Jackson State University’s College of Health Sciences recently received a $10 million cooperative grant from the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The ONC created a Public Health Informatics and Technology Workforce Development Program to allow JSU to train public-health professionals in collecting scientific data for improving clinical and medical decisions.

JSU is also using the collaborative grant to partner with Alcorn State University’s Cora S. Balmat School of Nursing in Lorman, Miss., to develop curricula for training Alcorn students in nursing informatics. JSU will offer certificate, undergraduate and graduate degrees in informatics and analytics fields throughout all colleges in an interdisciplinary partnership.

Faculty and staff at JSU will jointly assist with developing curricula for online and in-person courses that will train students and professionals in bioinformatics, data science, data analytics, nursing informatics, business analytics, health informatics and public health informatics. The College of Health Sciences will work with JSU experts in the College of Business, College of Education and Human Development, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, Honors College and the College of Liberal Arts.

For more information, visit jsums.edu.

MJCPC Receives Mississippi Office of Highway Safety Grant

The Mississippi Office of Highway Safety recently gave the Metro Jackson Community Prevention Coalition at Jackson State University a $361,928 continuation grant to assist with addressing the dangers of impaired driving in Mississippi for the 2021-2022 fiscal year.

MJCPC is the state’s primary adult impaired driving awareness program, a release from JSU says. It focuses on counties with high alcohol-related fatalities in Mississippi and works to foster changed behaviors for individuals who are habitual offenders.

The 2021-2022 fiscal year grant includes an additional component to provide information to adults age 65 and older. The program will coordinate with law-enforcement agencies to promote impaired driving prevention, provide educational information regarding prevention and conduct impaired driving prevention awareness presentations.

For more information, visit jsums.edu/mjcpc.

USM Launches New Payne Scholarship

The University of Southern Mississippi’s School of Professional Nursing Practice recently implemented a new program called the Payne Scholarship for students in its Nursing RN-BSN program. The scholarship is open to any RN-BSN student who is a Mississippi Resident, hasn’t been offered a transfer scholarship and submits a 1-2-page essay on the benefits of an RN to BSN degree.

The Payne Scholarship includes a $50,000 pool and goes toward both tuition and books for the seven students selected for the program each semester. The scholarship covers $2,100 per student each semester for tuition and allows for an extra $280 towards the cost of books for classes.

Recipients of the Payne Scholarship for the fall 2021 semester include Josette Arledge, Christa Burton, Hope Gray, Maegan Rose, Tyler Cruz, Sarah DeJarnette and Victoria Milton.

The Nursing BSN program at USM admits students during the fall, spring and summer semesters. For more information, visit the program's website.