Sung-Jin Lee, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, is the recipient of a $149,801 grant from the Higher Education Challenge program of the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to support an online post-baccalaureate certificate program in gerontology.

“There is a social concern about the growing aging population that needs help and resources,” said Lee. “As of May 2022, none of the 1890 land-grant institutions in the nation provided a graduate-level gerontology program. That hinders the accessibility of gerontology programs to underrepresented students.

The Family and Consumer Sciences Department at N.C. A&T has faculty and instructional resources that can build an applied, graduate-level gerontology certificate curriculum at an 1890 land-grant university.”

The project began in January, 2023 and run through December, 2025. According to Lee, this is the first time the university has received the Higher Education Challenge grant as a leading institution.

The grants program provides funding to help ensure a competent, qualified, and diverse workforce will exist to respond to identified state, regional, national, or international educational needs in the food and agricultural sciences, or in rural economic, community, and business development.

Lee, who was “surprised and honored” when she received the news last December, said her teaching and study of the topic of aging has been ongoing since graduate school.

“I studied gerontology as a minor at Virginia Tech and worked as an intern in an adult daycare center, and my dissertation topic was housing challenges of Asian and Pacific Island elders,” said Lee. “At N.C. A&T, I have conducted several community-based, aging-in-place projects. So I believe this project is very opportune for me, as someone who wants to give back knowledge on aging.”

Co-project directors on the project include interim Senior Vice Provost Valerie L. Giddings, Ph.D.; and associate professors Meeshay Williams-Wheeler and Elizabeth Newcomb Hopfer.

The online graduate gerontology course is one of 18 projects funded by USDA NIFA’s recent $5 million investment into the program.