During the 14 years Michael Curry worked as a professor of chemistry and materials science at Tuskegee University, he and his colleagues received research funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and other federal agencies.
But the grant awarded to Tuskegee, a private, historically black university in Alabama that, like most HBCUs, has struggled with systemic underfunding since its founding in the Jim Crow-era South. However, in many cases the grants were not as large as the grants received by Curry College. Colleagues at predominantly white research 1 institutions such as the University of Alabama and Auburn University.
“There was a lack of infrastructure, a lack of proper facilities, and a lack of essential resources for faculty who could contribute to scientific innovation,” said Currie, now a professor of nanoengineering at North Carolina A&T State University. The $202 million endowment is the largest of any public HBCU. “At Tuskegee, we didn’t have as many resources as North Carolina A&T was able to get, and we had some research challenges.”
North Carolina A&T is one of the few HBCUs on track to be the first to achieve Research-1 status. This indicates a high level of research funding and doctoral graduate production, which can increase the university’s competitiveness for grants and other funding. This is one reason why placing HBCUs in the R-1 ranking (no place currently has that status) has been a top priority for HBCUs themselves and their defenders for many years.
Resource limitations have long hampered these and other efforts to expand research capacity at HBCUs. But recently, there has been growing momentum to better support them, a trend some HBCU leaders say was fueled in part by the national racial reckoning after the 2020 killing of George Floyd. states.
Much of that support comes from federal agencies, which fund more than half of university research. NSF and NIH are investing millions of dollars to increase opportunities for HBCUs to grow their footprint in the national research enterprise, which is dominated by white scientists, especially from wealthy universities.
Addressing the “legacy of intentional discrimination”
Most recently, NSF launched an initiative known as the Idea Lab. The initiative aims to increase the competitiveness of HBCUs by building research networks and “further advances an integrated and collaborative vision for HBCUs’ most critical research capacity needs,” said NSF Director Sethuraman. says Mr. Panchanathan said in a September 12 news release. The $10 million Ideas Lab grant is distributed among 12 HBCUs.
Adam Harris, a senior fellow at the left-leaning think tank New America and the Education Policy Program, said the investment is important given HBCUs’ long history of struggling to both recognize past scientific contributions and support future innovation. said it was a positive step. Author of “The State Must Provide: Why America’s Colleges Have Always Been Equal—and How to Set them Right.”
“The fact that the harm done by denying funding to these institutions was so intentional requires that efforts to address it be equally intentional,” Harris said, adding that federal funding for HBCUs must be equally intentional. He pointed out that government science and technology support increased by nearly 20% from 2021 to 2022. .
“This is a huge deal,” he said, but “it will take a much larger, coordinated, collective effort to address the legacy of intentional discrimination.”
The Idea Lab is part of NSF’s larger HBCU Research Excellence Program, which Congress created in 2018 in response to NSF’s “questionable track record” in funding HBCUs.
A paper published in 2022 found that from 1999 to 2019, NSF grant proposals by white researchers were consistently funded at interest rates above the overall average, while most other racial groups, In particular, proposals from black scientists were funded at rates lower than the overall average. Published in the peer-reviewed journal eLife.
The Idea Lab Award was divided into four groups of HBCUs, including Tuskegee University, North Carolina A&T University, and Hampton University, with the goal of “identifying and defining the scope of the unique challenges facing HBCUs in the education conference.” , will collaborate on the project over the next three years. NSF transferred $147.95 million to HBCUs in 2023, according to an NSF news release.
Approximately one-fifth of Black students who earn STEM undergraduate degrees do so at HBCUs, yet Black scientists remain significantly underrepresented in the STEM and health sciences workforce. Research shows that it can lead to racially biased scientific research and disparate health outcomes.
“Many HBCUs have smaller research budgets than larger research institutions, making it difficult for them to compete for research grants and collaborations with industry partners,” an NSF spokesperson said in an email. ” he said. “As a result, HBCU students may have fewer opportunities to participate in hands-on research experiences at their alma mater that are essential to developing skills and building a strong STEM portfolio.”
Disparities in partnerships
Because of their continued hardship, HBCUs are less likely than their R-1 peers to be major winners of federally funded projects. This designation allows research institutions to list the federal agency as one of their funders, giving them prestige in the research community and making award recipients more competitive for future grants. .
While HBCUs with the largest research capacities, such as Morgan State University and Howard University, have been the main recipients of many grants, it is less common for scientists from smaller universities to receive awards, according to North Carolina. Curry, the state A&T chemist, said as he reflected on his time at the university. Much smaller Tuskegee.
“When you partner with HBCUs, which don’t have as many resources as a typical majority-white institution, there’s a disparity in partnerships and research results,” said Curry, who is North Carolina A&T’s representative on the Idea Lab project. . Focused on expanding African American participation in semiconductor manufacturing and research. “Even now that the partnership is complete, that disparity remains.”
And that’s one of the problems Ideas Lab is working to address. Because it is limited to HBCU participation, this grant guarantees the opportunity for HBCUs to manage projects, adding NSF to the list of funders as well as building a foundation for HBCUs to lead more projects. It’s also helpful. future.
Currie acknowledged that $10 million to support Idea Labs is “not a lot of money,” but said, “It’s not the amount that matters.” Rather, “the key is that this is all an HBCU-led effort,” which “will develop the framework necessary to truly improve research capacity, because right now cultural This is because there are no discrepancies or disparities,” he believes.
Challenge to the “built environment”
And an increased role in federal grants leads to increased philanthropic giving and corporate awards, and vice versa, said Bruce Jones, Howard’s senior vice president of research. He said this is also approaching R-1 status.
“Federal agencies can provide an opportunity for a pilot study that begins as a small federal grant and then passes that pilot study on to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for potentially larger grants,” Jones said. he said. “Expanding support for research is in the best interest of HBCUs.”
The strategy has worked well for Howard, whose medical school was announced in August by Bloomberg Philanthropies as part of a major $600 million gift to the nation’s four historically black medical schools. received $175 million in donations. The funding will go towards training “more health care professionals to care for communities of color,” according to a university news release.
But such access-focused efforts need to be complemented by similarly large-scale investments in scientific research, said Chad Womack, senior director of national STEM programs and initiatives at the United Negro College Fund. He said there is.
With this, HBCU medical schools and their faculty ecosystems will be better able to “perfect their craft and work on it in the same way that majority-white schools offer them.” It will help attract talented new faculty, he said. “The built environment is a real challenge.”
