Morgan State University

Overview

Morgan State University is a public, historically Black research university in Baltimore, Maryland, and the third largest among all historically Black colleges and universities. Though a public institution, it is not part of the University System of Maryland; it is a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and became a university in its own right in 1975.

From Seminary to University

The school was founded in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute, a Methodist Episcopal seminary established to train young men for the ministry. It later broadened its mission to educate both men and women as teachers, and in 1890 was renamed Morgan College in honor of the Rev. Lyttleton Morgan, the first chairman of its board of trustees, who had donated land to the school. In 1895, the institution awarded its first bachelor’s degree, to George W. F. McMechen, who went on to earn a law degree from Yale and later became one of Morgan’s major financial supporters; the school’s business and management building is named for him today.

Expansion Under John O. Spencer

John O. Spencer became the college’s fifth president in 1902, serving until 1937. At the start of his tenure the school’s assets — including its branch schools, the Princess Anne Academy and the Virginia Collegiate and Industrial Institute — totaled just over $100,000; by 1937, assets exceeded $1,000,000 and enrollment had grown substantially, reflecting a period of major campus expansion.