Morgan Advances Transformation of Student Housing

More Than 1,200 New Beds to be Added to Campus Housing by 2027

Dear Morgan Students and Family:

Welcome back to our National Treasure for the Spring 2023 semester. I hope all of you had a wonderful, relaxing, and enjoyable time away during the holiday season. I, too, was able to get away for a few days and decompress—a rare occurrence for a university president, I might add. Being able to unplug from the daily stressors within our lives can do wonders for our mental well-being. 

Now that we’re back, this is a great opportunity for us to take stock of where things currently stand in the ongoing evolution of Morgan State University. During my tenure as president, we have been able to secure more than $1 billion from the State of Maryland to build new facilities and start the process of renovating many of our legacy buildings. I hope you are taking note of our rapid growth and transformation. Nevertheless, because the State does not provide funding to build or renovate residential facilities, the University has had to devise innovative financing strategies to produce the student housing our campus so desperately requires. This is how we were able to build the new Thurgood Marshall Residential and Dining Hall.  

With a comprehensive financing strategy in place, we are now moving forward diligently and expeditiously to address our additional campus housing needs. Please understand that we are committed to the complete transfiguration of Morgan into one of the world’s foremost living/learning communities. We will not rest with being where we are but will continue to ascend to where we can go—and that’s the top among institutions of higher education.

Baldwin and Cummings Renovation

With this in mind, I’m pleased to inform you that we are planning to totally renovate two legacy residential halls during the 2023-24 academic year. As soon as students move out of Baldwin and Cummings Halls this coming May, we will move in construction crews to begin a complete renovation of the entire interiors of these facilities. The buildings will be rebuilt from the inside and new rooms will be constructed. The skins, or exteriors of these buildings, will remain untouched. The plan is to conduct all this work between May 2023 and July 2024, which means both buildings will be completely off-line for a period of at least 14 months. The goal is to have both ready and available for occupancy again in Fall 2024.

Demolition of O'Connell

Then, in May 2025, the plan is to take O’Connell Hall offline to be razed (torn down) and in its place will be constructed a brand new, modern 600-bed residential facility, ready for occupation in Fall 2027. We will also be completing construction on and opening another new 604-bed residential facility adjacent to the Thurgood Marshall Residential Hall. The first students should be able to move into this new facility in Fall 2024. We’ll then turn our attention toward the renovation of Rawlings and Blount, along with exploring a major renovation to Harper-Tubman.

The bottom line is that Morgan is moving forward with purpose, determination, and speed, to update all our campus housing and all these efforts underpin our comprehensive housing plan. Our goal is to make room on campus available for about 5000 students—with the understanding that many of our upper-class and graduate students prefer to live off-campus. There are also discussions currently taking place with private developers to construct off-campus near the University.

As we continue to progress in the advancement of our grand housing plan, I will continue to share updates with you along the way. This is a new day at Morgan and the renovation of our legacy residential facilities is at hand. During my next campus-wide town hall meeting, I will share the entire plan and more details with you. In the interim, I welcome your feedback.

Again, welcome back home and have a terrific semester.

Respectfully,

David K. Wilson,
President