Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
The University of Nebraska Omaha has received $300,000 in funding from the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE Catalyst grant program. The grant will be used to research organizational change and gender equity in STEM academic professions. Over the next two years, leaders at the university will conduct campus-wide culture and climate surveys, facilitate faculty focus group discussions, and analyze institutional information on recruitment, hiring, and promotion processes.
Smith College, a women’s undergraduate institution in Massachusetts, has received $555,232 in state funding to acquire new nuclear magnetic resonance equipment. Housed within the Clark Science Center, the new technology will enhance student and faculty research capabilities in several STEM disciplines through improved methods for analyzing the composition of lab samples.
Jinsook Kim, assistant professor of film and media at Emory University in Atlanta has received two awards totaling $135,000 to support her upcoming book Sticky Activism: Online Misogyny and Feminist Activism in South Korea. The first award, a fellowship with the American Council of Learned Societies, will allow Dr. Kim to take leave to focus on completing her book. The second award, a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, will support the book’s editing and revision process.
Lindsay Hayes, assistant professor of cell biology at the University of Oklahoma, has received a grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund to research mechanisms that combat prenatal inflammation, a serious risk factor for neurodevelopment disorders in babies. Dr. Hayes will study the behavior of immune cells in the brain to determine how they are impacted by inflammation, as well as identify a connection between maternal metabolic fitness and immune fitness.
Dr. Soufleris, a three-time alumna of the State University of New York System, has more than 35 years of higher education experience spanning student affairs, enrollment management, retention, and student success initiatives.
Most recently, Dr. Van Vlerah served as vice president for student success and institutional strategy at Manchester University in Indiana. She is slated to become the fifteenth president of Notre Dame of Maryland University on July 6.
Dr. Egan comes to her new role as president of Bennington College from Connecticut College, where she has been serving as the Fuller-Maathai Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality Studies, dean of the faculty, and chief academic officer.
Dr. Pfluger has spent the past year as Bakersfield College's interim president. She previously served as vice chancellor of educational services and student success at the Kern Community College District.
Dr. Geneco comes to her new role from Tufts University in Massachusetts, where she has served as provost for the past four years. She is slated become the University at Buffalo's first woman president on August 10.