Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
Bryn Mawr College, a women’s liberal arts educational institution in Pennsylvania, was recently awarded two grants to advance faculty professional development opportunities. The first grant, received from the Education Character Initiative, will provide a series of seminars that support faculty in developing ways to more intentionally embed virtues of respect, open-mindedness, and courage in their course curricula. The second grant, provided by the NetVUE Professional Development Grant program, will support a one-year seminar that asks faculty to reflect on their own vocational journeys and how they could encourage students to do the same.
The University of New Mexico has been awarded a $1.56 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute to develop a new x-ray system that could advance how breast cancer is detected. The digital breast tomosynthesis technology, also known as 3D mammography, promises clearer images, faster scans, and lower operating costs, making advanced screening more accessible to patients. This would be a major improvement from current commercial systems, which rely on one-dimensional mechanical motion of the x-ray source, limiting image quality and prolonging scan times.
The Women’s Sports Foundation has launched the Tara VanDerveer Fund to support women coaches in collegiate sports. The foundation has bestowed $15,000 grants to 11 institutions to be used specifically for the professional development of a woman coach. Funds were awarded to the swimming and diving team at American University, the ice hockey team at Bemidiji State University, the basketball team at Chicago State University, the strength and conditioning team at Gettysburg College, the cross country and track and field team at Johns Hopkins University, the soccer team at Oberlin College, the field hockey team at Smith College, the wrestling team at Texas Woman’s University, the basketball team at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the cross country and track and field team at Washington and Lee University, and the basketball team at Whittier College.
Wellcome Leap has awarded $50 million to the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in support of research on abnormal uterine bleeding. Funded through Wellcome Leap’s Missed Vital Sign program, scholars at Penn will seek to develop a new type of mRNA therapy that can better quantify heavy menstrual bleeding, understand its causes, and develop new treatments.
Thanks to a recent grant from the Lower Connecticut Valley branch of the American Association of University Women, scholars at Trinity College were able to offer two summer courses at York Correctional Institute, Connecticut’s state prison for women. The college offered two half-credit courses taught by Trinity faculty, opening the door for incarcerated women to pursue higher education.