Morgan Magazine Summer 2024

morgan|MAGAZINE morgan|MAGAZINE

TACKLING

CLIMATE

CHANGE

Alumni and Friends, I am proud to present this issue of Morgan Magazine, a publication that documents how Morgan State University is, in every way possible, meeting the moment of this historic, tumultuous and ultimately hopeful time.

Seven years ago, Morgan answered the call to serve as Maryland’s Preeminent Public Urban Research University, to address the challenges of modern urban environments through research, community engagement and public service, as we continue to provide inclusive higher education to a diverse student body to lead the world.

Today, our groundbreaking work in countless fields of endeavor is proving the State’s decision both prescient and wise. We are gaining knowledge and taking actions to prepare Baltimore City, the state and the nation for the inevitable impacts of climate change on urban and coastal areas. We are taking the lead in addressing stigmas and other obstacles to effective mental health care on campus and in the broader community. We are supporting the environmental, social and health benefits of urban farming. We are promoting business and economic development at Northwood Commons and elsewhere in the neighborhoods near our elegant, growing campus, the National Treasure, just to name a few of many ways Morgan is growing the future, as we move swiftly toward our strategic goal of attaining the R1 (“very high research”) Carnegie Classification. And success begets success. Our initiatives and achievements are drawing more world-class faculty and administrators to lead our institution and our mission, and we are attracting greater financial contributions to support the growth that is bringing increasing public recognition of our university’s excellence.

Thank you, dear readers, for your part in maintaining Morgan’s Momentum. The best is yet to come.

David K. Wilson, President david.wilson@morgan.edu

morgan|MAGAZINE

02

Building Climate Resilience in Maryland

Morgan researchers seek equitable actions to lessen the impact of climate change

Student Success

Computer Science

major and rising junior Godsheritage Adeoyo has amassed a wealth of honors and experiences

IT’S OUR MOMENT! Fair Morgan’s vice president for Institutional Advancement calls for transformative support of the University

Cover Photo by Orlando Vera – pexels.com

Photo by Pixabay – pexels.com

14

Donor Profile

Hosting Morgan on the Vineyard is only one of many ways alum Greg Jones is giving from the heart

Taking the Lead

Four recent appointees exemplify Morgan’s prowess at the vanguard

31 In the Community Supporting Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm’s mission to create healthy, sustainable cities

25 A Grand Opening

Alumni-led businesses at Northwood Commons help Morgan serve and empower the community

16

Meeting Mental Health’s New Reality

Morgan increases student services and community outreach to meet today’s growing challenges to mental wellness

33 SACRED GROUNDS

Morgan groundskeepers’ artistry boosts the University’s vital “curb appeal”

ENVIRONMENT

BUILDING CLIMATE RESILIENCE IN MARYLAND

Morgan Researchers Seek Equitable Actions to Lessen the Impacts of Climate Change

BY ERIC ADDISON

WHEN 12 OF THE NATION’S LEADING scholars and scientific researchers gathered at Morgan State University in September 2021, one of the main tasks of the group, dubbed the “Blue Ribbon Panel on STEM Research Expansion,” was to suggest core research areas Morgan should explore in the near future. The panel evaluated Morgan’s prospective science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) research “Peaks of Excellence” to determine how well the University was positioned in each area to make important contributions and become a national leader.

One of the most promising peak areas of future Morgan excellence the panel identified was climate change research, and last February, the University announced its most extensive foray into the space.

The mission of Morgan’s new Center for Urban and Coastal Climate Science Research is to collaborate s

with the global scientific community and policymakers to mitigate the most adverse effects of climate change on urban and coastal communities, reports Willie E. May, Ph.D., vice president of Research and Economic Development and professor of chemistry at Morgan.

Global warming caused by burning of oil, coal and gas (fossil fuels), has long been confirmed by the world’s scientific community as a potentially catastrophic problem. Morgan’s newest research center, funded by $2–3 million annually from the State of Maryland, will study climate impacts caused by that warming, such as extreme heat; extreme rain and wind events; drought; and rising sea levels. The research will take place at

‘‘

Morgan is well positioned to help make Maryland a model of climate change resilience and adaptation for other coastal states.”

three “nodes,” Dr. May reports: one at Morgan’s Patuxent Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory (PEARL), another in the University’s School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences, and the third at a location to be determined in downtown Baltimore.

Rising seas give Maryland a special interest in supporting the center’s research, May says, because, “Maryland has more coast per unit area than any other state in the country. We have a lot of water.”

And Morgan has access to that water, points out PEARL Director Scott Knoche, Ph.D.

“The Chesapeake Bay serves as the coastal conduit between Morgan’s urban Baltimore City campus and the Morgan PEARL laboratory located 80 miles to the south in rural southern Maryland,” Dr. Knoche says. “The facilities and resources at these very different coastal locations will enable Morgan to engage in interdisciplinary climate research using integrated approaches available to few universities.”

Morgan is well positioned to help make Maryland a model of climate change resilience and adaptation for other coastal states, says Dr. May. And he adds that the Center “also gives us the ability to contribute to the state’s economic growth.”

Continued on page 4

Willie E. May, Ph.D., Vice President of Research and Economic Development and Professor of Chemistry at Morgan

Morgan’s diverse facilities and resources will enable the University to engage in interdisciplinary climate research using integrated approaches available to few other academic institutions.

Climate (change) is a huge issue, because it affects everybody, particularly the most vulnerable members of our society.”

— Dr. James Hunter

Continued from page 3

‘A Huge Issue’

The Center for Urban and Coastal Climate Science Research is one of the many integrated initiatives recently launched at Morgan to address the enormous challenge of climate change.

James Hunter, Ph.D., grew up in Somerset, New Jersey, but he has deep roots in Baltimore City, where his mother was reared and where his father and two of his uncles graduated from college at Morgan State. Before he received his doctorate in Environmental and Civil Engineering from Purdue University in 2006, and before he joined the faculty of Morgan State University in 2009, Hunter was a student at Morgan also, earning his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering in 2000.

Environmental problems such as excessive water runoff in urban areas have long been a focus of Dr. Hunter’s research, but when asked about the issues caused by global warming, he immediately turns the discussion to home.

“By 2070, Baltimore will face a significant climate change, marked by a notable increase in days above 95 degrees Fahrenheit, sea level rise and more frequent, intense rainfall. This will lead to higher cooling costs, health risks, property damage and challenges to

the water quality of the Chesapeake Bay,” Hunter says, citing a climate outlook report from a program he serves as lead investigator from Morgan: the Mid-Atlantic Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (MARISA), sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“Climate (change) is a huge issue, because it affects everybody, particularly the most vulnerable members of our society,” Hunter adds.

Hunter is an associate professor in Morgan’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. (The word “Environmental” was added to the department’s name last year.) He is also Morgan’s lead for the University’s work with the Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-funded “integrated field laboratory” to study climate adaptations and climate impacts in urban environments. As scientific evidence of the urgency to address climate change accumulates, BSEC, along with Morgan’s new climate research center, has become part of the fast-growing, multidisciplinary effort at Morgan to meet the challenge by assisting Baltimore in adapting to and becoming more resilient to the impacts of global warming.

James Hunter, Ph.D., Morgan Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Steps Forward

In July 2022, the University’s School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences established a Climate Science Division, headed by Xiaowen Li, Ph.D., a researcher for Morgan with NASA’s GESTAR program since 2015. Richard Damoah, Ph.D., assistant professor of Physics at MSU, is her teammate in the division. In early fall of last year, Dr. Li made two major climate researchrelated announcements: Morgan’s receipt of $250,000 from the DOE for a pilot program to establish a Climate Resilience Center at MSU, and the University’s participation in the Coast-Urban Rural Atmospheric Gradient Experiment (CoURAGE), a field campaign that will support BSEC. Both are Department of Energy-supported projects that she will lead for Morgan as principal investigator.

In April 2023, Morgan announced its participation in two multi-university collaborations to boost climate resilience in Baltimore and elsewhere: the Environmental Impact Data Collaborative (EIDC), with MSU Computer Science Professor and Chair Shuangbao (“Paul”) Wang, Ph.D., as the Morgan lead, and BSEC, which is led at Morgan by Dr. Hunter, with coinvestigators and collaborators from Morgan’s Biology, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Physics, and Transportation and Urban Infrastructure Studies Departments; the Climate Science Division; and the School of Architecture and Planning. Several months later came the announcement of a $3-million grant to Morgan from the National Science Foundation to train students to research climate change solutions enabled by artificial intelligence and machine learning. That program, dubbed ACCESS, is headed by Samendra (“Sam”) Sherchan, Ph.D., associate professor of Biology at Morgan, who is also director of Morgan’s Center for Climate Change and Health, which was launched last year.

Morgan is realigning its academic offerings to meet the climate challenge, as well. Three of the University’s recently established degree programs have climate resilience solutions in their sights: a Bachelor

‘‘Given the fact that we are seeing warming now, and there’s no escape, how will that change affect urban climate?

How do we help people to manage the extreme heat or flooding or pollution?”

— Dr. Xiaowen Li

“I think the idea is we need to love and treasure the Earth we live on. But also, as a researcher at an HBCU, I want to fight the injustice.

— Dr. Paul Wang

of Science in Sustainable Environmental Engineering, a Ph.D./M.S. in Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure Engineering and, beginning this fall, a Bachelor of Science in Coastal Science and Policy.

Applying the Science

Dr. Li, who earned her bachelor’s degree in Atmospheric Physics and master’s degree in Meteorology in her home country of China, and her doctorate in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago, has spent much of her professional career researching cloud microphysics and cloud dynamics, examining clouds with radar aimed from the ground and from space to help develop models that show how clouds interact with humaninduced global warming. While that research aims to determine why the climate is changing and how much it will change over the coming decades and centuries, Li says, the pilot Climate Resilience Center she leads — the Center for Climate Adaptation and Resilience in Baltimore (CCARB) — “is the application part of the science. Given the fact that we are seeing warming now, and there’s no escape, how will that change affect urban climate?” she says. “How do we help people to manage the extreme heat or flooding or pollution?”

Li is working to develop the Center as a host for the unprecedented volume and quality of climate data about Baltimore that is being produced by field campaigns such as BSEC and CoURAGE. Land in Clifton Park that Morgan recently acquired is the main site for the Department of Energy instruments and infrastructure to be used in the CoURAGE study. The long-term goal of the Climate Resilience Center is to become a hub for Baltimore’s climate data, interpreting the information for Baltimore City residents and officials, serving as a twoway communications bridge between climate scientists and city stakeholders, and training a more diverse workforce of climate researchers.

Continued on page 6

Shuangbao (“Paul”) Wang, Ph.D., Morgan Computer Science Professor and Chair

Xiaowen Li, Ph.D., Director of Morgan’s Climate Science Division

Continued from page 5

Faculty from nine Morgan units; Coppin State, Johns Hopkins and Penn State Universities; Baltimore City Community College; and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are working within CCARB.

“Climate sciences really touch every single school and every aspect of everybody’s life,” says Li. “It’s not just about science. It’s (also) about policies and adaptations, and everybody needs to be involved.”

Addressing Climate and Health

‘‘

We are trying to increase the diversity of…minority students in STEAM fields (and) also address big challenges right now in terms of climate change, artificial intelligence, big data and related areas.”

— Dr. Samendra (“Sam”) Sherchan, Associate Professor of Biology, Morgan State University

The climate research traineeship program headed by Dr. Sherchan has a lengthy name: the National Science Foundation Research Traineeship program in Artificial Intelligence for Climate Change and Environmental SuStainability (ACCESS). The program takes an inclusive approach similar to CCARB’s, involving faculty and students from Morgan’s Biology, Computer Science, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments, and the director of MSU’s Center for Equitable Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Systems.

“Climate change is the biggest threat to humankind in the 21st century,” Sherchan states. “We have direct and indirect impacts of climate change, and there are areas where we can utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to address them.”

One question ACCESS researchers are seeking to answer is how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to predict contaminants or disease-causing agents in recycled water, as potable water becomes less available in areas stricken by drought caused by climate change. Another is how AI can predict and monitor emerging diseases in communities, as climate change impacts the transmission of infectious diseases. Sherchan is also researching critical questions like these as one of the seven academicians and medical practitioners nationwide selected as National Institutes of Health (NIH) Climate and Health Scholars for 2023–24. Morgan expects that about 75 students will benefit

from the research and research presentation opportunities, faculty mentoring and internships gained from the ACCESS program over the five-year grant period, says Sherchan. Twenty-five of the students will be funded with oneyear stipends.

“We are trying to increase the diversity of minority students in STEAM fields (and) also address big challenges right now in terms of climate change, artificial intelligence, big data and related areas,” says Sherchan.

Transforming Data Into Solutions

Approximately 30 Morgan students gained research experience through the University’s work with Georgetown and Howard Universities and the Blackowned climate technology company BlocPower, in the Environmental Impact Data Collaborative (EIDC), a project funded by the Bezos Earth Fund, reports MSU Computer Science Chair Paul Wang. Morgan received $1 million from EIDC over the two-year period beginning July 2022, to automate the intake and cleaning of a wide range of climate data using machine learning techniques. The mission of the Collaborative, stated on its website, is “(to help) community groups, policymakers and researchers transform data into solutions that promote environmental justice and fight climate change.”

“What we want to find is how climate change is affecting people, groups or communities that have been adversely impacted by historically biased policies, and present scientific evidence to the policymakers,” said Wang, who is also lead author of a recent report linking historical socioeconomic injustice with poor air quality in Baltimore City neighborhoods.

Morgan’s work with EIDC gained the attention of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Wang was invited to Harvard to represent Morgan at a forum about environmental justice and its relationship to public health, in June 2023, joining the 30 forum participants, who included city leaders and some of the nation’s top researchers in the subject

Samendra (“Sam”) Sherchan, Ph.D.

areas covered at the event. High on the list of topics were ways to address health problems caused by disproportionate climate impacts on low-income communities.

About 20 Morgan Computer Science undergraduates participated in EIDC as part of their senior capstone projects, in addition to six MSU faculty and two graduate students, including one Fulbright scholar, Wang says. Dozens more students benefited from having access to the senior project presentations.

Wang says he has long been concerned about the environmental impact of the burning of fossil fuels but that he has dual goals in addressing climate change in Baltimore City.

“I think the idea is we need to love and treasure the Earth we live on,” he says. “But also, as a researcher at an HBCU, I want to fight the injustice.”

Toward Equitable Adaptation

Achieving socially equitable solutions to climate change impacts is also a stated goal of the Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC), an 11-member partnership that includes Morgan. The work of Morgan’s BSEC team has a broad reach, as it must keep pace with the multiple challenges created by the fast-growing problem of climate change, says Morgan’s BSEC lead, James Hunter. As an author of the Fifth National Climate Assessment, released last November, he is well aware of the need for swift, comprehensive action.

“In a lot of respects, we may be behind,” he admits, “but we can always still plan for the near future and the far ahead future. And that’s what efforts like BSEC (are) trying to do…. With this particular effort, we are looking at monitoring what’s happening throughout the city, setting up essentially a web of sensors (to measure) climatic data, weather data, air quality, water flow, our soils and vegetation, and then running those data in our models to see how our city is reacting to these different climate impacts.

“But more importantly,” Hunter adds, “we’re going to be able to look at what we call equitable pathways to adapting to climate change.”

Celeste Chavis, Ph.D., is working to help develop the transportation plans for those pathways. In conversations with Dr. Chavis, Morgan associate professor of Transportation and Urban Infrastructure Studies, she noted plans to extend her past research on deployment of electric vehicles to contribute to the BSEC effort.

“We’re interested in looking at how you can shift people to more sustainable modes of transportation,” Chavis says. “One way of moving people to transit is to price cars so it’s too expensive to drive, which is not really equitable, because higher-income earners will still drive, and lower-income earners will be pushed to transit. So we’re interested in exploring ways that we can still create those shifts in a more incentivized way, as opposed to a punitive way.”

Her team is also looking at exploring future trends in transportation, she reports, “so if travel patterns change, how will that affect emissions related to transportation?”

Chavis thinks BSEC’s community engagement is a unique element of the program that will help move the effort toward its goal.

Continued on page 8

Celeste Chavis, Ph.D.

Continued from page 7

Earning Community Trust

Two faculty of Morgan’s School of Architecture and Planning, Tonya Sanders Thach, Ph.D., associate professor of City and Regional Planning, and Samia Kirchner, Ph.D., associate professor of Undergraduate Design, are leading the University’s community engagement for BSEC. The gathering they assembled in a first-floor classroom of Morgan’s Center for the Built Environment and Infrastructure Studies (CBEIS) building last fall seemed a model of diversity, cooperation and inclusion. The occasion was a focus group on the topic of extreme heat — the second in a series of engagement events to be held during the five-year grant period. The event brought in a wealth of thoughts, ideas and experiences from the 35 guests, who included community leaders and activists from neighborhoods across Baltimore. Youth at the event toured the LEED Silver-certified CBEIS facility and took part in a separate environmental learning activity, while the adults answered questions in the focus group session.

A long period of strategic planning preceded the well-run meeting, Dr. Sanders Thach reports, planning that began with the researchers’ selection of the community organizations to partner with in BSEC.

“You cannot build deep relationships with communities in the time span it takes to write a grant. You (must) have established trust with a community,” Sanders Thach says. “(So) one of the things we did was send a survey to all of the BSEC researchers to see who had worked in what communities.”

Later, the engagement team developed a steering committee for the Collaborative, composed of community residents, government officials and business and nonprofit organization leaders. The community members on the committee are responsible for bringing more community residents to the project, as needed.

The steering committee meets quarterly “to learn about all the scientific discoveries that the scientists are making and (to) guide the BSEC research,” Dr. Kirchner reports. “…Our strategy has been just like the strategy for any community engagement has been to me, which is to make the ship as you sail it, because every community is different.

“So we started BSEC with a kickstart meeting in January of 2023,” she adds. “Over a hundred people showed up, which included residents and city and organizational stakeholders. And we just started with simply listening.”

Sanders Thach, who arrived at Morgan with degrees in Urban Planning and Policy, Community Psychology and Social Change, and Psychology, and Kirchner, an MIT and Georgia Tech graduate with degrees in architecture and conservation, both came to BSEC with a longtime concern about climate change and a long track record of research to solve environmental and environmental justice problems. Sanders Thach recalls the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and witnessing the socially inequitable recovery after the disaster. Kirchner remembers her shock at seeing environmentally unsustainable building design and excessive consumer product waste when she arrived in the U.S. from her native Pakistan, in 1988. And both agree on the best path forward to equitable climate solutions now.

“I’ve learned that communities are very well in tune to what is happening to them, and we don’t give them enough credit for it,” Sanders Thach says. “You don’t need a Ph.D. in climate science to know how (climate change is) affecting you.”

“The humans that have been at the receiving end of environmental injustice are experts of their lived experiences,” Kirchner says. “(They) have a lot to teach the scientists.” n

I’ve learned that communities are very well in tune to what is happening to them, and we don’t give them enough credit for it. You don’t need a Ph.D. in climate science to know how (climate change is) affecting you.”

— Dr. Tonya Sanders Thach, Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning, Morgan State University

Tonya Sanders Thach, Ph.D.

Prepping Morgan Students for Careers in Climate Resilience

B.S. in Coastal Science and Policy

This unique degree program, beginning in the Fall 2024 semester, will equip students to protect, manage and study coastal resources through the interdisciplinary application of science and policy. The program’s new courses and research opportunities will be focused on natural and social science studies of coastal ecosystems.

B.S. in Sustainable Urban Environmental Engineering

Approved in 2022, this program aims to increase the number of employees from groups now underrepresented in the expanding career fields of environmental sustainability.

Ph.D./M.S. in Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure Engineering

Morgan graduates are well-represented in the workforce that manages the infrastructure of Baltimore City and the region. As these bridge, roadway, water and other systems age and are increasingly challenged by climate change and other emerging environmental issues, this program, launched in Fall 2023, is preparing students with knowledge about the more complex systems to come.

Climate Research at Morgan’s PEARL

Located on a Chesapeake Bay tributary in St. Leonard, Calvert County, Maryland, Morgan’s Patuxent Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory (PEARL) does research to increase the understanding of coastal and environmental systems so they can be properly managed and protected. That mission places global warming clearly in the laboratory’s sights.

“(We have) several projects that are ongoing at the PEARL that have relevance to how we’re going to adapt to and mitigate climate change,” says the lab’s director, Scott Knoche, Ph.D.

One of those projects stems from the PEARL’s work to help diversify Maryland’s growing aquaculture industry.

Morgan’s Patuxent Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory (PEARL) located on a Chesapeake Bay tributary in St. Leonard, Calvert County, Maryland,

“A challenge with aquaculture in Maryland is that it’s a single-product industry: it’s oysters, and that’s it. So the PEARL…is doing research on softshell clams,” which are predominantly farmed in Maine and Massachusetts, he says. “We’re at the southern end of their range, and that’s only going to become more problematic with climate change and warming waters.

Scott Knoche, Ph.D., Director of PEARL

Continued on page 10

Continued from page 9

“So what we’re doing at the PEARL is tests — we call them ‘heat shocks’ — to see which softshell clam specimens will survive in these warmer waters,” Knoche explains.

Another PEARL study looks at the wind turbines being used to produce electricity.

“To reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, (the U.S. is) putting wind turbines into places like mountaintops and in the ocean. That has potentially negative effects on different stakeholders, including commercial fishers who are working in those waters,”

Knoche explains. “So the PEARL is providing some background information and will ultimately be surveying commercial fishers to get their take on how these new, large structures in the water could impede their commercial fishing efforts.”

Yet another PEARL research project, led by Amanda Knobloch, Ph.D., environmental education coordinator for the lab, is seeking to understand how the coastal carbon cycle is changing because of climate change and other human impacts. The project — funded by the National Science

Foundation — is titled, “Comparing Carbon Fluxes of Tidal Marshes and Oyster Aquaculture Farms in the Chesapeake Bay.”

Tidal marshes are important to ecosystems in numerous ways, Dr. Knobloch explains: filtering sediments, soil and nutrients out of water, acting as nurseries for fish and shellfish, serving as habitats for migratory birds and reducing storm surge flooding, to name a few. The marshes can also act as “sinks” that hold (“sequester”) carbon for long periods of time, she says. That sequestering can affect climate change, because carbon is an element of carbon dioxide, a pervasive greenhouse gas. Dr. Knobloch’s project is examining the movement of carbon between tidal marshes and two different environments — the Patuxent River and oyster aquaculture farms — to determine similarities and differences.

“A big portion of this project is working with students and training students in this field,” Dr. Knobloch says, “to diversify geosciences but also biogeochemistry or marine chemistry as a whole. It’s a small field, and it’s not very diverse. And so I want to train more students in this field that I find so fascinating.” n

Amanda Knobloch, Ph.D.

Photo by Eva Bronzini - pexels.com

CONQUERING COMPUTER SCIENCE

BY ARIYANA GRIFFIN, Morgan Class of 2024

“I just want to leave this kind of legacy behind where they’d be able to say Godsheritage not only just did good for himself but…also to open doors for other people.”

— Godsheritage Adeoye, Morgan Class of 2026 ‘‘

ONLY TWO YEARS INTO HIS MORGAN STATE University education, Godsheritage Adeoye has a long list of laudable experiences and opportunities. From working with major companies such as Apple as a software engineer to traveling the world to share his knowledge at conferences, this junior Computer Science major is making strides and opening doors for others.

Adeoye, originally from Kwara, Nigeria, began to have an intense curiosity about computers in middle school there. He remembers taking apart a computer and putting it back together after discussing with his classmates what a RAM stick looked like.

“People are saying a RAM stick looks like a circle. People are saying it’s like a rectangle. But I said it was like a card, a rectangular card with inscriptions on it, and everybody was arguing,” he said. Determined, he went home, dismantled his dad’s computer and brought a physical RAM stick to the classroom the next day, as proof.

He continued studying computers, programming and coding through his secondary education, and that determination and curiosity eventually led him to Morgan. Researching universities to attend, he sought a school with both a strong Nigerian community — since he would be there without his family members or current friends — and a proficient computer science program.

“During the whole research process, Morgan just started checking out,” Adeoye recalls.

A World of Opportunity

Adeoye was accepted into Morgan the same day he applied. He then began to focus on receiving his visa and other documents needed to make the transition to the U.S. and also applied for internships, fellowships and other opportunities.

“I was already applying for internships before college,” he says. “I applied to over 300 internship positions in total my freshman year.”

Adeoye hit the ground running at the National Treasure. He connected with his teaching assistant, who happened to be Nigerian and who shared his cultural upbringing and enthusiasm for computer science. She introduced him to the Zillow Global Hackathon, and Adeoye became the youngest member of his team, helping Morgan compete against other HBCUs. Morgan’s team won first place, and Adeoye was included in an article about the victory published in The Baltimore Times. He also won money for Morgan’s Computer Science Department and for himself.

“That was a surreal moment for me, mind you. I was barely four weeks into school. And I had won a global hackathon,” he says.

A world of opportunities then opened for Adeoye: he secured an internship with Apple as a software engineer on the company’s Vision Pro team, where he was able to study the future of spatial computing; his team won first place at the second annual Codelinc hackathon; his Cloud Bears team placed third in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) competition; he attended the three-day Bloomberg HBCU Academy of #Excellence; and more.

His talents and hard work have enabled him to travel all over the United States: he was selected to attend the Black Sports Business Symposium #blacksportsbiz in Atlanta, the 2023 Morgan Stanley Early Insights program in New York and the seventh annual Battle of the Brains in Austin, Texas, and he was a keynote speaker for the virtual UrxConference in May 2023, in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he spoke about “The Candidate Experience.” Adeoye was accepted into the Thurgood Marshall College Fund program, which has afforded him opportunities to meet other HBCU students, travel to conferences and gain internship experience.

Sharing the Wealth

The junior is looking forward to continuing to grow his portfolio and skills. He took courses through Google’s Tech Exchange Program in spring 2024, joining software engineering classes led by Google employees. The program’s courses were virtual, however, he traveled to California to tour Google’s headquarters.

“Imagine software engineers (at) one of the biggest companies in the world teaching you how software engineering is done for a semester,” Adeoye says, enthralled by the experience.

He is excited about giving back to incoming Computer Science students at Morgan by speaking at panel discussions on campus, being a mentor and being active with campus organizations. He is also leading a team of 20 students planning Morgan’s hackathon this year, Morgan Hacks, which draws participants from around the country to create and innovate new projects and launch them to the tech ecosystem.

“I just want to leave this kind of legacy behind where they’d be able to say Godsheritage not only just did good for himself but…also to open doors for other people,” Adeoye says.

Adeoye looks forward to utilizing all the experience, knowledge and skills he will gain at Morgan and around the world. After graduating from Morgan, he plans to work as a software engineer “at a company leading innovation and breaking technological barriers.”

“We lack opportunities to help us shine,” Adeoye says of his homeland. “So, I will try to share these opportunities I’ve received from Morgan with other people, starting with my Nigerian community.” n

IT’S OUR MOMENT! Morgan’s New Era of Opportunity and Growth

BY ENDIA M. DECORDOVA, Morgan Class of 1999

s HISTORICALLY BLACK COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES (HBCUS) HAVE LONG BEEN PILLARS OF higher education for African Americans, providing quality learning experiences, fostering leadership and nurturing a strong sense of community. Despite decades of underfunding and systemic challenges, HBCUs have remained resilient and continue to produce a significant portion of the nation’s Black professionals.

HBCUs like Morgan State University have consistently provided access to higher education for students who might otherwise face prohibitive barriers. The commitment to this mission is reflected in the impressive achievements of HBCU alumni, who have made substantial contributions to fields such as business, education, science and the arts.

Today, we are witnessing a pivotal shift toward greater recognition and support of these high-achieving institutions.

Recent years have seen a notable increase in enrollment at HBCUs, including Morgan, a surge driven by growing recognition of the unique value our institutions offer, including supportive environments, culturally relevant curricula and strong community networks.

The increased enrollment is a positive sign, however, it also underscores the urgent need for sustained funding and support. New academic buildings, enhanced facilities and cutting-edge research initiatives are essential to accommodate the growing student body and to maintain the high standards of education HBCUs are known for.

With adequate support, we can expand our programs, attract more top-tier faculty and provide more scholarships to deserving students. These

investments will, in turn, create a ripple effect, producing graduates who are well-equipped to contribute to society and drive economic growth. Robust funding also enables Morgan to undertake groundbreaking research, addressing critical issues facing Black communities and the nation at large.

This is a defining moment for Morgan. The momentum we are witnessing is a call to action for alumni, philanthropists, policymakers and the broader community.

By supporting Morgan State, we are not only investing in the future of our students but also the future of our society.

Morgan faithful, now is our moment to contribute to and be part of the transformative growth occurring at HBCUs, particularly at our alma mater, the

largest HBCU in Maryland and the State’s Preeminent Public Urban Research University. Morgan’s growth and success will have far-reaching implications, demonstrating the transformative power of education and the importance of equity in higher education. n

Endia M. DeCordova, ’99, joined Morgan’s senior leadership team as vice president for Institutional Advancement in July 2023. She also serves as executive director of the Morgan State University Foundation, Inc.

GIVING FROM THE HEART

BY BRENDA HENDERSON, Morgan Class of 1965

A NATIVE OF ORANGEBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA, GREG M. JONES, OF MORGAN’S CLASS OF 1979, understood early on the importance of education. His mother taught at Claflin University. His first introduction to an Historically Black College or University came when he was a third grader in daycare, which was located on Claflin’s campus. As an adult, he realized the impact of those experiences on his life. Graduating from Morgan with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting, Jones went on to achieve a Master of Arts in Public Administration at Carnegie Mellon University and a Master of Business Administration as a Cigna Foundation Fellow at The Wharton School..

We see (Morgan on the Vineyard) as a vehicle to connect to each other. The strength of Morgan is found in the alumni who protect, advance and support its mission.”

— Greg M. Jones, Morgan Class of 1979

These days, Greg and his wife, Lauren, reside in Connecticut, where Greg serves as vice president for strategy and planning for Hartford Healthcare. The couple are also the founders of The Legacy Foundation of Hartford, a nonprofit organization with a mission to address and reduce disparities in health and education, particularly in Hartford, where test scores of low-income students are in the nation’s bottom third. The foundation partners with other organizations to expand its reach, says Greg, who is chair of the organization’s board.

“We focus our energies on creating opportunities,” Jones says. “Talent is universal. Opportunities are not. We develop

(far right) Morgan on the Vineyard founder and host Greg Jones, ’79, with (left to right) Morgan President David K. Wilson; Morgan Vice President for Institutional Advancement Endia DeCordova, ’99; Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., Pi Chapter member Joseph Harrison, ’13; and Morgan State University Foundation Board Chair Joseph Simms, ’93, at Morgan on the Vineyard 2024

‘‘Greg Jones and his wife, Lauren, are also the founders of The Legacy Foundation of Hartford, a nonprofit organization with a mission to address and reduce disparities in health and education.”

and execute programs that primarily create opportunities to help advance the educational pursuits of youth and encourage a proactive approach to health responsibility.”

Jones was attracted to Morgan early in his life. His mother was a graduate of two historically Black institutions, Claflin University and South Carolina State University, and he witnessed the fun his parents had getting together with their friends at football games at Hampton, North Carolina A&T, Johnson C. Smith and other HBCUs. Other strong influences on his college choice were two Morgan alums: his cousins Marilyn Jones Knight, of the Class of 1978, and Janice Jones, of the Class of 1970.

“Morgan became the Jones family school,” says Greg. “I liked what I saw: a warm environment.”

‘Our Responsibility’

His own Morgan experience fueled a passion for giving back to alma mater that has grown taller and wider over the years. In 2014, he and Lauren established the Greg M. and Lauren Allen-Jones Endowment Fund, which aids the Morgan State University Foundation in awarding scholarships to Morgan students based on academic achievement and financial need.

Another of the couple’s fundraising endeavors has quickly become an annual highlight on the calendars of Morganites and Morgan supporters. Encouraged by a friend to visit Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, Greg thoroughly enjoyed the trip and eventually bought a vacation home on the island, which has long been a beloved summer destination of African Americans. The couple noticed that HBCUs drew alumni to the Vineyard annually for events and fellowship, and they wondered why Morgan did not. Six years ago, after inquiring with Morgan President David K. Wilson, Greg and Lauren decided to welcome Morgan alumni to their Vineyard home for a fun visit that would also bring in financial support for the University. That informal event has evolved to become a week of activities anchored by a reception with President Wilson, a beach party and an “Orange Out” restaurant dinner. Tara Turner, Morgan’s assistant vice president for Institutional Advancement, reports that Morgan on the Vineyard has raised nearly $500,000 for the University since its launch in 2018.

“We see this as a vehicle to connect to each other,” Jones says about the increasingly popular event. “The strength of Morgan is found in the alumni who protect, advance and support its mission. It’s now our watch…. It’s our responsibility.”

Happy but not content with the successes of the endowment and Morgan on the Vineyard, Jones has continued to boost the University in other ways. A member of the Pi Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., on Morgan’s campus, “I had the pleasure of presenting a check for $250,000 to Morgan State University Foundation Executive Director Endia DeCordova to commemorate Omega Psi Phi Pi Chapter’s Centennial” last November, says Jones, adding that the chapter also committed to creating a $1-million endowment to support Morgan, with funds to be raised through individual giving.

Repaying the Debt

In his corporate life, Jones has a rich history of career and leadership achievements. An investment banker, he has more than 30 years of experience in the profession and has assisted public and privately held manufacturing, utility and healthcare companies in growing their businesses through mergers, acquisitions and strategic capital management. Before arriving at Hartford Healthcare in 2017, Jones held leadership posts with Corporate Development Group/Divestiture Partners, Pratt & Whitney, Bechtel, JP Morgan and other large companies.

And he credits Morgan with preparing him for career success.

“Morgan was my hotspot, where I developed confidence and a foundation for success,” Jones says.

Scan to Give to Morgan Today

Tara Turner describes him as “an exemplary, humble graduate who knows how to help the community and has the connections. He gives from the heart…. He is known for his acts, not money.”

Characteristically, Jones is more succinct.

“Giving is who I am as an alum,” he says. n

ENLIGHTENMENT

MEETING MENTAL HEALTH’S NEW REALITY

BY TORY PARRISH

CHERISE CASTELLO CARRIED A HEFTY weight on her shoulders: the weight of sorrow and responsibilities.

After her mother died of complications related to lupus in November 2020, Castello didn’t seek mental health care to address her sometimes “crippling” depression, she says.

“(My mother) was really my rock. And a lot of things I did to make sure to take care of her,” says Castello, 25, a senior majoring in Political Science at Morgan State University.

After a campus shooting rocked the University in October, Castello was so focused on schoolwork and the several roles she held — including being an Army ROTC cadet in Morgan’s Bear Battalion and Morgan’s student representative on the Maryland Higher Education Commission’s Mental Health Advisory Committee — that she continued “business as normal,” she says. But she admits she should have sought counseling.

That’s a nonresponse she encourages other students not to emulate, as she works with many others at Morgan to bring more awareness to the growing mental health needs of students and the services available to address those needs on campus.

“It’s OK to not be OK. And don’t let anyone make you feel that you need to feel like it’s not OK,” says Castello, who also is the Morgan Student Government Association’s health and awareness director.

Amid a mental health crisis affecting college campuses nationwide, Morgan is among the growing number of higher education institutions that have increased their mental health services.

‘‘

A stigma against acknowledging mental health issues exists in the Black community, say Morgan officials, but they place its roots in cultural, historical and medical traumas and say the stigma is less prevalent among younger generations.”

Continued on page 18

Continued from page 17

Increasing Need

Many students were left feeling disconnected during the COVID-19 pandemic isolations and quarantines that began in March 2020, says Sonya Clyburn, Psy.D., director of Morgan State’s Counseling Center since December 2021.

“We’re seeing a great need of individuals having social anxiety, depression, trauma adjustment issues. And we’re actually even seeing individuals who have more chronic mental health issues that…(were) already (existing) prior to coming to college. And it’s difficult to navigate once they get here,” says Clyburn, a licensed clinical psychologist.

Nationwide, college students’ rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts have hit all-time highs in recent years, but a record number of students are receiving therapy or counseling, according to Healthy Minds Study results released in March 2023. The study was based on survey responses from 96,000 college students on 133 campuses in the 2021–22 academic year.

44% of students reported symptoms of depression in 2021–22

The numbers — 44% of students reported symptoms of depression, 37% reported anxiety disorders, and 15% reported having seriously considered suicide in the past year — were the highest recorded rates in the history of the 15-year-old survey, which was conducted by the Healthy

Minds Network for Research on Adolescent and Young Adult Mental Health, based at the University of Michigan and Boston University.

“There is also an urgent opportunity to better support the mental health of minority student populations, including LGBTQIA+ students, who are more likely, on average, to report suicidal ideation, and students of color, who are less likely, on average, to access mental health treatment,” Sarah Ketchen Lipson, Ph.D., assistant professor of health law policy and management at Boston University and a principal investigator of the study, said in a statement.

Growing Services

Some of the health care services that have been added at Morgan in recent years include virtual counseling in early 2020, a satellite counseling office in Thurgood Marshall Hall in May 2022, and wellness rooms in O’Connell Hall in December 2023 and Blount Towers in August 2023, Clyburn reports. Starting in October 2022, the Counseling Center also partnered with a third-party company, Uwill, “that assists us when we’re not in the office. They can actually see the students after-hours on the weekends and then holidays,” she adds.

Beginning last year, for the first time, Morgan included a mental health statement on its standard syllabi, University-wide, Clyburn says. Earlier, in August 2022, Morgan began partnering with the company that offers MANUAL CARE, a digital platform that provides mental and physical health resources to men on college campuses, says Danny T. Molock Jr., Ph.D., director of Morgan State’s Office of Student Life and Development.

Morgan was also among four historically Black universities that in 2022 began participating in Mental Health First Aid Training, a national certification program training faculty, staff and students to identify the signs of mental health challenges or substance abuse.

Sonya Clyburn, Psy.D., Director of Morgan’s Counseling Center

‘‘ [ ]

A stigma against acknowledging mental health issues exists in the Black community, say Morgan officials, but they place its roots in cultural, historical and medical traumas and say the stigma is less prevalent among younger generations.

Last October, Morgan partnered with the National Alliance on Mental Illness Metropolitan Baltimore to hold I Will Listen Week, an awareness campaign aimed at reducing stigmas around mental health care. After the campus shooting, the I Will Listen Week activities became more poignant, Dr. Molock says.

“There was everything from yoga in the yard to a mental health resource fair. We did a peace walk. There was an open mic. We did stress tests, depression screenings. We had a Wellness Day where we gave out smoothies and healthy snacks…just things to deal with the overall health of students,” says Molock, who adds that the University Memorial Chapel led midday meditation sessions.

Rejecting Taboos

A stigma against acknowledging mental health issues exists in the Black community, say Morgan officials, but they place its roots in cultural, historical and medical traumas and say the stigma is less prevalent among younger generations.

The act of getting help is being normalized because of the growing awareness of the benefits of mental health care, Molock says.

“You see it on TV. You’re hearing it in the community. You’re hearing it in church. You hear it in schools. So, I think that because students are hearing it from so many different avenues, I think (they) are actually taking the time to say, ‘Hey, I think I need to… try this out,’” he says.

Also, the increasing number of mental health care professionals of color offering culturally competent care is encouraging more young, Black people to seek care, Clyburn says.

Among adults with mental illness, 52% of white adults and only 39% of Black adults received mental health care services in 2021, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. But the Foundation attributed some of the disparity to financial barriers facing Blacks seeking to access health care, and to discriminatory treatment Black people sometimes receive.

Continued on page 20

(left to right) Walter J. Kennedy, ’14; Danny T. Molock Jr., ’12 and ’19; and Tyrell Caine, ’19 and ’22

Seeing yourself on a path of wellness and sustainable value-added lifestyle

MENTAL HEALTH

Amid a mental health crisis affecting college campuses nationwide, Morgan is among the growing number of higher education institutions that have increased their mental health services.”

Continued from page 19

Body Language

Today’s college students are facing more stressors than their predecessors did 20 years ago, particularly because of the effects of the pandemic, which caused students to experience losses in multiple ways — the deaths of family members and friends, the loss of opportunities for socialization and engagement with teachers, etc., says Anna McPhatter, Ph.D., dean of Morgan’s School of Social Work.

McPhatter, Ph.D., Dean of Morgan’s School of Social Work

“After COVID, we brought in a class of freshmen…who essentially had missed their junior year and senior year in high school. And that really is where a lot of socioemotional development happens, in those years, where you begin to…take on more adult-like things…. So, we had a group of students who were coming in behaving like high school sophomores,” says Dr. McPhatter. She adds that students who were Morgan freshmen the year the pandemic started also missed out on the mentorship of upperclassmen at the University during the public health crisis.

Black Americans and other people of color were disproportionately more affected by the pandemic than their white peers, research shows. Black,

Hispanic and Asian communities experienced higher rates of infection and deaths, leading to more pandemic-related stressors, such as unemployment and food insecurity, and these groups had less access to mental health services, according to a 2022 study published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.

Aside from the pandemic, Black people in general face more trauma and chronic exposure than their white peers to stressors such as racism, police violence and gun violence by civilians, which affects mental health outcomes, research shows.

Those stressors can be compounded for Morgan students who are stressed by financial concerns and trying to adapt to being in new environments, McPhatter says. Older students may have additional demands, such as caring for children or other family members while being employed.

“So all of these compiled…certainly contribute to additional stressors and angst and anxiety for all of us. And an anxiety in and of itself is not a bad thing until we become overly anxious,” McPhatter says. “Anxiety really just is the body’s way of telling you that something is going on.” n

Anna

Supporting Mental Health in the Broader Community

Through its School of Community Health and Policy and School of Social Work, Morgan State University works to support mental health in communities far beyond the boundaries of the campus.

“By emphasizing the significant impact of mental health beyond our university, Morgan State University’s Field Education Program plays a vital role in addressing mental health issues,” says Dean McPhatter of the School of Social Work (SSW). “Our Field Education Program provides undergraduate and graduate students with hands-on experience in real-world community agency settings, under the guidance of experienced professional social workers. Through internships, students enhance their social work practice skills, gain theoretical knowledge, learn how to access relevant community resources on behalf of agency clientele and prepare for successful careers as urban social work practitioners and leaders.”

“We are proud to partner with over 125 mental health agencies where at least 65% of our students acquire a dynamic internship experience,” Dean McPhatter reports. “This underscores our commitment to address mental health challenges extended beyond the physical campus throughout the State of Maryland, Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia.”

‘Priority Area of Focus’

“Mental health and well-being is one of the most pressing public health issues of our time and has only been further exacerbated by our collective experience of the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Kim Dobson Sydnor, Ph.D., dean of Morgan’s School of Community Health and Policy (SCHP).

“Within SCHP and its Center for Urban Health Equity (CUHE), mental health is a priority area of focus, and we understand that progress in addressing these issues cannot take place

without the inclusion, collaboration and impetus of our communities, especially within communities of color. To that end, we’ve engaged community in a myriad of ways around mental health and community well-being.”

To promote awareness and education, SCHP collaborated with the American Psychological Association in the summer of 2023, to bring the APA MOORE Equity in Mental Health Community Fair to Morgan and the surrounding Baltimore community, Dean Sydnor reports. More than 500 Baltimore residents attended this event and were able to connect with local mental health providers and other support services focused on promoting mental health equity for people of color. SCHP has also partnered with the Family League of Baltimore in programmatic support, to assist in funding mental health-focused, community-based organizations in their endeavors. CUHE is also establishing a small consortium among community groups that address mental health and related concerns among Baltimore youth.

Partnership with the community in mental health-related research is another high priority, Dean Sydnor says. SCHP professor Lorece Edwards, Dr.P.H., is working to bring her Perceived Risk Hierarchy Theory to schools and practitioners across the country. CUHE has also planned a longitudinal study launched by Sabriya Sturdavant, Dr.P.H., associate research professor, Dean Sydnor reports. The Center will work with community agencies and schools in Baltimore in this study, to track and contextualize mental health-related issues occurring in school-aged children. n

TAKING THE LEAD

Morgan’s Administration Places Prowess at the Vanguard

s PROOF OF MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY’S FORWARD MOMENTUM ABOUNDS, AND THE UBERmotivated, highly talented leaders being chosen to continue the University’s progress are well suited to the task.

Here, we present four outstanding additions to the Morgan leadership team who exemplify the “diverse, dedicated and expert faculty, administrators and staff” listed as a strength in the University’s 2021–30 strategic plan.

New leaders: (left to right) Dr. Ryan Maltese, Associate Vice President for Student Success and Retention; James Curbeam, Director of Enterprise Risk Management; Dr. Abimbola Asojo, Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning; and Dr. Paul Tchounwou, Dean of the School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences

Passing Down Passion

Abimbola Asojo, Ph.D., FAIA, dean and professor of Morgan’s School of Architecture and Planning since August 2023, says academia is in her “DNA.” Dr. Asojo’s father is a retired biomedical scientist, her mother is a retired university professor of philosophy, and her family lived on the campus of the University of Ibadan, the premier university of Nigeria. The campus also housed her high school, International School Ibadan, which is where Dr. Asojo’s passion for architecture was sparked by an all-school assembly featuring two of the nation’s few women in the profession. After she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Architecture from Obafemi Awolowo University, in Nigeria, she moved to the UK, where she received a Master of Architecture in Computer and Design from the University of East London, then to the U.S., where she earned her Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma. The work she has done as a practitioner and educator during the past 32 years “fills a void in the body of knowledge on cultural diversity and non-Western issues in design,” she says.

“One reason I came to Morgan is to continue doing the work of increasing representation in our fields,” Dr. Asojo says. “HBCUs, for example, contribute seven out of 10 licensed African American architects to the profession. My passion for growing the next generation of diverse built environment professionals starting from K–12 to higher education is what attracted me to Morgan. Our School of Architecture and Planning is the only HBCU with architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, regional and city planning, and construction management in one school. Plus, we have a Ph.D. in Architecture, Urbanism and Built Environments.”

Asked what she hopes to accomplish at Morgan, Dr. Asojo says, “Student success is very important to me. We have to meet students where they are and grow a diverse profession that is reflective of the communities we serve and the diversity of our population.”

Making a Difference

He’s “just honored to have the opportunity to be part of the National Treasure,” says Paul Tchounwou, Sc.D., dean of Morgan’s School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences (SCMNS) since Jan. 1, 2023. And the National Treasure is honored to have him. Recently named one of the “World’s Top 2% of Scientists” by Stanford University, and a 2023 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Dr. Tchounwou was also the top student in his graduating classes at the University of Yaounde, in his home country of Cameroon, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences and his master’s in Biochemistry. Pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees in public health at Tulane University in the U.S. inspired his interest in conducting innovative research to find solutions to improve the health and wellbeing of the community, and his return to Cameroon to teach medical students and conduct medical research grew his passion for being an educator. Three years later, he returned to Tulane University, where he conducted postdoctoral research in cancer biology and chemotherapy for two years, and then joined Jackson State University, where he served in faculty and high administrative positions in the College of Science, Engineering and Technology at the historically Black institution for more than a quartercentury.

“One of my biggest accomplishments that I feel proud of is the opportunity that I have had to really make a difference in the lives of so many students,” says Tchounwou, who has mentored hundreds of scholars ranging from K–12 through doctoral, and has won two major awards for educators: a 2013 Mentors Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a 2018 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.

“I view this as being an exciting time for the School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences,” Dr. Tchounwou says. “I envision to build on the strong foundation that has been laid to deliver high-quality science, technology and math education to our students.”

Continued on page 24

Continued from page 23

Facilitating Success

James Curbeam has come to love the career field he entered mainly by happenstance. In the 30-plus years since he received his Bachelor of Science in finance from Creighton University, Curbeam has earned an Executive MBA from the University of Nebraska Omaha and has gained a wealth of experience in risk management in areas ranging from insurance to energy to water to hospitality to, most recently, education. In risk management, he says, “There’s always some new challenge. The world is ever-changing, and there are new risks that come about every day that you have to figure out, to put your organization in a position to mitigate or transfer those types of challenges.”

In his current post, the newly created position of director of Enterprise Risk Management for Morgan, Curbeam will also collaborate with the University’s Office of Internal Audits to monitor audit reports and implement processes and procedures to ensure University-wide compliance, and he will serve as chair of the University’s Enterprise Risk Management Committee, which the Board of Regents established.

Support and Tough Love

Ryan Maltese, J.D., Ph.D., is a master facilitator as well. He had envisioned himself a lawyer since he was a child, but soon after he received his law degree from North Carolina Central University, in 1999, he says, he realized a career as a full-time lawyer was not for him. Fortunately, his work as a graduate assistant in development and university relations when he was in law school offered another path.

Curbeam sees multiple opportunities at Morgan to help bring about beneficial change in his field.

“One of the things the industry has been talking about for years is their lack of diversity,” he reports. “I would love to be able to introduce risk management to Morgan students so they can get the flavor of this industry and know how exciting it is.”

His ultimate goal at Morgan is to get engagement at the faculty and staff level by filling a role analogous to the point guard or coach in basketball, “so everyone basically is a risk manager for the organization, and I’m kind of the facilitator, making sure everyone has the tools and the equipment and the processes they need to be successful in their day-to-day work life.”

Morgan’s associate vice president for Student Success and Retention in the Division of Enrollment Management and Student Success since December of last year, Maltese has had a fulfilling and wide-ranging career — including completion of degree programs at Oberlin College, University of North Carolina Greensboro and Georgia State University, three years as a program director at the Lowery Institute and 19 years as a director at North Carolina A&T State University and later at Georgia State. Tying it all together thematically is his passion for human rights and social justice.

“I don’t think you can grow up the son of a social worker and not be indoctrinated,” he says. “…I’ll venture to say I’m my mother’s son in that respect…. The principles that I live by are cultural competence, social responsibility and servant leadership.”

Providing support for students from admission to graduation; supervising academic advising, orientation, summer/transition programs and the alumni mentoring programs in his oversight of the Center for Academic Success and Achievement; and cochairing Morgan’s new Certificate Committee to help Morgan students leave the University as more employable job candidates are all aspects of his job. And so is giving tough love.

“I really do want to reframe the narrative around student expectations of the college experience, for Morgan students to know that getting a college degree is their responsibility,” Maltese says. “It is their walk, their journey, and it is something that they have to embrace and fight for.” n

A GRAND OPENING

Alumni-Led Businesses Highlight the Value of the Northwood

Commons Redevelopment

BY ERIC ADDISON

s

THE $50-MILLION REDEVELOPMENT OF NORTHWOOD PLAZA SHOPPING CENTER AS NORTHWOOD Commons promised big benefits to Morgan State University (MSU) and the broader community, and the project has delivered. The 100,000-square-foot venue, adjacent to Morgan’s West Campus, provides attractive new homes for the Morgan State University Barnes & Noble Bookstore and Morgan’s Police and Public Safety Department, and offers a lineup of retail establishments that provide essential and high-demand services. Among those are five businesses owned or led by Morgan State University graduates.

The large alumni presence isn’t happenstance, explains Tiffany Hawkins, shareholder with the New York City-based wealth management firm Momentum Advisors and a member of Morgan’s Class of 2000. Hawkins and Momentum Advisors’ founder, managing partner and chief investment officer, Allan Boomer, of Morgan’s Class of 1999, founded Momentum Advisors’ Franklin Morgan fund, which owns the ZIPS Cleaners at Northwood Commons.

“I’ll give the (Northwood Commons) developers some credit. We got connected with them very, very early, and they asked us if we knew anymore Morgan alum and minority business owners who wanted to be tenants in the development…. We see them as Northwood has opened: Morgan alum — minorityowned franchisees and non-franchise system

(business owners). That was by design. That was not by accident,” Hawkins says.

Besides the ZIPS Cleaners franchise, the list of Morgan alumni-controlled businesses at Northwood Commons includes Tropical Smoothie Café, a franchise owned by the spouse team of David and Alesha Magby (’03 and ’04); the McDonald’s restaurant franchise, which is owned by Brittney Bell, ’07; the Beauty Plus beauty supply store, a franchise owned by Quintin Lathan (MSU Class of 2004) and his wife, Megan; and the Northwood Commons branch of The Harbor Bank of Maryland. The bank and its holding company, Harbor Bancshares Corp., are chaired by Harbor Bank Cofounder Joseph Haskins Jr., of Morgan’s Class of 1971, who stepped down from the chief executive officer post in April of last year.

Continued on page 26

Continued from page 25

Drawn by History

Haskins earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics from Morgan, but his passion for African American history played a large role in his decision to expand Harbor Bank to Northwood Commons.

“I arrived at Morgan in ’67 and had learned about the marching by students less than five years earlier to help integrate Northwood to gain access to many of their facilities,” Haskins recalls. “…And then what also triggered my interest was having moved around the country and having attended a number of colleges and universities and noticing that around the majority schools, there were always robust retail and services available within walking distance. In the case of Northwood, I watched it decline to a point where you had two establishments remaining, one being a liquor store and the other (a food market). The last one to go was the liquor store…. And yet what I also noticed was that when Morgan faculty and administrators needed to meet and wanted to sit in a restaurant environment, it was not available for them to walk to.”

Haskins and Harbor became involved in conceptualizing and financing Northwood Commons years before construction began, when the shopping center’s owners and later Morgan President David K. Wilson approached Haskins seeking input. Early on, Haskins says, he decided “that not only did I just want to bring financial resources to the table, I thought it was important (for Harbor Bank) to have a presence there…for the benefit of African American students who could pass through and see an enterprise with a cofounder who’s a graduate of Morgan as well as see a financial institution that was thriving.”

And thriving it is, Haskins reports, with ample depositors including Morgan students from out of state and merchants at Northwood Commons, among others. The branch has high-tech tools for customers and welcomes community organizations to hold meetings in the facility, he reports. The community outreach is aligned with the goal set by Harbor Bank’s founders at its launch in 1982, Haskins says: “Harbor’s intentions are to be not only a provider of financial services but also to be a catalyst for economic development, and that’s its mission.”

Northwood Commons branch of The Harbor Bank of Maryland

The bank and its holding company, Harbor Bancshares Corp., is chaired by Harbor Bank Cofounder Joseph Haskins Jr., of Morgan’s Class of 1971

McDonald’s owner-operator Brittney Bell, ’07

Motivated to Give

The other Morgan alumni entrepreneurs at Northwood Commons are equally committed to “giving back.”

“My short- and long-term goals right now are to continue giving back to Morgan,” says McDonald’s restaurant owner Brittney Bell, a Family and Consumer Sciences graduate of Morgan, from Columbia, Maryland. Bell says she employs many Morgan students, encourages them to take advantage of McDonald’s Archways to Opportunity scholarships for college students and arranges for

McDonald’s to make financial contributions to the University. Bell, a second-generation McDonald’s franchise owner, had a “very scholarly, very focused” experience as a Morgan undergraduate then taught high school for five years in Howard County, Maryland, before joining her family business. Her parents and two siblings own 43 McDonald’s restaurants in total. Brittney also owns the franchise for the McDonald’s at Harford and Moravia Roads, about a mile from Morgan’s campus. Her Northwood Commons restaurant, she says, has more than tripled McDonald’s revenue projection.

Continued on page 28

Continued from page 27

Beauty Plus owner Quintin Lathan says he had an entrepreneurial spirit long before he earned his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at Morgan. But he says giving is as strong a motivation in his career as is bringing in revenue.

“Giving as many kids a shot in the beauty (industry) as possible is definitely my goal,” says Lathan, who was born and raised in Baltimore City, “and opening up their minds to (the fact that) there’s more than one way to do things. You can be in beauty retail. You can launch your own brand. You can be a cosmetologist. You can be an aesthetician. Just giving them opportunities to see that they can do it, too.”

A large percentage — 90 to 95% — of his staff are Morgan students, who learn, he says, that beauty retail is “a blue-collar business…. It’s actually blue-collar, roll up your sleeves work.”

The Lathans opened their first Beauty Plus location in Baltimore’s Charles Village neighborhood in 2016, and Quintin says he began messaging developer Mark Renbaum to ask about tenant opportunities at the proposed Northwood project that same year. His persistence paid off: business at Northwood Commons has “exceeded all my expectations,” Lathan says, and he hopes to open more stores in the Baltimore Metropolitan area.

Beauty Plus owner Quintin Lathan, ’04

Spreading the Wealth

Prince George’s County, Maryland, natives David and Alesha Magby met as undergraduates at Morgan, where Alesha earned her bachelor’s in Information Science and Systems and David earned his in Business Administration. The couple, both lifetime members of the Morgan State University Alumni Association, has a long love story that includes Tropical Smoothie Café.

“A Tropical Smoothie opened in the area we reside in, which is Bowie, Maryland, and we stumbled across it one day. And we just couldn’t get enough of it,” David recalls. “…It was just a healthier food option for us.”

In 2018, they decided to try to gain income by spreading that wealth, purchasing a Tropical Smoothie franchise in Temple Hills, Maryland. The Northwood Commons location is their fourth.

“Our (short-term) goal is to serve as many people as possible, (bringing) healthier food options into the communities that are underserved,” David says. “…Long term, we are thinking generationally…. I would love to affect two or three generations behind us: young adults that are coming up now through college and high school. We want to be something they can look at and say, ‘You know what? I know I can do this, because I’ve seen them do it.’”

“We’re in the people business,” says Alesha. “And we do create opportunities for young individuals who didn’t have any type of plan. They end up sticking with us, and as we grow, they grow.”

“We’re also (here) to give back to the place that made us,” she adds, Morgan State University.

Continued on page 30

Alesha Magby, ’04, and David Magby, ’03, owners of Tropical Smoothie Café, with employee Layla Brent (center), a sophomore Biology major at Morgan

Continued from page 29

Major Advocates

Allan Boomer and Tiffany Hawkins were already success stories in the franchising arena when they, too, decided to spread the wealth. Several years after working with a silent partner to land a nine-store ZIPS Cleaners development deal in Maryland, in 2016, they decided to launch Franklin Morgan Partners to build or acquire more ZIPS locations by raising money from a variety of investors.

“Most of them are Black or are HBCU grads that invest in our development of dry cleaners,” Hawkins says. “…We are currently the largest franchisee in the system,” adds Hawkins, who is also heading the Marketing Subcommittee for ZIPS.

“I would also add that we have a lot of Morgan State alumni in the (Franklin Morgan) fund, as well,” says Boomer.

Building the Northwood Commons ZIPS, to have a footprint near Morgan, was a very high priority for the partners, Hawkins relates, so much so that they purchased two other ZIPS locations near Baltimore City to get ZIPS’ permission to proceed. University campuses are generally great locations for dry cleaners, Hawkins says, but she and Boomer say their business presence at Northwood Commons is also more personal.

“When it comes to the Northwood store, it’s super important for us to be an opportunity to hire,” Boomer says, “and we really want to hire management trainees, front counter staff, all sorts of (personnel), to give them career opportunities in hospitality or dry cleaning or management.”

“And not only do we want to hire. We want to be able to train and expose more students to the franchise system,” Hawkins says, “whether it’s ZIPS or not…. We are huge, huge advocates for Morgan State University.” n

Allan Boomer, ’99, and Tiffany Hawkins, ’00, founders of the Franklin Morgan fund, owner of ZIPS Cleaners in Northwood Commons

s

CULTIVATING TRANSFORMATION

BY JAMES MICHAEL BRODIE

ABOUT FIVE MILES NORTHWEST OF DOWNTOWN BALTIMORE, IN THE 1,500-ACRE PARK Heights community, stands the Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm. Begun in 2014 by Richard Francis, b.k.a. Farmer Chippy, as a box garden to grow fresh herbs and vegetables in his neighborhood, the project has evolved to become a full-fledged business with a social mission: to offer wholesome food and create healthy, sustainable communities in Baltimore and beyond.

Strong community partnerships have aided Plantation Park Heights’ work toward those goals, and one of the strongest of its alliances is with Morgan State University.

Samia Rab Kirchner, Ph.D., associate professor of Urban Design and interim chair of the Undergraduate Design Department at Morgan, has become a

mainstay at the farm. Dr. Kirchner was educated in architecture and design at the National College of Arts, in Pakistan; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Georgia Institute of Technology; and elsewhere, and has applied her knowledge of design, and her passion, to wide-ranging problems, including environmental problems, during her 30-year professional career.

Continued on page 32

Urban agriculturalists: (left to right) Morgan professor Samia Rab Kirchner with Social Media Manager Karma Francis, President Tiara Matthews and volunteer and Morgan graduate Khalia Young, ’21, of Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm

Continued from page 31

“There was a need, and I was blessed to have the skills to (fulfill) those needs. It’s been quite a journey,” Dr. Kirchner says about her work with Plantation Park Heights. “When I was doing research on the Chesapeake Bay, I knew that in order to keep it clean, we had to look further upstream, look at the entire city. It turned out that Park Heights is the highest plateau in the city.”

Aware of the many downstream environmental benefits of urban farming, Dr. Kirchner has had the students of her Urban Design studios engage with the Park Heights community since 2018. An introduction to Francis of Plantation Park Heights in 2020 led to a steady collaboration, and last spring, working with the urban farm’s site manager and youth manager, Keith Owens, and other volunteers, a partnership emerged, funded by a Mellon Foundation grant: 10 young farmers from the community worked with 10 Morgan students from the University’s Design and Human Behavior course to publish a book about Plantation Park Heights, titled “Agrihood Baltimore.”

“Morgan reached out to us, we sat down, and we combined our strengths,” recalls Owens. “We saw how their talents helped some of our young men. It’s a blessing. I have lived here (in Baltimore City) all of my life, and this is the most impactful thing I have ever done.”

Academics and Activism

Cincinnati native Khalia Young was one of the Morgan students who found a growth experience at Plantation Park Heights. Now a 2021 graduate of Morgan with a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning, she had never spent any significant time on a farm before moving to Baltimore. But after meeting Kirschner and studying the farm, she soon became a fixture there. Continuing to work at Plantation Park Heights about twice a month since graduation, Young has evolved from working the soil to helping Farmer Chippy and his staff organize events and community outreach.

“It has been eye-opening because of relationships that have grown over time,” Young says. “The conversations are holistic, from people coming from all walks of life…. What you learned is that no one knows everything. It is insightful.”

Harold Morales, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the Center for the Study of Religion and the City in Morgan’s Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, is another strong Morgan connection to the farm. Plantation Park Heights presented an opportunity for him to blend academics with activism to serve the community. When the COVID pandemic struck, the Henry Luce Foundation allowed Morales to use a grant originally slated for research of mural art to also provide much-needed direct aid to community organizations in Baltimore City. The Foundation also increased the grant amount from $50,000 to $150,000.

Seeking worthy beneficiaries for the grant funds, Morales teamed with Kirchner, who asked for help in establishing a demonstration kitchen for Farmer Chippy’s urban farm. Soon after that project began, the religion and philosophy professor found himself working at the farm: planting, weeding, cultivating and growing emotionally and spiritually.

Dr. Morales expresses hope that more of Morgan’s resources can be directed to causes such as Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm, entities underserved by the federal and state governments and by universities.

“The question around higher education and its relevance in the future is about how we are going to prepare students,” he says. “How do we dismantle unjust systems and build and imagine new institutions? We want to broaden our humanity.”

“What the farm is teaching me is that there is so much abundance, and it is our perception that we have scarcity,” says Kirchner, who is featured with Young, Morales and 14 others in “Agrihood Baltimore,” which was published last year. “If you use your own seed, then that seed that is coming out of the ground has a relationship with the soil, and it grows better. This concept of localization is a totally different way of decolonizing.” n

SACRED GROUNDS

BY LARRY JONES

“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”

— Henry Miller

IT IS ESTIMATED THAT FRESHLY MOWED GRASS GROWS BACK AT ABOUT 0.8 INCHES PER WEEK, or about an inch or more per week with favorable weather. So a lawn should be mowed every seven to 10 days, some experts say, depending on the season, grass type, rainfall or other related factors.

However, a popular and often humorous belief among Morganites is that the groundskeepers at Morgan State University cut the grass daily, igniting their mighty mowing machines at the faintest hint of new growth. Amused by the claim, Gerard Zeller, the manager of grounds, landscaping and recycling at Morgan, sets the record straight.

“We try to maintain each area of our property where it would receive one cut in a seven-day cycle. So once a week, if you will,” says Zeller. “During the spring, that may increase because we’re getting more top growth. And then during the fall, it might drop slightly because our growth has decelerated. But it’s not every day.”

Continued on page 34

Continued from page 33

Lawn and Order

The legend of the daily cut may not be accurate in fact, but like many such stories, it has a foundation of truth.

In the real estate world, the vernacular du jour is “curb appeal.” It can mean the difference in whether a property’s outward appearance makes a good enough impression to entice a sale. A well-kept lawn or a pristine exterior paint job can enhance a property’s curb appeal, potentially even increasing its value. Morgan State University has curb appeal to spare. Just ask anyone who has spent time on the campus of Maryland’s largest HBCU over the past decade, and their recounting of the experience reveals what many have come to accept: Morgan has a beautiful campus. And a major contributor to its beauty is its grounds.

“The college campus should be a place that is aesthetically pleasing and appealing,” says David K. Wilson, Morgan’s president since 2010. “People who are visiting your campus make an instant decision as to whether this is the type of place that they want to attend themselves or if they want to send their son (or) daughter to. And if the curb appeal is not there, then I don’t care what else there is to offer; people will leave that experience thinking this is a place that no one cares about.”

Regarding Morgan’s campus grounds during the early stages of Wilson’s presidency, he saw the history, the culture and the means for improvements, but more importantly, he saw the potential. All that was required were the right push and a new outlook to inspire transformation.

‘Beautification Is Everything’

Morgan’s main campus consists of approximately 143 acres, with up to 30 acres of that footprint comprising lawn and landscaping areas that need to be managed. The predominant grass type found on campus is tall fescue, which is ideal for Baltimore’s climate, Zeller says.

Zeller, or “Zell” as some know him, is an arborist by trade and knows a thing or two about horticulture. Recipient of a bachelor’s degree in industrial design from Carnegie Mellon University, and a master’s in Landscape Architecture from Morgan’s School of Architecture and Planning in 2008, he has owned and operated a landscaping business for more than 30 years. Today, he oversees the maintenance and upkeep of the campus grounds, including snow removal, and manages a staff of nearly 20. One of those staff members is the supervisor of the Grounds Department, James (“Jimmy”) Thomas, who has contributed to the transformation of Morgan’s grounds for more than 35 years, tending to the campus as if it were his own.

“In the beginning, you had to feel your way and play a part in how the campus was going to look, because beautification is everything,” says Thomas.

Gerard Zeller, ’08, Manager of Grounds, Landscaping and Recycling at Morgan

‘A Work of Art’

When it comes to committing to the upkeep of Morgan’s grounds, Thomas considers himself somewhat of a trailblazer: “I worked from the ground up, from a groundskeeper to supervisor, and I’ve seen the transformation of the campus.”

“People ride by and see us taking care of what we need to take care of on the grounds, and they appreciate the effort,” Thomas says. “It’s never a situation where it looks like we haven’t done anything.”

One of those grateful observers is President Wilson.

“I’ve said to the groundskeepers that, ‘I want you to think about your grounds work as if it is a canvas. And you are one of the best artists in the world producing a work of art for thousands of people to admire,’” says Wilson.

Michael (“Malik”) Rucker, Morgan’s grounds lead worker, agrees.

“How the grounds and the campus look ultimately reflects how people feel about the education they might receive here,” offers Rucker, who has been with the University since 2004. “The way the campus looks, when it’s beautiful, makes you feel great.”

Rucker has long been one of the unsung heroes President Wilson has lauded publicly whenever able. Last October, during Morgan’s Office of Human Resources Service Awards Ceremony, Rucker was recognized for his first 15 years of service, and President Wilson was more than happy to share some words for the man of the hour and the job he’s done over the years.

Continued on page 36

Continued from page 35

Cultural Change

Under President Wilson’s initial strategic plan for the university, campus beautification was a focal point. With the transformation of the grounds over the years, he assumed that the lush green lawns would become attractive ideation spaces or, at a minimum, that they would beckon students to grab blankets and enjoy the beautiful spaces the grounds crew had created.

At many of the nation’s PWIs, this type of occurrence is commonplace. But there is an unwritten rule at many HBCUs across the U.S. that one should never walk on the grass and never even think to play on it. That tradition, to which Morgan adheres, may stem from respect for the institution, cultural values and historical context. It has also been seen as a symbolic gesture of discipline and a point of institutional pride.

Today, the culture at Morgan is beginning to change, as more students embrace the scenic lawn spaces as their own — places where they can work on assignments, take a mental break, read or do yoga. Apprehension about being on the grass is steadily diminishing, while the concept of the campus as hallowed ground remains.

“Most mornings, I walk around the campus, and all I can say is, ‘Wow,’” says Wilson, with pride. “The grounds are just beautiful — well-manicured lawns, cleaned-out flower beds and perfectly pruned trees, hedges and shrubbery.”

Zeller believes the campus is making a strong impression on the approximately 10,000 people who pass by daily, traveling along Perring Parkway and Hillen Road. This positive viewpoint and a commitment to craft have kept him and his team loving their contribution to Morgan’s elevation.

“If you love your work, it’s not work. You love what you do,” Zeller adds. “But if you can have that experience in a setting where you’re surrounded by family all the time, that’s priceless.” n

PREPARE FOR THE TECHNOLOGY OF TOMORROW, TODAY.

Earn Your Degree

• Advanced Computing (M.S.)

• Cloud Computing (B.S.)

• Computer Science (B.S.)

At Morgan State University, we are at the forefront of technology innovation. Our world-class research in artificial intelligence and comprehensive academic programs in computer science, cybersecurity and machine learning are creating pathways toward a more inclusive, equitable technology industry.

Unlocking Tomorrow’s Equitable A.I. Future LEARN MORE

• Computer and Electrical Systems Engineering (M.S. & Ph.D.)

• Data Analytics and Visualization (M.S.)

• Doctor of Engineering (D.Eng.)

• Mechatronics Engineering (B.S.)

• Secure Embedded Systems (Ph.D.)

Pioneering Research

Morgan’s Center for Equitable Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Systems is home to research that facilitates the development, deployment and verification of socially responsible, equitable AI systems.