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.

Scripps College, a liberal arts women’s educational institution that is one of the Claremont Colleges in California, has received a $1 million donation from The Seaver Institute to establish a scholarship in honor of Scripps alumna Sallie Tiernan. The donation includes a matching gift challenge to gain more support for the Scripps Access Initiative, which aims to establish $15 million in financial aid funding to support future women students in need.

The School of Library and Information Sciences at Simmons University, a women’s undergraduate and co-ed graduate institution in Boston, has been awarded a $249,510 grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services to expand diversity, equity, and inclusion education. The funding will support the creation of a multi-university, nationwide system that will provide students and faculty with tools and training materials for inclusive pedagogy and anti-racist education.

St. Catherine University, a women’s undergraduate and co-ed graduate institution in St. Paul, Minnesota, has received a $181,470 grant from the Minnesota Office of Higher Education’s Student Parent Support Initiative. The grant will expand the university’s emergency grant assistance program, which provides student parents with up to $3,000 annually to fund unexpected childcare costs. Thanks to the new funding, the grant assistance program will now cover mental health co-pays for students and their children, as well as legal fees associated with custody disputes, divorce proceedings, and protection orders.

The University of North Carolina at Wilmington has received a $299,400 grant from the National Science Foundation to support the UNC-by-the-S.E.A. (STEM Equity Access) project, which aims to enhance the success and advancement of the women faculty in STEM fields. Through faculty surveys, focus groups, and qualitative interviews, leaders at UNCW will look to assess the university’s current faculty environment, identify themes for improvement, and develop a five-year action plan to better support women faculty in STEM at UNCW and beyond.

The University of Arizona Health Sciences has been awarded a $3.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute to test a new CT scanner for breast cancer detection that could be a more comfortable alternative to the mammogram. The new screening method does not involve compression or any physical contact with the breast, which is often cited as a reason many women do not receive regular breast cancer screenings.