A Major Investment   

The Scripps Howard Foundation pumps money into Hampton University's journalism program.

Scripps Howard Foundation, Hampton University and the National Association of Black Journalists join forces, thanks in large part to foundation dollars, to upgrade the Virginia university's journalism program. Scripps Howard invested about $6.3 million to endow a professorship, purchase equipment, establish scholarships and the like, and construct a new building, the Scripps Howard Center. The curriculum at the historically black college has been revised to focus on hands-on skills, says Charlotte Grimes , the new chair of the mass media arts department and Scripps Howard Professor of Journalism. NABJ's five-year $300,000 grant from the foundation will go toward training programs, to be held at Hampton, for journalism students, soon-to-be interns and working minority journalists. Grimes, 51, who worked at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 20 years, recently served as founding director of the Scripps Howard Foundation's Semester in Washington Program, which brings college journalism students to Scripps' D.C. bureau. "I like to create things, especially things in journalism education," she says. "To be able to do something about diversity, really help change our profession with the talents of these young minority journalists, that's a wonderful opportunity. That's something you can't turn down."