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President David Wilson wants Morgan State University to be a bigger deal in Baltimore City — not only thought of as a small historically black college in Baltimore, but an anchor like so many public research universities are to their own home cities.
“Our goal long term is to be to Baltimore what Temple [University] is to Philadelphia or what Georgia State [University] is to Atlanta,” Wilson said. “It’s hard to name a top city in the country without a strong, public research university at its core, and that’s what we want to be.”
And Morgan State is doing a lot to get there: building new buildings, expanding educational programs, launching new partnerships and spinning out startups.
Under Wilson’s leadership, the Baltimore school has already expanded its campus to the tune of more than $271 million in new construction. There is an additional $300 million more in upgrades already planned, including a brand new Health and Human Services Building and Science Complex.
This year, the university also inked its first technology transfer deal, lighting the way for other university-born research and technologies to be turned into businesses.
Morgan State has also been putting greater force behind educational programming in areas like cybersecurity and sustainability, in an effort to supply the kind of workforce needed to fill jobs in those growing industries in Maryland. The school’s new 1,600-square-foot cyber laboratory is aiming to train students to confront significant national security problems and ultimately fill some of the cybersecurity industry’s more than 200,000 open positions.
“We think Morgan State can be a critical factor in the future competitiveness of the state,” Wilson said.
Wilson said ongoing growth and investment efforts are strategic, part of the plan to put the Baltimore school on the map among notable public research institutions across the country. The university was also recently designated by legislators as Maryland’s preeminent public urban research university.
Morgan State sought to quantify its impact on Baltimore, and on Maryland as a whole, through a recent economic impact study. The five-year study, conducted by economics firm Econsult Solutions Inc., revealed the university has a financial impact on Maryland nearing $1 billion, including about $574 million on Baltimore City. Morgan state also supports more than 4,000 jobs in the city and helps generate $9 million in tax revenue for Baltimore.
Wilson said he hoped the study would serve to demonstrate what he already knows about Morgan State — that the school provides great value to the state and to its home city.
“We want to show the state that Morgan State is a great investment opportunity, and that the more you invest here, the greater benefits Baltimore sees and Maryland sees,” Wilson said. “I think the results are proof that Morgan is a force to be reckoned with.”
Wilson pointed out that though other city institutions like Johns Hopkins University and University of Maryland, Baltimore get a lot more attention around their education and research efforts, his school brings something different to the table as the only public research university offering all levels of higher education. He said Morgan State has no intent to rival those larger institutions, but does seek to partner with them on research and projects that could be mutually beneficial for the schools and the city.
Morgan State has collaborated with Hopkins to train engineers through the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute, for example. The university’s Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management also recently announced a new academic and research partnership with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
-By Morgan Eichensehr (Baltimore Business Journal)
