Wilberforce receives $10 million donation

Atlanta-based alum helping to re-launch co-op program,

A Wilberforce University alumnus has donated $10 million to re-launch and re-imagine the university’s Cooperative Education Program.

In making the announcement, Mark Wilson, CEO of Atlanta-based Chime Solutions and the university’s board chair, said his company is investing in the newly formed Wilberforce Foundation to fund the first cohort of 100 students in the program.

“As a student at Wilberforce University,” Wilson said, “my experience with the Co-Op Program was life-changing and provided me with a mindset and set of skills which set me on a course of success in the corporate work environment and as an entrepreneur. This partnership is an act of gratitude to Wilberforce and a demonstration of what collaborative and innovative thinking can accomplish for our students.”

According to a Wilberforce release, the investment represents an intentional re-imagining of the Co-Operative Education Program at Wilberforce University, which was one of the first at an HBCU.

Natalie Coles, vice president and chief development officer in the Office of Institutional Advancement, explained that in the past, companies would host Wilberforce students and train them on a specific job skill. This program, however, can bring the company to campus or take the student to the corporate entity.

Through the Co-Operative Emerging Leaders Program, students will be placed in workplace environments in on-and off-campus settings to gain the requisite skills and experience that the university said will put them on track for job placement upon graduation.

“The program is structured so that corporate partners directly contribute to the school and the students tuition costs,” Coles said. “These scholars then become a direct workplace pipeline of talent for those corporations that invest in this program.”