Grants in Action

GRANT-FUNDED PROGRAMMING SUPPORTS STUDENT PERSISTENCE AND RETENTION

Read how Mount Mary is currently utilizing $9.53 MILLION in new and multi-year grants from federal agencies and national organizations to support programs, scholarships and thriving initiatives.

SDS Health Resources and Services Administration Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students

$3.25 million

PromOTe Success Scholars have been attending monthly meetings where they have learned about best practices in occupational therapy and how to handle substance

use disorders with patients. Fall 2020 speakers included Carrie King, Ph.D., who oversaw MMU’s previous Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students (SDS) grant for the Clinical Mental Health Program, and Donna Costa, Ph.D., Professor and Program Director of the occupational therapy program at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. King shared insights on being a successful SDS scholar. Costa presented “The Opioid Crisis and the Role of Occupational Therapy.”

Members of the Jewel Scholars, a program funded through the National Science Foundation, compared molecules from three extraordinary creatures, the bar-headed goose (left), the gutless beard worm and the greyhound dog.

National Science Foundation S-STEM

$1 million

Mount Mary Jewel Scholars have been busy working on their annual hemoglobin projects, investigating and modeling three very diverse hemoglobin molecules.

This year, they compared molecules from the bar-headed goose, greyhound dog and the gutless beard worm. The bar-headed goose is one of the world’s highest-flying birds, and the gutless beard worm lives at ocean depths up to 10,000 meters. The scholars will be presenting their projects and results to the American Society of Biochemistry at the Molecular Biology Protein Data Base 50th Symposium in May. This is a national symposium that will take place virtually, allowing scholars access to the event for the first time.

U.S. Department of Education Title III Strengthening Institutions

$3 million

Data from the grant’s Annual Performance Review shows increases in student retention rates and decrease in time

to completion. Additionally, the Title III grant allowed MMU to hire student workers to assist the instructional designer in troubleshooting technology as classrooms navigated the transition to additional online and hybrid course modalities. The grant also provided a $195 stipend to scholars served by the grant to purchase course materials for the spring semester.

U.S. Department of Education TRIO Student Support Services

$1.3 million

Students enrolled in the Promise Program continued to

experience success. At the end of the fall 2020 semester, 74% of Promise students had a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or higher. In December, Promise students participated in a financial literacy workshop, where students learned about the importance of financial fitness. Students learned about credit scores, budgeting, how to set financial goals and how to achieve long-term financial health.

HHMI Howard Hughes Medical Institute Inclusive Excellence

$1 million

The Inclusive Excellence project hosted two book clubs

last semester. Faculty members Shawnee Daniel Sykes, Ph.D., and Kathleen Boyle, Ph.D., lead a reading of “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism,” by Robin DiAngelo. MMU’s Director of Visitor Services and President of the Latinx Taskforce, Gabriela Barbosa, led a reading of “Becoming Hispanic Serving Institutions: Opportunities for Colleges and Universities,” by Gina Ann Garcia. Several MMU faculty and staff participated in both readings and participated in discussions about related topics.