As Adelphi moved to remote learning in the spring of 2020, one of our top priorities was to ensure that all students had the reliable broadband access and computer hardware they needed.
The University is now able to extend those efforts thanks to a 2021 Digital Inclusion Grant from the Maryland wireless producer Kajeet. Adelphi is the only college or university in New York to receive the grant, which provides internet hotspots that students who lack internet access can borrow for use at home.
This grant is only one of many awards secured by Adelphi faculty and administrators in the past year to support educational programs and scholarly research. A new relationship with a professional grant-writing consultancy, which assisted in the preparation and management of funding proposals, contributed to Adelphi’s successful efforts to secure grant funding for a variety of projects.
Serving a Social Purpose
Like the Digital Inclusion Grant, many other new grants support programs that benefit society.
A $9 million Teaching Fellows Grant from the New York City Department of Education is the largest recent grant. It will create a six-year program to help Adelphi address the teacher shortage in New York City public schools. The program will provide alternative routes to certification for graduates who do not have a degree in education and will quickly prepare an estimated 900 teachers.
A four-year $1.92 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, enables Adelphi’s School of Social Work and College of Nursing and Public Health to prepare 120 graduate students to provide integrated behavioral healthcare services for children and adolescents in under-resourced communities. Nursing and social work students in the program, all of whom will receive Interdisciplinary Education and Training Experience (IDEATE) Fellowships, will be jointly placed in clinical rotations to receive coordinated training from professional supervisors.
The School of Social Work also received two grants, each totaling $3 million dollars over five years, to train providers of trauma treatment for adolescents. One grant will fund the Complex Trauma Treatment Initiative developed by the school’s Institute for Adolescent Trauma Training and Treatment; the initiative will prepare providers to work with adolescents in the justice system, refugees and asylum seekers, and youth in urban and rural high-risk schools. The second grant supports the Adelphi Complex Trauma Training Consortium, a national workforce development initiative that will establish sustainable local expertise in complex trauma in all 50 states.
Two recent grants support programs aimed at helping families with young children. Elizabeth Palley, JD, PhD, professor and director of the School of Social Work’s doctoral program, received a 2021 grant from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth for Voices of Home-Based Providers: Perspectives From the Early Childhood Field, a project investigating challenges facing home-based child care providers and exploring ways to increase affordable access to high-quality early childhood care. Reem Khamis-Dakwar, PhD, professor of communication sciences and disorders, who implemented the first LENA Start program in New York, received funding to take part in a national study related to emotional support in home care.
A Focus on Student Success
Promoting student success is a core mission at Adelphi. Many new grants are helping further that effort.
The National Science Foundation awarded $499,000 to the (STEM)2 Network, a project of biology department faculty members Lawrence Hobbie, PhD, and Eugenia Villa-Cuesta, PhD. A multi-institution, multidisciplinary group of STEM faculty on Long Island, the network is working to transform undergraduate STEM education to provide an equitable and inclusive system for all students.
Another grant from the National Science Foundation will continue its support for an Adelphi program devoted to opening STEM opportunities for members of underrepresented student groups. Its $299,998 award to the U.S.–Polish International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) project at Adelphi will fund another three years of summer research experiences in photochemistry and nanotechnology at the University of Warsaw for diverse Adelphi students. The IRES program is led by Justyna Widera-Kalinowska, PhD, associate professor of chemistry.
The Health Resources and Services Administration awarded $458,000 to the Adelphi University College of Nursing and Public Health for its Nurse Faculty Loan Program. Aimed at increasing the numbers of qualified nursing faculty, the program provides loans to doctoral nursing students that can be forgiven up to 85 percent for graduates who secure full-time nursing faculty positions.
Scholarly research plays a vital role at Adelphi. These research and educational grants—and many others—help to enrich the experience of our faculty, students and the intellectual environment at our University, while also supporting work that will help improve the human condition.
“Scholarly research plays a vital role at Adelphi,” said Christopher Storm, PhD, provost and executive vice president. “These research and educational grants—and many others—help to enrich the experience of our faculty, students and the intellectual environment at our University, while also supporting work that will help improve the human condition.”