For Immediate Release
Media Contacts:
Joyce Davis
404.270.5871
jdavis44@spelman.edu
Twitter: @SpelmanMedia
ATLANTA (October 2, 2018) – Spelman College has received grants and launched a mini-grant program to fund initiatives that support the College’s commitment to fostering a more inclusive college environment, increasing campus safety and promoting scholarship and academic innovation.
The funding awards include:
- A $589,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish an Institute for the Study of Gender and Sexuality.
- A $297,984 grant from the U.S. Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women to help combat sexual misconduct on campus, including sexual assault, domestic and dating violence and stalking.
- Also, this fall, the College is providing $25,000 to launch All of Us, an annual mini-grant program to support and encourage the collective efforts of the entire Spelman community to educate, prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based harassment and discrimination.
The funding awards speak to Spelman’s progress on improving the culture and climate on campus, a priority of the College’s Strategic Plan 2022 goal to “Deliver the Spelman Promise.”
“We are excited that Spelman, with its legacy of social justice and empowering Black women, has received these financial resources to build on our commitment to creating an unparalleled intellectual environment and inclusive campus community,” said Spelman President Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D. “These grants also will help strengthen our work to ensure that our students feel safe and comfortable to speak out and that our faculty and staff members are trained to provide the service and support they need.”
The College ramped up efforts to create a more welcoming and safe environment after LGBTQIA students were targets of hateful incidents during the spring 2018 semester. Spelman leaders met with members of the queer community and enhanced public safety alert protocols, including the installation of 34 additional security cameras in buildings around campus.
In addition, Spelman has increased the number of gender inclusive restrooms on campus. Also new this fall semester, the institution began accepting transgender students, and Sisters Chapel launched a faith and sexuality lecture series.
“In the course of the campus-wide conversations with a range of stakeholders, it has become apparent that our community is learning about the changing understanding of gender identity and sexuality,” President Campbell said in a letter to students, faculty and staff in August. “And, as an educational institution, we have a responsibility to take a leadership role in the education of our community.”
Here’s an overview of each of the new initiatives.
Institute for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
With the Mellon Foundation grant, the new institute will provide intensive faculty training and summer curriculum workshops on ways to incorporate gender and sexuality studies across disciplines. The training will start with faculty at Spelman and expand to include faculty at Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University and at other United Negro College Fund institutions.
The goal of the institute, which will be managed through the Spelman Women’s Research and Resource Center, is to expose students and faculty to scholarship that challenges the way they see and know the world.
Principal investigators for the grant are Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Ph.D., C’66, the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies and founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center, and Cynthia Neal Spence, Ph.D., C’78, associate professor of sociology and anthropology and director of the Spelman Social Justice Fellows Program and UNCF/Mellon Programs.
Spelman has a history of leadership on gender and LGBTQ issues.
The College is the only HBCU in the nation with a specific focus on Black feminist studies, as well as gender and sexuality studies. It also is the only HBCU with a Women’s Research and Resource Center, founded in 1981, and one of the few HBCUs offering courses in queer studies.
“We are very pleased to expand upon the work that has historically taken place in the Women's Research and Resource Center,” said Dr. Spence. “The overall goal is to create a foundation for curricular initiatives at Spelman, the Atlanta University Center and UNCF institutions that better prepares faculty and students to engage in the areas of gender and sexuality studies. We believe that teaching and learning spaces will be transformed by the educational experiences offered by the Institute for the Study of Gender and Sexuality.”
The institute comes on the heels of reports that historically Black colleges and universities need to do more to promote a culture of inclusiveness on their campuses.
Those findings were confirmed in a three-year study funded by the Arcus Foundation and led by Dr. Guy-Sheftall. In 2011, Spelman hosted a historic HBCU summit to examine institutional climate issues around diversity, inclusion, gender and sexuality at Black colleges.
In 2017, Dr. Guy-Sheftall established the Dr. Levi Watkins Jr. Scholars Program, which awards scholarships to LGBT students and hosts LGBT-related programming on campus. Earlier this year, the American Association of Access, Equity and Diversity honored her for her lifetime commitment to advocating for equity and diversity.
“This important Mellon-funded project underscores the importance of the College’s leadership among HBCUs in the development of gender and sexuality studies, one of the most cutting-edge curricular reforms in the academy over the past several decades,” said Dr. Guy-Sheftall. “We are excited about this collaborative work and the impact it will have on faculty and curriculum development at various HBCUs.”
OVW Grant to Combat Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence
Spelman is one of 57 colleges and universities across the nation – and the only institution in Georgia – recently awarded $18 million in Justice Department grants to address sexual violence on campus. The OVW Grants to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking on Campus Program helps grant recipients to implement coordinated responses to on-campus incidents of violent crime through partnerships with off-campus victim services and local law enforcement agencies.
Spelman’s three-year grant will support a comprehensive campus program that focuses on improving the way that the College identifies and responds to incidents of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. The funding also will cover the development of culturally appropriate, linguistically accessible print or electronic materials to address prevention and intervention of sexual violence.
“We are honored to receive this grant in order to better support the Spelman community,” said Latishia James, assistant director for prevention and response in the Title IX & Compliance Office at Spelman. “We know that women of color, especially Black women, are impacted by issues of sexual and relationship violence at higher rates. This award will allow the College to address the unique needs of our student body.”
All of Us Mini-Grant Program
Spelman’s new All of Us grants program, which will be administered by the Title IX & Compliance Office, provides an opportunity for students, faculty and staff to present proposals on ways to improve the climate and overall sense of safety on campus and get funding to bring those ideas to fruition.
The program will fund innovative and collaborative campus-wide projects to educate, prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based harassment and discrimination, sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking.
The office will make awards up to $5,000 for each approved project request. The mini-grants program will be offered annually with a funding pool of $25,000 each fiscal year.
“The mini-grants are our way of rewarding our community for coming up with good ideas,” said Nicole Johnson, director of the Title IX & Compliance Office. “We are developing creative solutions to address these issues holistically to improve the climate at Spelman.”
About Spelman College
Founded in 1881, Spelman College is a leading liberal arts college widely recognized as the global leader in the education of women of African descent. Located in Atlanta, the College’s picturesque campus is home to 2,100 students. Spelman is the country's leading producer of Black women who complete Ph.D.s in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The College’s status is confirmed by U.S. News and World Report, which ranked Spelman No. 51 among all liberal arts colleges and No. 1 among historically Black colleges and universities. The Wall Street Journal ranked the College No. 3, nationally, in terms of student satisfaction. Outstanding alumnae include Children’s Defense Fund Founder Marian Wright Edelman, Starbucks Group President and COO Rosalind Brewer, former Acting Surgeon General and Spelman’s first alumna President Audrey Forbes Manley, global bioinformatics geneticist Janina Jeff and author Pearl Cleage. For more information, visit www.spelman.edu.