THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 4, 1994 TAG: 9410040412
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
The money keeps pouring in to Norfolk State University.
President Harrison B. Wilson on Monday announced that the university expects to receive more than $1 million from the federal government. The university is getting $550,000 from NASA to develop public school curricula in atmospheric science, and it expects an additional $500,000 in a congressional appropriation to study urban problems.
That would be the first major subsidy for NSU's proposed urban institute.
Two weeks ago, NSU received a $10 million federal grant to expand its material sciences lab and a $55,000 gift from Walt Disney Co. for its hotel/restaurant management program.
``All these proposals we started two to three years ago, and they happen to be hitting just right,'' Wilson said. ``We've been pushing over a long period of time, and it's just coming together.''
Wilson attributed part of NSU's newfound fund-raising success to a greater receptivity from the Clinton administration. ``They're a little more conscious of programs that give minorities more of an opportunity to compete,'' he said.
With the NASA grant, science and education students and professors at NSU will write educational programs, using computers and TV, on such topics as global warming and ozone depletion. The programs will be distributed to schools across the country. The grant will pay for high-tech computers and stipends for students.
``Scientists have been derelict in communicating with educators,'' Joel S. Levine, a NASA senior research scientist, said at a news conference at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton. These issues ``have not been in the curriculum as much as they should be.''
But the programs NSU develops, he said, could excite youngsters about these issues. ``Then, when they become adults, they can make informed choices.''
NASA spokesman Roger A. Hathaway said Norfolk State was selected because of its involvement with previous educational activities at NASA Langley, such as summer institutes for science teachers. NASA officials also said State is the only college in the country involved in such a project.
The half-million-dollar appropriation for the urban institute was recently approved by Congress and awaits President Clinton's signature. Two weeks ago, Norfolk City Council agreed to set aside 25 acres in South Brambleton for NSU to build the institute, a hotel and a new business school.
Wilson said the appropriation would help fund research on urban problems. One possible project, he said, would be to compare prisoners who have served long prison terms with those let out early. The findings, he said, could have been helpful in the recent General Assembly session on abolishing parole.
KEYWORDS: NORFOLK STATE UNIVERSITY
by CNB