BATON ROUGE — WBRZ presented a $25,000 check to Southern University's Department of Digital Media Arts and School of Mass Communication.

The contribution is part of a partnership aimed at giving students the tools to succeed.

"Hopefully with this partnership, we'll be able to improve our facilities and give our students the hands on training they need to be prepared to work in this fast-changing industry," Darrell Roberson, co-director of the Digital Media Arts program at Southern, said. "Now, we can get the type of equipment you would see when they step out of the classroom into the real world, they can walk into a station and say, 'I've worked with that already.'"

WBRZ leaders say this is just the beginning, with hopes of continued investment in Southern University in the future.

"[Students] will be better suited right away in an industry that is changing and technology that is changing, but technology costs money," WBRZ General Manager Andrew Shenkan said. "So the Manship family, who has a rich history in philanthropy and journalism and digital arts, saw this as a natural fit."