Grants received since January top $13 million
June 1, 2001
KALAMAZOO -- More than $13 million in grant funding was awarded to Western Michigan University during the first four months of 2001, according to a report presented to the University's Board of Trustees at its May 30 meeting.
A total of $13,306,034 was received for the months of January, February, March and April, bringing the total of grants received by the University since the July 1 start of the fiscal year to $21,467,811.
Of the 152 grant awards awarded to WMU during the four-month period, more than half were for research efforts at the University while a quarter were for public service initiatives.
The largest single grant received was a $1.89 million award from the Michigan Department of Corrections to Dr. C. Dennis Simpson, director of WMU's Specialty Program in Alcohol and Drug Abuse and professor of community health services, and James Kendrick, assistant professor of community health services. They will use the funding to continue providing residential substance abuse treatment in state prisons. Simpson and Kendrick also received two additional grants totaling $426,500 from that agency to provide substance abuse treatment services for prisoners, parolees and probationers.
WMU's Evaluation Center received a number of grants, including three awards from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Arlen Gullickson, the center's chief of staff, received two NSF grants, including a $373,034 award to continue developing methods for assessing the impact and effectiveness of Advanced Technological Education centers and $326,580 to develop materials, training and support services to improve the national evaluation of science and mathematics. The NSF also awarded $335,584 to Dr. Jerry Horn, principal research associate at the Evaluation Center, to assess student achievement and reform efforts in science and mathematics education. In addition, Dr. Gary Miron, also a principal research associate at the Evaluation Center, received $300,000 from the Pennsylvania Department of Education to evaluate that state's charter schools.
Carol Sundberg, director of the Center for Disability Services, received three grants totaling nearly $1.38 million from Kalamazoo Community Mental Health Services to provide daily living services to developmentally disabled adults.
Among the grants received were:
A previously announced award of $750,000 in Michigan Economic Development Corp.'s Life Sciences Initiative funding was received by Dr. Subra Muralihadran, associate professor of chemistry, for the creation of a microchip to be used in the development of pharmaceuticals and other biotech applications.
An award for $503,100 from the Michigan Department of Community Health to Dr. Sharon Anderson, director of the Center for Community Asset Building, and Alise Saul, project director at the Center for Community Asset Building, will be used to work with the Benton Harbor Boys and Girls Club to improve educational achievement and high school completion rates in Benton Harbor schools. In addition, Anderson and Dr. Osama Abudayyah, assistant professor of construction engineering, materials engineering and industrial design, received a previously announced $399,996 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to establish and operate a Community Outreach Partnership office in Benton Harbor.
Drs. Kate Kline and Theresa Grant, both assistant professors of mathematics and statistics, received $364,267 from the National Science Foundation to provide professional development support to Southwest Michigan school districts using the "Investigations in Number, Data and Space" mathematics curriculum.
The National Computational Science Alliance awarded Dr. Dewei Qi, assistant professor of paper and printing science and engineering, $360,000 to access computational time on the Gray PSC T3E supercomputer at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.
Media contact: Marie Lee, 616 387-8400, marie.lee@wmich.edu