Bound by Mission and Alma Mater

Joe Simms and Kaliq Hunter Simms are a power couple as American as apple pie: talented, hardworking, professionally accomplished and rooted in their faith, with master’s degrees from universities at or near the top of the mainstream national rankings in their fields. But when asked about the institution to which they owe their career success, they don’t hesitate to name their undergraduate alma mater, Morgan State University.

“100%” says Kaliq, who earned her dual Bachelor of Arts in English and Secondary Education at Morgan in 1996 and has led Sisters Academy of Baltimore as President since July 1 of this year.

“All of it,” adds Joe, a Bachelor of Science in Psychology graduate of Morgan’s Class of 1993, who has served as Chief Diversity Officer of Stanley Black & Decker since March 2021. “(Morgan) is the foundation on which our (professional) lives have been built.”

That foundation is deep as well as strong. Joe’s mother, Carolyn Spriggs Simms, enrolled at Morgan in 1958, after graduating from Dunbar High School in Baltimore City. She worked multiple jobs to pay her way through college as a commuter student and, after a year at Towson University and a change of major, earned her bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Morgan in 1965. Kaliq’s mother, a native of Baltimore and graduate of Eastern High School, and her father, from Philadelphia, also graduated from Morgan: Anita Turks Hunter received her bachelor’s degree in Sociology at Morgan in 1964, and she met the man who became her husband, Joseph Allen Hunter, there, while he was working toward one of the two degrees he earned at Morgan — a Bachelor of Science in Biology in 1967 and an MBA in 1974. The couple married in the Morgan Christian Center — now the University

Memorial Chapel — in 1969, 22 years after Anita’s mother, Louise Grooms Turks, earned her bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education at Morgan. Louise went on to complete the master’s program in education at Columbia University, joining other talented Black students who commuted weekly to New York on an end run around Maryland’s segregated higher education system. She passed away in 2011.

‘We Were Prepared’

Their campus experiences at Morgan varied with the times and with their personal circumstances and motivations, but career success is a common theme for this multigenerational bonded family. Louise was already certified and employed as a teacher when she pursued her Morgan degree, at the beginning of her career-long tenure with Baltimore City Public Schools. By the time her daughter Anita came to the campus as an undergraduate in 1960, Morgan was a wellestablished center of the civil rights movement. In 1963, Anita joined the group of Morgan students now known as the University’s Civil Rights Pioneers, spending three nights in jail with many of her peers during the successful, nonviolent protest to racially integrate Northwood Theatre. But the politics of the time weren’t all-consuming for her. A good student, and fully immersed in Morgan’s social life, she says, “I had a ball at Morgan…. I really enjoyed my college years. They were some of the highlights of my life.”

“The teachers took time with us. The classes were relatively small. Morgan was very nurturing. When we graduated, the workplaces were taking more Black people in. And we were prepared,” Anita recalls.

In Anita’s case, the State of Maryland and its citizens benefited from that preparation, through her 42-year career with the Division of Parole and Probation, first as a probation officer, then as a supervisor, then as a statewide program administrator, before her retirement in 2006. Her husband, Joseph, was drafted into the military after graduating from Morgan, served in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine Corps Captain during the war then worked for Dupont as a chemical engineer and for the State of Maryland in human resources before his long tenure in human resources for Baltimore City Public Schools. He passed away in 2005.

Carolyn also retired from Baltimore City Public Schools, in 2004, where she spent the lion’s share of her four-decade career as a teacher, administrator and counselor. She is still making her Morgan mark in education, working part time for preschools in Baltimore County. As a student at Morgan working part time for Enoch Pratt Free Library during the school year, in the 1950s and ’60s, Carolyn had little time for nonacademic activities, but she recalls her great relationships with her teachers, among them Iva G. Jones, Ph.D., a revered Professor of English.

Pushing It Forward

Kaliq and Joe met briefly at Morgan when Joe was a senior and Kaliq was a firstyear student, but they didn’t get to know each other until a few years later, when both had already begun the career ascent they attribute to their Morgan experiences. Kaliq had taught English in South Korea for two years as a Morgan Fulbright Scholar — “a life-changing experience” — and was planning to follow her maternal grandmother and an aunt into a career as a master teacher in an African American community. Joe was working in Philadelphia as a human resources manager. They married in 2000.

Kaliq’s Fulbright experience inspired her to obtain a Master of Education at Harvard University — along with two of her Morgan peers who earned Harvard degrees in medicine and law at the time — and then pursue her goal of starting a school. She began working for successful private schools to learn more about their work, and that became 20 years’ experience helping students of color from marginalized groups navigate the private school environment. Eight years as a diversity and equity consultant followed, “teaching teachers how to work with all kinds of students,” Kaliq says, until her current opportunity to lead Sister’s Academy, “which is really the pinnacle of my career…. My school is predominantly African American and Hispanic, a girls’, tuitionfree middle school in Baltimore…and in the Catholic tradition, which is also near and dear to my heart.”

Joe’s current high post with Stanley Black & Decker came in the third decade of his career in Corporate America, a journey that began when a Morgan professor suggested labor and industrial relations as a bridge between Joe’s major of Psychology and the business world. Joe obtained his master’s at one of the top schools in that field, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and continued to 28 years of growth as a human resources leader with Fortune 500 and other major companies.

Kaliq and Joe and their parents are all committed to giving back, through teaching, mentoring and/or financial contributions, and Morgan is at the top of their list of charitable causes. They are all members of Morgan’s Alumni Association, and Anita served as Class Agent for the Class of 1964 for many years.

They’re also hoping to continue the family line of Morgan alumni, and their Greek affiliations, which began at Morgan also: Anita and Kaliq are Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority sisters, and Joe is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

“Now we have a 15-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son, Hope and Hunter…. They’ve definitely been to Morgan’s campus many times, and we are pouring it into them, ‘You have to look at Morgan,’ ” Kaliq reports. “We’re trying to tread lightly, but we’re hoping our kids also make the choice to go to Morgan, and at the very least we’re trying to expose them to HBCUs…. We’re trying to push the legacy forward through our children.” n