Southern A&M University News January 7, 2011 SU earns $900,000 grant to train minority institutions, American Indian tribes to raise job outcomes of people with disabilities The Department of Rehabilitation and Disability Studies at Southern University and A&M College has received a $900,000 federal grant to help increase vocational rehabilitation training opportunities to a more culturally diverse group of persons with disabilities. The funding will be used to provide outreach, training, grant writing, technical assistance, grant management and infrastructure building activities to colleges and universities with at least 50 percent minority enrollment, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic serving institutions, American Indian and Alaskan Native tribes, and tribal colleges and universities. The Rehabilitation Capacity Building Project for Under-represented Populations (RCBP-UP) will also provide grant writing and technical assistance to American Indian Tribes and Alaskan Natives to develop American Indian Tribal Vocational Rehabilitation Service Projects. The goal of the project, funded by the Rehabilitation Services Administration in the U.S. Department of Education, is to improve participation of culturally diverse professionals in state and federal vocational rehabilitation, enhance long-term employment outcomes of vocational rehabilitation consumers with disabilities, and to promote reduced dependence on social support mechanisms and increased community integration of the target populations. The project will be administered by Southern University's Dr. Madan Kundu, Project Director; Dr. Alo Dutta, Associate Project Director, Susan Flowers, Project Coordinator, and Nikki Wilson, Administrative Assistant. The project is a collaboration of SUBR, Louisiana Rehabilitation Services, and two American Indian Vocational Rehabilitation Programs in Louisiana. >From 2005 to 2010, RCBP-UP provided some $1.125 million and conducted 33 grant writing and management workshops (in collaboration with three other capacity building projects around the country, five Summer Tribal Vocational Rehabilitation Institutes, and 9 webcasts resulting in the participation of 99 American Indian Tribes and 45 minority institutions of higher education and tribal colleges across the nation, including Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. territories in Saipan, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico. SANDRA M. PHOENIX Program Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org www.hbculibraries.org 404.592.4820 1438 West Peachtree Street NW Suite 200 Atlanta, GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (Lyrasis) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org Honor the ancestors, honor the children.