Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
Yeshiva University in New York City received a $10 million gift from Ann and Jeremy Pava to establish the Pava Center for Women’s Torah Scholarship. The new center will focus on advancing high-level Torah study for women across the Jewish world through conferences, public shiurim, mentorship initiatives, and academic programs. Additionally, the Pavas’ gift will create the Pava Scholars Program, a three-year immersive cohort that will combine rigorous Torah study, personal development, and community engagement.
Nancy Anderson, professor of literacy and language at Texas Woman’s University, was awarded a $60,000 grant from the Spencer Foundation to support her research on how children process sounds in literacy, specifically how they use sounds while they write. Through her project, Dr. Anderson aims to advance the understanding of how phonological processing develops during writing and to create a tool to help teachers notice and build on what children are already doing well.
The Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center at Indiana University has been awarded a $5 million grant from The Pfizer Foundation to expand access to timely breast cancer diagnosis, treatment, and care in Kenya. The funding will support the work of the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) partnership, a collaborative between Moi University in Kenya and Indiana University. Over the next three years, AMPATH will work closely with the National Cancer Institute and the Ministry of Health to establish the Kenya Cancer Consortium.
Jacksonville State University in Alabama received a grant to expand sexual assault support services and establish a new 24/7 crisis hotline serving Calhoun, Celburne, and Talladega counties. The funding, sourced by the Alabama Coalition Against Rape and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, will be used to implement a comprehensive, trauma-informed sexual assault services program, offering medical and court advocacy, short-term counseling, safe and confidential transportation, language access, and assistance with Alabama Crimes Victims Compensation.
Professors Michele Staton and Carrie Oser of the University of Kentucky have received a $7.2 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to test an overdose prevention strategy for women transitioning from jail back into rural Kentucky communities. Over the next five-years, the project will enroll 300 women with opioid or stimulant use disorders from three jails in rural Kentucky and test the effectiveness of various combinations of three evidence-based interventions: recovery coaching, support person engagement, and contingency management.