Pew Charitable Trusts. Education Program.

The Pew Charitable Trusts is a private foundation working in the areas of culture, education, the environment, health and human services, public policy and religion throughout the various communities in American society. The Trusts are a national philanthrophy with a special focus on the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) region.

Education has always been a major focus of The Pew Charitable Trusts (PCT). During its first three decades of grantmaking, the Trusts' education grants went primarily to private colleges and universities, with emphasis on Pennsylvania institutions, Christian colleges, and historically black colleges (HBCUs). In the late 1970s, most PCT education grants funded building projects,equipment, facility renovation and construction, as well as increased support to academic programs. These programs included The Pew Science Program in Undergraduate Education (1986-1991), created to encourage colleges and universities to cooperate in improving science and mathematics education. There were five clusters of institutions funded in February 1988 to redesign their undergraduate and mathematics curricula and to increase research opportunities for both students and faculty.

Princeton University professor Joan Girgus was Director of the program in conjunction with Susan Stine, as facilitators. Other programs established by PCT to meet the needs of disadvantaged students at institutions of higher learning were The Appalachian Colleges Program (1985-1989) in which seventeen Appalachian colleges were funded to improve the educational performance of disadvantaged students. The Black Colleges Program (1982-1999) was designed to support upgrading facilities and improving education opportunities to African Americans. During this period the Trusts also devoted special attention to issues in education in the teaching profession by establishing the Higher Education Research Program Roundtable (1986-1989) that brought sixteen noted researchers and practitioners together on a regular basis to examine issues pertaining to American colleges and universities. There were three distinct issues discussed: educational costs, quality in teaching and higher education's sorting function. Reports from these roundtable discussions were published in the Trusts' PolicyPerspectives.

From the description of Records, 1979-1999. (Hagley Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 122558384