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The funding for the Black Scholar Awards Program has been received from the Office of the President and the University of Rhode Island Alumni Association. This financial support has been critical to sustaining the program. The Black Scholar Awards Committee members would like to encourage the contributions/donations from corporate, non-profit, past award recipients, alumni of color, and others.
Additional financial and in/kind support would be appreciated greatly. Donations via the University of Rhode Island Foundation’s Black Scholar Awards account may be given by contacting:
Dr. Donald Cunnigen
Department of Sociology-Anthropology
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881-0808
Phone: (401) 874-4302
Email: cunnigen@mail.uri.edu
or
Dr. Christopher Hunter
Department of Civil Engineering
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881
Phone: (401) 874-2818
Email: hunter@egr.uri.edu
She earned a bachelor's degree from URI in 1973, and an M.D. from Brown University Medical School in 1984. Before her death at a young age from cancer, she was a staff physician in radiation oncology at Roger Williams Medical Center and a clinical instructor at Brown University. As a recipient of the American Cancer Society's Clinical Oncology Award, she specialized in radiation therapy for locally advanced prostate cancer and in combined modality treatment with chemotherapy in locally advanced head, neck, and pancreatic cancers.
His great-grandfather (also William Gould) escaped slavery in 1862 by rowing to a Union gunboat patrolling off the coast of Wilmington, NC. William Gould IV (Class of '58), has written a book about this and other exploits. 
He was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, 
He was the first Black graduate of the University of Rhode Island in 1914. He majored in civil engineering and was a member of the football and track teams. The 1936 alumni directory listed his occupation an assistant treasurer of Prairie View State College in Texas.
Estes Arnathia Benson (1956-1997) was a cum laude graduate in the class of 1978 at the University of Rhode Island. At the University, he starred in football. He received the Fifth Quarter Club Scholar Athlete Award. He was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. After graduating, he studied at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Subsequently, he received a Master of Business Administration from Vanderbilt University.
Believing that work and travel were essential to his pursuit of knowledge; Estes spent a year in Israel on a kibbutz; a year in the Gulf of Mexico on an oil rig; and several years in various management positions in a variety of businesses, including providing affordable housing for inner-city residents.
An actor and writer, he appeared in University productions, New York City Showcase Theatre, and Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities Legacy Series. He was the author of the Legacy drama, “Fighting to be American: Rhode Islander in the Civil War." As a volunteer throughout New England, he presented educational activities on drug and alcohol abuse to young people.
