HBCU Insights: Historic White House initiative is heading to Morgan State

On Friday, a?historic White House initiative?to address inequities in science, technology, engineering, math and medicine is holding its first-ever event at Morgan State University . Morgan is one of two HBCUs playing key roles in this initiative, the?STEMM Opportunity Alliance.

“To go from being a part of the conversation at the White House, to actually hosting the first gathering post-White House, is just very, very affirming for all of the work that we are undertaking here at Morgan,” President David Wilson told?The Plug.

The alliance is uniting?more than 90?foundations, corporations, colleges, national associations and community organizations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science ( AAAS ), Microsoft, the?Kapor Center, Merck and more to collectively drive change in the STEMM ecosystem with an investment of more than $1.2 billion. There is also a 25-member advisory council which President Wilson and Helene Gayle, President of Spelman College, are a part of.

This Friday is the first convening in what will be a series of convenings that look at various industries and regions across the country. The goal is to release a national strategy to achieve equity and excellence in STEMM by the end of 2023.

Maryland Lieutenant Governor Aruna Miller, Shirley Malcom, a board member of Morgan and director of the?AAAS SEA Change?program, and philanthropic leaders will be attending Friday’s convening.

“AAAS has been working in this space for 50 years, it is not like this is brand new to us. We have been trying to move the needle, however, it has been very difficult because the focus has been on little bitty programs here or there,” Malcom told?The Plug.

“We have known for a long time that we needed to take this problem on in much more systemic ways. We needed to start looking at institutional change, organizational change. We need to look at alignment between government and other stakeholders because if you're not all pulling in the same direction, you're not getting the synergy that you need from that,” she said.

Tomorrow's event will focus on postsecondary education — how to recruit and prepare more STEMM teachers, how to ensure higher education can foster inclusion across the STEMM ecosystem and how to better support minority-serving institutions and build research infrastructure.

Infrastructure needs are one of the biggest challenges facing HBCUs. In 2021, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund found that on average, HBCUs have?$81 million?in deferred maintenance expenses. These staggering backlogs are contributing to holding HBCUs back from their full potential.

“I serve on another board, which is totally different from Morgan State, and I can see what one institution has and the other one does not. And I can see how that can be a barrier to being able to progress and to do even more,” Malcom, who also sits on the board of Caltech, said.

One of the arenas where Morgan is trying to progress is in their research activity. President Wilson has been very open about his goal of getting the school to?R1 status, which the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education classifies as schools that have a very high degree of research activity, like Johns Hopkins University, MIT, Georgia Tech and Harvard University.

Being part of the alliance is helping put Morgan in front of the stakeholders that can help fund investments in their research and infrastructure, President Wilson said.

“What we're bringing to the table is why is it important for Morgan to be on the penthouse called very high research," he said. "And being a part of this alliance is creating an opportunity for greater awareness as to why that is so critical for this nation."

Last year, Morgan created?three new research centers?and established a new endowed research professorship. The school now has six state-funded research centers with an annual appropriation of more than $18 million and is in the process of hiring around 25 tenure-track faculty.

The alliance is also setting a new agenda for the nation to progress and to embrace the full talent that exists at all institutions. At the inaugural White House gathering, President Wilson said it was motivating to be among people in positions of power who want to make a change.

“Everybody to a person in that room had come to a point, it seems, where they were saying, you know, we've done some great things in this country and there’s a reason why the higher education system in America is still the envy of the world,” President Wilson said.

“However, we are not hesitant about really rethinking this model, in some transformational ways, in order once again to produce more talent that we know the nation will need to be competitive long term.”

In the work,

Mirtha Donastorg

HBCU Innovation Editor

Green Power Ventures and its partners are offering up to 40 HBCUs participation in a new program called the “Accelerating Climate Resiliency and Renewable Energy at HBCUs Initiative.” The projects include an Investment Grade Energy Audit, a comprehensive energy analysis and design, construction of the recommendations from the audit, analysis, and the design. The initiative will be responsible for the upfront capital costs and resulting payments which is expected to be 50% lower. For institutions interested please take 15 minutes to complete our RFP at?https://www.greenpower.ventures/hbcurfp-lp.

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