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.

West Texas A&M University in Canyon recently won a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to further aid women and minorities in STEM fields. The grant is under the direction of Mona Ozmaeian, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. Officials described that the project involved the development of an “online, interactive toolkit to teach students in kindergarten through 12th grades about the hydrological cycle.” When completed the toolkit will be offered to K-12 grade teachers in rural school systems and to county extension agents.

The Vanderbilt University School of Nursing has received a $4 million grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration to increase and diversify the nurse-midwife workforce as a means of improving maternal health and increase access to care. The school will use the Maternity Care Nursing Workforce Expansion grant to educate nurse-midwifery students with a specialized curriculum and community-based clinical experiences focused on providing care in rural and underserved communities. Students selected for the program will receive scholarships and stipends totaling $56,000 over three semesters. The program is under the direction of Julia Phillippi, a professor at the School of Nursing.

The Levy Economics Institute at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, has received a two-year $500,000 grant from the Hewlett Foundation. The award will support the institute’s Gender Equality and the Economy program and aims to generate new knowledge and share information about the economic empowerment of women, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The program will focus on the ways in which economic processes and policies affect gender equality, and examines the relationships between gender inequalities and economic outcomes. During the grant period, the institute and its partners plan to generate new research on gender disparities in employment security and welfare outcomes in Ghana and South Africa.