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Morgan State University is a public historically black research university in Baltimore, Maryland. 

In 1890, the university, then known as the Centenary Biblical Institute, changed its name to Morgan College to honor Reverend Lyttleton Morgan, the first chairman of its board of trustees and a land donor to the college.It was founded in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute, a Methodist Episcopal seminary, to train young men in the ministry.

The School of Engineering admitted its first class starting in 1984. The first graduates received degrees in 1988. Eugene M. DeLoatch (retired 2016) was the first Dean of the School of Engineering, having previously been Chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Howard University. He was succeeded by Dr. Michael G. Spencer who was previously a professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University.The Morgan State University, School of Engineering has ABET-accredited undergraduate programs. The school’s graduate programs confer the Master of Engineering Degree, Doctor of Engineering Degree, and Master of Transportation Degree.

By 1991, the construction of the 35,000 sq ft (3,300 m2) Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. School of Engineering building was completed, and the facility included sixteen teaching laboratories and five research laboratories. The William Donald Schaefer Building is a 40,000 sq ft (3,700 m2) addition to the Engineering School and was completed in April 1998. The facility provided instructional laboratories, classrooms, a student lounge, research laboratories and a 2,200 sq ft (200 m2) library annex. In 2015 Morgan State University’s School of Engineering graduates provided more than two-thirds of the state’s African-American Civil Engineers, 60 percent of the African-American Electrical Engineers, 80 percent of the African-American Telecommunications specialists, more than one-third of the African-American Mathematicians, and all of Maryland’s Industrial Engineers. 

In 1997, it is the only HBCU to establish accredited Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and City and Regional Planning programs. A plan was announced by Earl Richardson in 2005 for the program to establish school status and it was designated as the School of Architecture and Planning (S+AP) in 2008. The Center of Built and Environmental Studies (CBEIS) was designed by Hord Coplan and Macht in association with the Freelon Group. They began construction in 2010 to house all of the related majors and the building has been declared one of the most impressive, environmentally friendly university buildings in the world. The School of Architecture and Planning granted its first Interior Design baccalaureates in 2020.

The library’s holding constitutes over 500,000 volumes, and access to over 1 million e-books and 5,000 periodical titles. There are 167 online databases that are subscribed to the Library. Reading and studying spaces are provided with wired and wireless access to databases for research. One such collection in the volumes includes books on Africa, with an emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa. The African-American collection includes papers and memorabilia of such persons as Emmett Jay Scott, secretary to Booker T. Washington.

 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Morgan State University