Grants or Gifts Relating to Women in Higher Education

Liane Brandon, professor emerita at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has received a grant from the New York Women in Film and Television’s Women’s Film Preservation Fund. The grant will be used to restore and preserve one of Brandon’s early films, Sometimes I Wonder Who I Am. The film, which Brandon made in 1969, was one of the earliest films of the women’s movement. It is a brief portrayal of a young mother which grew out of the experiences of a consciousness-raising group called Bread and Roses in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who found they were not alone in their feelings, emptiness, anger, and fear. Bread and Roses was one of the first “women’s liberation” groups in the country, and the film was one of the first independent films of the fledgling women’s movement. Professor Brandon served on the College of Education faculty at the University of Massachusetts for 30 years.

The department of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology received a $7 million grant from the Shiv Nadar Foundation of India to bolster undergraduate research opportunities for women in electrical engineering and computer sciences.

Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, received a $100,000 grant from the Truist Foundation to support the implementation of the Benedict College WBC Mobile and Creative Entrepreneurial Demonstration Project, a new initiative designed to reach socially and economically disadvantaged women business owners in targeted rural areas of South Carolina. The state-of-the-art mobile office unit is scheduled to launch next spring and will be staffed with experienced business advisors. The unit will be equipped with seven computer training stations, smart boards, and wi-fi access.