Buffalo, NY - Canisius was the recipient of several major gifts and grants during the 2022-23 academic year. The awards, which total nearly $2.5 million, support a number of academic programs and learning opportunities for students:
Physician Assistant Studies received a ‘shot in the arm’ from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, which awarded the graduate program a $300,000 grant. The funding supports the program’s goal to boost diversity in the allied health workforce across Western New York by providing scholarships to students from diverse backgrounds who pursue their master's degrees in PA Studies at Canisius.
This is the third grant awarded to the PA Studies program from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation.
The Cullen Foundation awarded a significant, one-year grant to its Western New York Teacher Residency program, which is housed within the School of Education and Human Services. The grant will fund scholarships to second-year resident students. The Cullen Foundation has awarded nearly $400,000 to the Western New York Teacher Residency program, since the Canisius program was established in 2018.
Similar to a medical school residency, the WNY Teacher Residency at Canisius University is a rigorous two-year program that couples master’s level classes with a full year of teaching in a classroom with a skilled mentor-teacher. In the classroom, students learn the underlying theories of effective teaching. They then practice and hone those skills in a one-year teaching residency in a Buffalo public or charter school.
Researchers at the Institute for Autism Research (IAR) received a three-year grant totaling approximately $925K from the U. S. Department of Defense (DoD) Autism Research Program to test a unique school social intervention for autistic children.
Researchers at the IAR have developed many effective social interventions for autistic children (without ID) that have been delivered in clinical and school settings. Utilizing staff training techniques and social intervention strategies from their prior work, the research team developed an innovative after-school social intervention for delivery by paraprofessionals. Funding from the grant will be used to test both the feasibility and initial effects of the social intervention.
Another one of Canisius’ signature programs, the Urban Leadership Learning Community (ULLC), received a $1 million gift from an alumnus who wishes to remain anonymous.
The ULLC provides scholarship support to the best and brightest students from Greater Buffalo, with the aim to create the next generation of leaders in Buffalo and Western New York. Students in the program are from populations historically denied access and systemically excluded from positions of influence and power.
And finally, a $150,000 grant from the Patrick P. Lee Foundation is being used to address the local mental health workforce shortage. The grant provides scholarships to students pursuing graduate-level degrees in clinical mental health counseling and social work.
Canisius is one of two local higher education institutions selected to receive the grant because of its “proven track record of producing well-trained professionals who staff the mental health departments of hospitals, human service agencies and medical clinics in Western New York,” according to an announcement from the Foundation.
Canisius was founded in 1870 in Buffalo, NY, and is one of 27 Jesuit colleges and universities in the U.S. Consistently ranked among the top institutions in the Northeast, Canisius offers undergraduate, graduate and pre-professional programs distinguished by close student-faculty collaboration, mentoring and an emphasis on ethical, purpose-driven leadership.
