FAMU is pushing ahead with its plans to launch a PhD program in chemistry despite painful state-mandated budget cuts. A multi-million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is aiding the program’s development process.Back in 2006, NSF awarded FAMU a $5,165,603 five-year grant to establish a Center for Astrophysical Science and Technology (CREST) at FAMU. CREST focuses on education and research in the field of astrophysics. A central objective of the center is to increase the number of African-Americans who earn PhDs in Astrophysics and Astrochemistry.
The Center supports collaboration between the FAMU physics and chemistry departments and will facilitate the startup of a PhD program in Chemistry. It is also helping FAMU establish a laboratory astrophysics program that has a new undergraduate minor and a PhD-level research concentration area.
The principal investigator for CREST is Charles Weatherford, chairman of the FAMU Department of Physics.
FAMU received support to launch a PhD in Chemistry back when the Florida Board of Regents approved a Center of Excellence in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology (or COESMET) at FAMU. The program’s purpose: increase black Ph.D. recipients in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
Specifically, the center was to add ten PhD programs in two phases from 2001 to 2010. Phase I consisted of: Physics, 2001; Computer Science, 2002; Chemistry, 2003; Biology, 2004; and Computer Engineering, 2005. Phase II included PhDs in Mathematics, Agricultural Sciences, Environmental Engineering and Biological and Agricultural Systems Engineering between 2006 and 2010.
So far, FAMU has only launched the Physics PhD. Former President Frederick S. Humphries and then Provost James H. Ammons had set the foundation for a PhD in Physics even before COESMET received formal authorization. Years earlier, they had begun scraping and saving money from FAMU’s general budget to hire as many physics professors as possible. This enabled the Physics PhD program to begin shortly after 2001.