The long-awaited, $72 million Morgan Business Center, home of the Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management, officially opened today. President David Wilson, along with members of the Morgan State University Board of Regents, local and state leaders, students, and members of the business community cut the ribbon to declare the facility open for the business of educating students about today’s global marketplace.
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The Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management is fully accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International. Less than 5% of business programs around the world have received the coveted AACSB accreditation. Attending the ceremony was Founder, Chairman, and Publisher of BLACK ENTERPRISE Earl G. Graves himself, as well as BLACK ENTERPRISE President and CEO Earl G. “Butch” Graves Jr.
“This business building is the latest jewel on Morgan’s campus,†said President Wilson, in a statement. “It is going to provide our faculty with the tools they need to teach at a higher level, and our students with unique opportunities to be innovators on the global stage and to learn in a world class environment that is second to none.â€
The state-of-the-art facility features a Center for Innovation, computer labs, classrooms, a real-time capital markets stock trading center, seminar rooms, and a 299-person-capacity auditorium that includes an 80-person lecture hall. The building also houses a demonstration kitchen and a bloc of 10 functional hotel rooms for the business school’s hospitality management program.
Nine undergraduate majors are currently housed within the school of business (accounting, business administration, entrepreneurship, finance, hospitality management, information science & systems, management, marketing, and supply chain & services); four master’s-level programs (MBA, accounting, hospitality management, and project management); and courses for the doctorate in business administration.
“We appreciate the university’s commitment to the school of business and we are very excited about our new home,†said Dr. Fikru Boghossian, dean of the Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management, in a statement. “Our students deserve the best that we can give them, and this new building is going to provide that and more. It not only serves as an attractive focal point for the campus, it also serves as a great tool to support our outreach efforts to attract the top students and the most talented faculty.â€
Following the conclusion of the ribbon-cutting ceremony and tour of the new building, NFL Hall of Famer and successful businessman Willie E. Lanier Sr., presented the inaugural lecture for the Graves School of Business and Management’s Willie E. Lanier Sr. Endowed Lectureship in Business Ethics. Lanier spoke on the topic, “Ethics in the Historically Black College: Then and Now,†in the business school’s auditorium. In May 2015, he made a $500,000 gift to the University to establish the endowed lectureship.
Morgan State University, founded in 1867, is a Carnegie classified doctoral research institution offering more than 60 academic programs leading to bachelor’s degrees as well as programs at the master’s and doctoral levels. As Maryland’s public urban university, Morgan serves a multi-ethnic and multiracial student body, and seeks to ensure that the doors of higher education are opened as wide as possible to as many as possible. For more information on Morgan State University, visit www.morgan.edu.