However, Dr. PonJola Coney, VCU’s senior associate dean for faculty affairs, says this grant was never designed to be an equal partnership.
“It was a grant that was written by VCU faculty … it is not a partnership (and) it was never meant to be a partnership, which is why I made the statement that this is not a 50/50 grant,” Coney says. The VCU official adds that a condition of the grant required that VCU include a “pilot project” component conducted by a historically Black institution. After appeals were made to the area’s HBCUs, VUU agreed to a two-year $100,000 pilot study of preterm births, she says.
“One of the desired characteristics of the funding agency is that minority communities and historically Black colleges have the opportunity to participate in research that impacts the minority community,” Coney notes.
Nevertheless, others are still concerned that, out of the billions of dollars being shelled out annually in research funding, a small proportion is allocated to HBCUs. Improved process and funding mechanisms, Thomas says, are desperately needed so that HBCUs can build up infrastructures that are competitive with majority-White institutions.
“The government is trying to lay out a program, and, if it was monitored effectively, schools like Hampton would be able to accomplish what’s being accomplished in the mainstream,” Thomas says. “All we’re asking for is, let’s make the playing field level and make the program honest. I don’t think that asking for fairness is too big of a request to make.”
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