#Virginia State University Wins $1.6M in Federal #HBCU Grants

By Ariana Figueroa/The Virginia Mercury — The U.S. Department of Agriculture Monday announced $33 million in funding to 19 Historically Black Colleges and Universities designated as land-grant institutions to support research and education projects. See full details of the grant to Virginia State University below.

The funding through USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture will support 82 projects in sustainable farming practices such as reducing use of plastics, enhancing nutritional value in vegetables and addressing shortages in sunflower seed oil.

“The work these universities will take on as a result of this funding have ripple effects far beyond the walls of their laboratories and classrooms,” Agriculture Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small said in a statement.

Torres Small said the investments will help “deliver real-life, applicable solutions to make our food system stronger, while at the same time inspiring a next generation of students and scientists who will help us meet tomorrow’s agricultural challenges.”

1890 Land-Grant Institutions are a byproduct of a Civil War-era law that gave land to dozens of universities, including the HBCUs, but the land had been forcibly taken from Indigenous tribes. In total, nearly 11 million acres were taken from more than 250 tribes, according to a project published in High Country News.

“USDA looks forward to the impact these visionary projects will have in improving the supply of affordable, safe, nutritious and accessible food and agricultural products, while fostering economic development and rural prosperity in America,” NIFA Director Manjit K. Misra said in a statement.

Many of the projects are geared toward sustainable practices in farming. U.S. agriculture contributes to about 11.2% of greenhouse gas emissions, and the Biden administration has focused on “climate smart” farming practices.

For example, one project at North Carolina A&T State University was awarded about $250,000 to conduct farm trials of biodegradable mulches, which would be an alternative to plastic mulch.

Another land-grant university in Wilberforce, Ohio, the Central State University, was awarded about $500,000 to explore the use of a perennial flower — meaning it comes back year after year — as a way to improve honey production in order to enhance sustainability practices in agriculture.

And in Nashville, a project at Tennessee State University was awarded $100,000 to evaluate climate resiliency in legume species, which are crops such as snow peas, chickpeas and lentils, that are crucial to fixing nitrogen into the soil to improve soil health.

ACCESSION NO: 1030442 [Full Record]
PROJ NO: 2022-10135 AGENCY: NIFA VAXN
PROJ TYPE: OTHER GRANTS PROJ STATUS: NEW
CONTRACT/GRANT/AGREEMENT NO: 2023-38821-39588 PROPOSAL NO: 2022-10135

START: 01 APR 2023 TERM: 31 MAR 2026
GRANT AMT: $539,202 GRANT YR: 2023
AWARD TOTAL: $539,202
INITIAL AWARD YEAR: 2023

INVESTIGATOR: Faison, M. O.; Woods, JA, PA.

PERFORMING INSTITUTION: VIRGINIA STATE UNIVERSITY PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA 23803

CBG: DEVELOPMENT OF A CENTER FOR SOCIAL DATA ANALYTICS AT VIRGINIA STATE UNIVERSITY

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Extension professionals and their community partners have access to increasing volumes of data. This data may be used to assess local conditions, develop strategies and policies, or to evaluate program impact. Despite this increase in availability and desire to use data, data use often does not meet capacity due to limitations in the technical ability to process and analyze the data, as well as time to dedicate to data processing, analysis, and effective presentation. Thus, communities need assistance from individuals with expertise in analytics and familiar with the social and community applications of those analytics to help manage, analyze, and interpret this data.

This project seeks to address these issues by creating a Center for Social Data Analytics (CSDA) at Virginia State University. Through the CSDA, we will connect Extension with partners across the university in training students in data analytics and the application of data analytics to community & Extension issues and will connect Extension with campus expertise in data analytics and providing training in data literacy to Extension communities.The hallmark of the CSDA's activities will be the Data Science for the Public Good (DSPG) Young Scholars program.

This will be a 10-week DSPG summer program for undergraduate and graduate students. The students will be partnered with faculty and Extension professionals to form community-focused research teams and carry out collaboratively constructed data science projects in partnership with local stakeholders. We will identify community-based research problems by engaging the expertise and community knowledge of Extension professionals through our College of Agriculture. Extension educators, staff, and faculty will be eligible to act as project advisors who coordinate with community stakeholders to identify issues or concerns, note relevant data sources, and help guide the work of the research teams. During the course of the program, we will immerse our students and faculty in data science through workshops and training on statistical computing and visualization tools including R, and GIS; accessing and using local, state, and federal data resources such as Census products and open data portals; and learning about policy and ethics.Through the CSDA's activities, Extension professionals and community stakeholders will also have the opportunity to receive training on data science literacy, to access available tools and resources, and to understand the promise of data science to address their problems.

This training will occur both in tandem with the DSPG Young Scholar's program, and year-round in coordination with the regular activities of Extension.We believe this approach will create:Knowledge, expertise, discoveries, and training products that can improve the ability of Cooperative Extension professionals to assist stakeholders in their communities in the use of data-driven approaches. New interest in the Extension work and, potentially, careers through the engagement of the students and faculty from the broader campus community.

A program of research that addresses diverse community challenges that lie beyond the scope of any single field of study and helps attract the relevant skills from across the campus to engage in Extension problems. A community-oriented approach to data science education with a strong core in experiential learning, which has the potential to transform teaching practices in data science by incorporating the perspectives and knowledge from different fields of study, different data application environments, and diverse community stakeholders.

OBJECTIVES: The overarching goal for this project is to improve the use of data by Extension and its partners to address community issues. In order reach this goal, the following objectives must be accomplished:
1. Increase capacity of VSU Extension and partners to use data
2. Increase exposure of faculty and students to Extension work.

➡️ SUBSCRIBE TO BLACK VIRGINIA NEWS. “One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.” —Ida Wells. 👨🏽‍💻 Send your press releases, submissions, tips, pitches, comments and corrections to BlackVirginiaNews@gmail.com.