The United Negro College Fund’s (UNCF) Institute for Capacity Building (ICB) is leveraging the power of networks, technology and innovation to help Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs) achieve their missions.
Ed Smith-Lewis
In 2015, UNCF received a $50 million grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. to launch the Career Pathways Initiative (CPI), a 7-year initiative designed to support graduates of Black colleges and universities embark on meaningful careers in their chosen fields.
CPI grew into a network of 24 institutional partners made up of 23 HBCUs and one PBI, known collectively as “The CPI 24.” The group used three key strategies to guide their knowledge exchange and partnership: guided pathways, curricular enhancements and integrated co-curricular engagement.
Dr. Pamela Richardson Wilks, former provost and executive vice president at Paine College and newly named president of Clinton College, began engaging with CPI in 2016 while serving at various UNCF member institutions. During her tenure at Wilberforce University, a CPI partner, the school received a $1 million CPI grant to support student career programming.
“We had an overwhelming majority of our students who were gainfully employed when they walked across the stage because they had anywhere from two to three years of experience with internships,” says Richardson in an interview with Diverse. “We began to see a large number of our students be employed as a result of the program.”
The success was due in part to the interinstitutional collaboration fostered by CPI.
