Celebrating a New Era of Equity: Morgan Unveils New Health and Human Services Center, an Innovative Hub for Education, Research and Community Impact

University Caps Off Semester’s Sixth Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony with Formal Ceremony and Tours of the Campus’s Latest Architectural Marvel

Today, three years nearly to the day after the groundbreaking for the new facility, Morgan State University celebrated the grand opening of its 208,000-square-foot, $171-million Health and Human Services Center, a six-story architectural marvel standing proudly in Morgan orange and blue at the southern entrance of the University’s Main Campus. The joyful ceremony, the sixth such ribbon-cutting event held by the University this semester, attracted a large gathering of Morgan family members and friends, including students, faculty, staff, regents, alumni, elected officials and others. Those in attendance heard from nine speakers echoing the theme of the Center’s importance to Morgan and the communities it serves.

The new Health and Human Services Center provides state-of-the-art amenities and a new home for the University’s School of Community Health and Policy and School of Social Work, the University Counseling Center and Prevention Sciences Research Center, and the School of Education and Urban Studies’ Family and Consumer Sciences Department.

The students educated within its walls will help fulfill burgeoning workforce needs in fields such as nursing, physical therapy, nutritional science, and social work across the U.S. and abroad. But in his remarks to welcome the ceremony attendees, Morgan Board of Regents Chairman Kweisi Mfume focused beyond the most obvious benefits.

“When you consider what’s going on and not going on in communities across this nation, but particularly here in Baltimore with respect to health and health care, it’s important to note that disparities don’t go away on their own,” Mfume said. “This building is more than a building. It’s a building with a very succinct, real and necessary purpose. And that is to help…the overall wellness of our community.”

Morgan President David K. Wilson thanked Kim McCalla, vice president, and Julie Wilson, assistant vice president for Morgan’s Facilities Design and Construction Management Division, and their colleagues, for their work in realizing “an ambitious vision. It was a vision to create a space that not only reflected Morgan's academic excellence but also embodied our commitment to public service, our commitment to community health, and our commitment to innovative research.” The Health and Human Services Center is “a statement of Morgan's purpose,” Wilson added. “It is a statement of our ambition, and it is a statement of our commitment to being a transformative force in this city, in this state, in this nation and in the world.”

Wilson said the new Center will move the University toward multiple goals of its 10-year strategic plan, among them elevating Morgan to an R1 (“very high research”) Carnegie Classification.

Unique in its design and functionality, the Center features a variety of modern amenities, including advanced classrooms, fully equipped laboratories with designated demonstration areas, plenty of offices, and communal spaces tailored to meet diverse needs.

Maryland State Senator Mary L. Washington joined two other elected officials – Maryland State Delegate Regina T. Boyce (District 43) and Baltimore City Council President Nick H. Mosby – in celebrating the successful completion of the more than three-year project. Sen. Washington pointed out to the audience the participation of Morgan students in what she called “one of the largest construction projects of the University’s history…. Many Morgan students were a part of bringing the passion and the intelligence vital to making this vision for this building a reality and for it to come to life.”

Dean Kim Dobson Sydnor of the School of Community Health and Policy acknowledged the great benefit the new Center will bring to her work.

“(Of those) to whom much is given, much is expected,” she continued. “And I promise you…all who are gathered here, we are going to live up to that promise. We are going to do more than you ever thought possible in our partnership with the School of Social Work, with our School of Education, with our Medical Laboratory Sciences, with our Counseling Center, with each and every entity that is housed in this building; and not only the folks housed in our building. We know that this is going to become a gravitational pull: a space and place where everybody wants to come and be well, do well and promote wellness.”

Speaking on behalf of Dean Anna McPhatter of the School of Social Work, who could not attend, Laurens Van Sluytman, Ph.D., the school’s assistant dean, called the Center “a thriving, modern village, alive with purpose and energy. The citizens of this village, our community members, students, faculty and staff bring with them rich experiences, diverse perspectives, and ambitious aspirations…. We leverage knowledge from social work, community health, family and consumer sciences, counseling and more. But we also recognize the importance of engaging with our neighbors in the fields of education, English, engineering, accounting, chemistry, theater arts and many other disciplines across this campus. This village is a multi-interdisciplinary engagement, and it extends beyond the boundaries of our university, reaching the communities of Baltimore, our surrounding counties and even the world.”

Morgan’s campus has been “magically transformed” during the past few years, said Dean Glenda Prime of the School of Education and Urban Studies. “Living through the transformation has taught me something experientially…something that I knew in theory. And that is the power of space and place… the power that it has to engender new ambitions, new motivations, new hopes, new aspirations.”

“One of the things about this building that’s most exciting to me is the potential that it offers for us as an institution to fulfill one of our strategic goals, that of being an anchor institution for the city of Baltimore,” Dean Prime continued. “…All of the disciplines (housed in the Center) are community-focused…not just by the content of the disciplines but by the intentional decision that we all have made to include the community in the work and the research that we do. And the building has been designed with that in mind.”

Morgan State University’s Marching Band, the Magnificent Marching Machine, opened for the speakers with a rousing performance. A ribbon-cutting ceremony and tours of the new  facility concluded the day’s festivities.

“Today’s opening is simply a moment to celebrate, but it’s also a moment to challenge ourselves,” said President Wilson during his remarks. “What will we do with this gift that we have been given? How will we leverage this incredible space to serve our students, our community and our world? I have no doubt that the work done here will indeed change lives, and that is at the very heart of the Morgan legacy. So let us move forward with pride.”

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