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.

Some 60 percent of new parents struggle to meet their breastfeeding goals, and an inadequate milk supply is the most frequent reason given for earlier-than-desired weaning. A team of breast cancer-breast milk researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate, and  University of New Mexico Health have received a five-year, $3.3 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Development that will be used to examine mammary gland permeability in breastfeeding parents. “The purpose of this research is to learn about factors that contribute to a new parent’s milk supply and how the milk supply affects the baby,” says co-lead investigator Kathleen Arcaro, professor of veterinary and animal sciences at the University of Massachusetts.

Wesleyan College, a liberal arts educational institution for women in Macon, Georgia, received a $1.75 million grant from the Lattie Pate Evans Foundation that will be used to upgrade the historic campus by improving residence halls and classrooms. The grant will allow the college to restore Banks Hall, a residence hall that has not housed students for eight years. It will also help fund upgrades to classrooms, the college’s dining hall, and improve lighting on the college’s 200-acre campus.

The University of South Dakota School of Health Sciences has received a grant in the amount of $299,000 from the Office of Research on Women’s Health and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for a project entitled “Effects of Unexpected Intrapartum Pelvic Trauma on Physical and Mental Health, Child Bonding, and Family Functioning.” The project aims to understand the differences in physical health, mental well-being, mother-child bonding, family functioning, and trauma experiences between women who have experienced intrapartum pelvic floor muscle trauma and those who have not.

The National Science Foundation has issued a grant to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California, Davis to assess and improve how and where the University of California System supports women of color in the geosciences. The three-year grant will allow the team to initiate the WinG Collective, a network that will provide community, belonging, access, advocacy, and resources to overcome barriers to their success. The Collective will focus first on conducting surveys and hearing about the past and present experiences of women of color in the geosciences field throughout the University of California system, including finding out what kind of mentorship, support, and training they need to fill gaps and address needs.