colleges and universities who are pursuing degrees in health care fields. The Flow It Forward Scholarship Program from the tampon and feminine products brand, created in partnership with Procter & Gamble’s $5 million Take on Race Fund, is meant to aid in bringing about equal representation in health care. The United Negro College Fund will administer the scholarship program. The scholarship has two groupings. It’s supplying money to Carmichael Scholars within the pre-med program at Xavier University in Louisiana specifically (nine have been chosen), but also providing funding for students pursuing any degree in the health care field attending an HBCU within the UNCF network.