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 law school at Boston College received a $10 million gift from Marianne D. Short, the executive vice president, chief legal officer, and member of the Office of the Chief Executive at United HealthGroup. Earlier, Short was a judge on the Minnesota Court of Appeals. She has served on the Boston College board of trustees since 1986. Short is a 1976 graduate of the law school. As a result of the gift, the college has endowed the Marianne D. Short, Esq., Law School Deanship.

The University of California, San Diego received a $2.1 million donation from philanthropists Richard and Carol Dean Hertzberg that will be used to develop and maintain the Dean-Hertzberg Breast Cancer Database System (BCDS) at the university’s Moores Cancer Center. The gift will support the work of Anne Wallace, director of the Comprehensive Breast Health Center at UC San Diego Health. The BCDS will combine biological, biographical, and demographic data in novel ways that will allow researchers to study breast cancers with similar clinical features, as well as rare subtypes.

Tuskegee University in Alabama received a three-year $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation for programs to increase the number of women and students from other underrepresented groups who earned degrees in materials science and engineering. The grant will allow the university to mentor five early-career STEM faculty by immersing them in four related activities. The proposed interventions will enhance research and education in advanced materials, provide research experiences at national laboratories, foster grantsmanship, and provide training in career-life balance.