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.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing received a grant from the Alabama League for Nursing Faculty to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the school’s Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner Pathway. The grant will allow researchers to assess content within the Women’s Health Care Nurse Practitioner Specialty curriculum to ensure it meets the needs of all populations. The goal is to improve the curriculum by ensuring the dissemination of best practices for the care of LGBTQ+ individuals and other communities that face marginalization, discrimination, and stigma. It will also ensure that graduates are prepared to deliver high-quality, evidence-based care with cultural humility when they enter the workforce. The program is under the direction of Lisa Pair, an assistant professor of nursing.

Agnes Scott College, a liberal art educational institution for women in Decatur, Georgia, has been awarded a $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The three-year grant will fund research and documentation of the college’s and Decatur’s racial histories, educational programming, and inclusive leadership training. Research will be conducted on the lives of Black, Indigenous, and people of color artisans and workers who participated in the building of the Agnes Scott College campus.

A former Kalamazoo College English major has given a $500,000 gift in support of women’s athletics, prompted by his granddaughter’s recent experience as an aspiring college softball player. The gift from Dana Getman, Class of 1968, establishes the Getman Endowment for Equity in Women’s Athletics. “Achieving more equity between our women’s and men’s sports programs has been a need and a goal as long as I’ve been here, and a gift like this goes a long way toward making that a reality,” said Becky Hall, director of athletics at Kalamazoo College.

Spelman College, a liberal arts educational institution for women in Atlanta, received $1,064,500 in funding from the Reboot Representation Tech Coalition, which includes a $160,000 donation from the Intel Foundation. The Reboot Representation Tech Coalition is a group of 22 leading tech companies that are committed to doubling the number of Black, Latinx, and Native American women receiving computing degrees by 2025. The coalition works to achieve that goal through targeted, philanthropic investments in the often overlooked programs and institutions that make education and careers in computing more equitable for underrepresented women of color.

The grant to Spelman College will include support for the following: (1) increased outreach and recruitment to elevate awareness of opportunities in the field; (2) development of algorithmic thinking; (3) education in the technical and human/societal aspects of computing; (4) opportunities for students to apply knowledge outside of the traditional classroom setting; (5) career awareness/preparation; (6) faculty and peer mentoring, and (7) scholarships.