KINGSTON – The University of Rhode Island has been awarded $560,860 in grants from the Champlin Foundations to fund state-of-the-art projects in film studies, journalism, underwater and coastal archaeology, environment and life sciences, physical therapy and the URI honors program.
“These awards will give our faculty access to the state-of-the-art technologies needed to expose students to and challenge students with the most relevant research and practices,” Paul Witham, associate vice president of development, said in today’s announcement.
The Champlin awards include:
• A $119,800 grant to help fund a new digital production studio for broadcast journalism studies. The facility – set to open in the fall semester – will include a main studio and control room where students will learn to produce daily newscasts, conduct interviews and role-play ethical case studies from real news situations.
• A $109,000 grant to provide equipment for a state-of-the-art underwater and coastal archaeological digital teaching and research laboratory on the Kingston campus. The laboratory, to be fully functioning by April 2009, will teach students about underwater archaeology and deep-submergence archaeology.
• A $106,000 grant – augmenting a $394,000 grant from the R.I. Division of Technology – to equip the 300-seat auditorium in the URI Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences with the latest audio and visual equipment. The project is slated for completion next January.
• A $96,790 grant to provide video technology, software and related systems, as well as therapy tables, to allow physical therapy students to simultaneously observe and interact with patients from a remote location.
URI began offering its doctor of physical therapy degree in September 2005.
• A $69,690 grant to create a state-of-the-art one-stop resource center – the Opportunity Zone, or “O-Zone” – for honors-program students. Its central purpose will be to prepare students for awards, fellowships, competitive post-graduate positions, graduate school examinations, professional school admissions tests, research positions on campus and beyond, and other contests of an intellectual or creative character.
URI noted that the number of students participating in honors classes has jumped from 50 per semester in 1995 to more than 500 students per semester today.
• A $59,580 award to update the Independence Hall screening room with state-of-the-art equipment. The facility, for film media students, was established in 1999 with the help of Champlin funding.
The Champlin Foundations, based in Warwick, comprise three trusts established between 1932 and 1975 by siblings George S. Champlin, Florence C. Hamilton and Hope C. Neaves, all of whom were lifelong Rhode Islanders. PNC Bank/Delaware is the trustee for all three foundations, which also share the same management. Additional information is available at foundationcenter.org.
