Dr. David Wilson

President
Morgan State University

David Wilson is looking forward to leading Morgan State University through at least 2023 after the university Board of Regents voted unanimously during its February meeting to award him a new five-year contract. Wilson became the 10th president of the university in July 2010.

“It is a true honor to be in a position to continue serving as Morgan’s president with the backing and support of the Board of Regents,” Wilson says. “Morgan is a great university, and I welcome this opportunity to extend my time working alongside such an exceptional faculty and staff in service to our brilliant and phenomenal students.”

During his tenure, Wilson has improved the university’s retention and graduation rates, expanded its study-abroad programs, presided over the construction of $271 million of campus facilities and aggressively marketed the school as a research university.

While Wilson has been president, Morgan procured the university’s largest-ever research contract, a $28.5 million contract from NASA; founded a new school, the School of Global Journalism and Communication; and established the university’s first online degree program;

He also has taken a leadership role in reasserting the importance of the nation’s HBCUs, serving on President Obama’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and continuing Morgan’s history of leading HBCUs in the number of Fulbright scholars and grantees.

“We have a very resilient staff and a faculty that is truly dedicated to the university’s mission,” he says. “Our faculty members are some of the best and brightest minds in higher education often highlighted for their innovation, creativity and commitment to our students. They have an innate knack for taking what they have and making what they have needed. To me, that’s true innovation.”

Wilson grew up with 10 siblings on a sharecropper farm outside the small town of McKinley, Alabama. He holds four degrees from Tuskegee University and Harvard University.

Wilson came to Morgan from the University of Wisconsin, where he was chancellor of both University of Wisconsin Colleges and the University of Wisconsin-Extension.

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