Center. He chose Morgan because he loves its diversity and believes his diverse experience at the University will help him in the medical field. There was Denise Simmons Graves, a professor at Montgomery College in Rockville, Md., who has 25 years’ experience working at community colleges. From Louisville, Ky., she already had a bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisville and master’s degrees from Indiana University and Towson University when she came to Morgan. With the doctorate in education she received this May from MSU, “I’m an expert in my field, recognized now, and my intention is to create a nonprofit focused on community college transfer students and their scholarship needs.” There was Keith Washington, who came to Morgan from Baltimore City College high school and earned his bachelor’s degree in information systems from Morgan’s School of Business and Management. At Morgan, he said, he “worked smart,” had all of the tools to learn and reaped the benefit of the effort he put into his education. He was slated to start working as a business analyst at Computer Sciences Corporation in Falls Church, Va., this past July, he reported. There was Caroline Schroeder, who was at the ceremony to receive her Bachelor of Science degree in architecture and environmental design and was already working toward her master’s in architecture in MSU’s School of Architecture and Planning. Born in Baltimore and raised in Harford County, she loves the city, plans to stay in the area and hopes to work in historic preservation or maybe in residential architecture, rehabbing old houses. And there was Richard Onwuchekwa Uba, from Abia State, Nigeria, who fell in love with Morgan while visiting his older sister Florence when she was a student at the University. Another biology major, he has been admitted to the pharmacy school at the University of Notre Dame and intends to come back to Baltimore to work for CVS after he earns his pharmacy
degree. Florence works as a nurse at MedStar Good Samaritan hospital, near Morgan’s campus. The presence of Morgan’s 50th anniversary class, the Class of 1965, dressed in gold-colored robes and seated in the VIP pavilion beside the graduates, reinforced the theme of human and civil rights. Many members of the class were among the Morgan students who launched the sit-in movement in the U.S., with their protests to desegregate public accommodations in Baltimore in the early and mid-1960s. Four honorary degrees were awarded during the ceremony: a Doctor of Public Service degree to Graça Machel, a Doctor of Humane Letters degree posthumously to Nelson Mandela and a Doctor of Science degree to inventor James E. West, now a research professor of electrical and computer engineering at The Johns Hopkins University. Other special honorees included recipients of the University’s top annual awards for graduating seniors: business administration graduate Brian L. Stewart received the President’s Second Mile Award for enhancement of campus life, and Christine Doherty, an architecture and environmental design graduate, received the President’s Creative Achievement Award. After farewell remarks from Senior Class President Saudat Almaroof, Jacqueline L. Lawson, 2011–2015 president of the MSU Alumni Association, presented the Alumna of the Year Award to Beatrice Ross Coker of the Class of 1957, and inducted the new graduates into the association. In his closing remarks, Morgan President David Wilson echoed Graça Machel and Nelson Mandela as he urged the graduates to “dream dreams bigger than those that you had when you entered Morgan State University.… We have urged you to be committed to growing the future and leading the world, because you are indeed (the future). You have the world in your hands.” Morgan awarded 1,225 degrees during the 2014–15 academic year, including a record 58 doctorates. o
Members of Morgan’s Class of 1965
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