MS-CC Feb 2022 Newsletter

Welcome to the first edition of your MS-CC member update! Our goal is to share timely information with you about workshops, webinars, surveys, resources, and engagement opportunities.

Campus Cybersecurity Workshops

Cybersecurity is a key priority that emerged from recently surveying our community. As a result of this feedback, the MS-CC will be hosting cybersecurity-focused workshops on a few of our member campuses this spring at no cost to attendees. We will have registration caps in place to ensure an engaging learning experience for participants. We will share additional details on confirmed dates, locations, and registration links soon.

MS-CC February Meeting Canceled

As we are in the planning stages of the campus cybersecurity workshops, there will be no MS-CC meeting this month. You may view the recording of the January meeting and download the presentation slides.

Please plan to join us for our next scheduled monthly meeting on March 31, 2022, at 12 p.m. ET. Zoom connection details will be distributed to the MS-CC email list and posted on the MS-CC website.

Funding Opportunities

Here are some federal funding opportunities that may be of interest to you and your institution:

• Training-based Workforce Development for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (CyberTraining)

• Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP)

• Research Visioning for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE): Future Research Directions for the CISE Community (CISE-RV)

• FY22 Department of Navy (DON) Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM), Education and Workforce Program administered by the Office of Naval Research (ONR)

• Smart and Connected Communities (S&CC)

MS-CC Member Highlight

EON Reality and Meharry Create New Knowledge Metaverse Hub

Meharry Medical College is bringing EON Reality’s knowledge metaverse to its campus! Educators will be able to offer hands-on training to their students without needing to be present in the classroom at all times. Combined with the college’s existing courses of medical study, the immersive experiences and content will provide a distinct advantage for many of the college’s students and faculty — particularly in the event that education has to move to remote learning again in the future. Read EON Reality’s press release.

Did You Know

In celebration of Black History Month, here’s an inspiring story about Samuel Meharry who founded Meharry Medical College with his four brothers in response to an Act of Kindness he had received on a Kentucky road one rainy night—a chance meeting now known as The Salt Wagon Story.

The Salt Wagon story

In the 1820s, 16-year-old Samuel Meharry was hauling a load of salt through Kentucky when his wagon slid off the road into a muddy ditch. With rain and nightfall limiting his options, Samuel searched for help. He saw a modest cabin that was home to a black family recently freed from slavery. The family, still vulnerable to slave hunters paid to return freedmen to bondage, risked their freedom to give Meharry food and shelter for the night.

At morning’s light, they helped lift the wagon from the mud and Meharry continued his journey. The black family’s act of kindness touched young Meharry so deeply that he vowed to repay it. I have no money now, he said as he departed, but, when I am able, I shall do something for your race. Tragically, history never recorded the name of the courageous black family, and perhaps their identity even receded in the mind of Samuel Meharry as he grew prosperous in the years that followed.

Even so, 40 years later, as the Civil War ended and black citizens began their long struggle for rights guaranteed by the Constitution, Meharry seized an opportunity to redeem his vow. When leading Methodist clergymen and laymen organized the Freedmen’s Aid Society in August 1866, to elevate former slaves, intellectually and morally, Meharry acted. He and his four brothers Alexander, David, Hugh, and Jesse pledged their support to Central Tennessee College’s emerging medical education program. With $30,000 in cash and real property, the Meharry brothers repaid the black family’s Act of Kindness with one of their own. In 1876, they funded the College’s Medical Department, which evolved over time into what we now know as Meharry Medical College.

Today, the contemporary Salt Wagon image symbolizes those several acts of kindness and philanthropy and countless others performed by the College’s loyal supporters.