Five years ago, David Wilson had a $50 million idea.

The president of Morgan State University announced in 2020 that the historically Black college in Northeast Baltimore would make history in the next decade: It would earn a Research One Carnegie classification.

Only one other HBCU, Washington, D.C.’s Howard University, has earned that title, which requires a university to spend at least $50 million annually in research and development and award its graduate students at least 70 research doctorates each year.

In 2020, Morgan State had $17.2 million in research expenditures and graduated 71 doctoral students. By 2030, Wilson said, they expected to qualify for the prestigious title.

But just five years after Wilson’s announcement, Morgan State has already hit its numbers.

The university has secured over $65 million in research funding for this year, with a projected $75 million for next year. Morgan State is also on track to graduate over 100 doctoral students by this coming spring.

“We are very close to becoming a tenant on the penthouse level of research in this country,” said Wilson, who has led the university since 2010 after administrative posts at the University of Wisconsin, Auburn and Rutgers universities. “When we get there, we won’t be like anyone else currently on that floor. We are distinctly Morgan.”

Once Morgan began to pursue the top-tier status in earnest, Wilson said, he reached out to politicians and philanthropic leaders, urging them to help boost funding for the 158-year-old university.

“You’ll never ever hear me asking the state to spend anything on Morgan,” Wilson said. “Instead, I ask them to invest in Morgan.”

Morgan’s playbook included a massive boost to the number of grant applications completed by faculty. In 2020, faculty members submitted 165 grant proposals. Last year, the figure doubled to 333.

Administrators said that growth has led to more grants awarded. The university recently set a new record with its multi-year funding from a variety of sources: $95.29 million from the federal government, $7.5 million from the state of Maryland and $1.25 million from local foundations.

The Carnegie Research classifications are updated every three years. Morgan State is on track to qualify for an R1 status during the next round scheduled for 2028, according to the Carnegie website.

The university has also seen a growth in infrastructure dedicated to the sciences over the years, including the $171 million Health and Human Services building, which opened last year. Morgan State also just started construction on a new $337 million science center. Designed by the nation’s largest African American-owned architecture firm, the 246,000-square-foot building will house the School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences, the university’s biology and chemistry departments and advanced lab spaces.

The building is a result of the largest state contribution in the university’s history, officials said.

Gov. Wes Moore and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott were at the groundbreaking in May, with Moore saying that funding for the state’s four HBCUs has grown by nearly 60% since he took office in 2023.

“Baltimore knows that Morgan State is Baltimore’s University,” Scott said at the time. “This groundbreaking really is the next step in Morgan’s transformation, an investment in STEM programs that the school is known for, and important progress on the road to becoming a top-tier, R1 research institution.”

Historically, there has been a lack of outside investment in historically Black colleges and universities, said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities.

“They have traditionally received less support at federal, state and local levels than predominantly white institutions, which makes it much more difficult to attract and retain top-tier talent and support research,” she said. “But David Wilson has been remarkable in investing in faculty research.”

Pasquerella added that Morgan State’s investment in research “will help them drive local and regional economic development.”

Even as Morgan nears academia’s top echelon, administrators are also fearful about the Trump administration‘s cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research grants, already hurting Maryland schools like the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

But so far, Morgan State has largely avoided the Trump administration’s wrath, said Willie May, the university’s vice president for research and economic development.

Morgan State had 23 grants terminated by the Trump administration, though many of those have since been reinstated, May said. The university had slightly less than $4 million rescinded by the federal government, and about half of that has since been returned.

“It was a setback, and it at times can be very unnerving,” May said. “But we are committed to continuing these investments and plowing ahead.”

Morgan State has tried to expand its scientific offerings for years. The university announced in 2020 that it was partnering with a private company to launch a medical college, the first new medical school at an HBCU in 50 years. It was supposed to open in 2024, but faced setbacks. When the for-profit medical school hadn’t opened in 2024, the university said at the time it was making an effort to enroll students in 2026, three years later than proposed.

It’s unclear whether the medical school timeline is still on track. A spokesperson for the university declined to comment this week about its progress and future.

For some longtime professors, the investments in the sciences have been a long time coming.

“Morgan has invested quite a bit, everything from resources to equipment to enable us to do high level research,” said Kofi Nyarko, who has taught at the university since 2004. “It’s been an amazing thing to see develop for a few years.”

While newer facilities and better equipment help Nyarko do his research, he said the biggest impact will be on Morgan State’s students.

“The students we serve are typically from the community, students from underserved and urban backgrounds,” he said. “To have these state-of-the-art facilities and to show them what they’re capable of, it really gives them a much more robust experience.”

It will also help students when they enter the job market, said Birol Ozturk, a physicist and the interim associate dean of graduate programs and research.

“Being a graduate of an R1 university can have a real impact on your ability to find a job,” he said. “It’s really important for the students to have that title.”

Student population at the HBCU has also boomed in recent years. For the fifth year in a row, Morgan State has reached a new record for enrollment this fall: at least 11,200 students, including more than 1,000 Ph.D. candidates.

“Morgan State is just a very pulsating academic community,” Wilson said. “The students can feel that. We’re truly on a path to make history here.”

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