University President Earl S. Rich- ardson was all smiles, too, standing beside Dr. DeLoatch, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, and Architecture and Planning Dean Mary Anne Akers. Dr. Richardson, full of energy as always, was talking enthusiastically about how the $60 million center will help differentiate Morgan from other institutions in the coming competi- tion for students, industry support, and financial growth in the very dif- ferent environment of the post-Civil Rights world of the 21st Century.
The 126,000-square-foot Center for the Building Environment and Infrastructure Studies, designed for shared use by both the School of Engineering and the School of Architecture, is itself an exemplar of the blended-skills teamwork driving industrial developments in today’s Knowledge Enterprise. In addition to classes, offices, and laboratories for the architecture programs, the center also will house the Center for Trans- portation Studies, a graduate-level program operated by faculty from the schools of business, engineering and architecture, as well as the Mitchell
The $60 million Center for the Building Environment and Infrastructure Studies will give Morgan students new tools for success.
School’s civil engineering classrooms and labs, 10 study- group rooms, four lab-model shops, conference rooms, jury rooms, atrium spaces with skylights, lounges, a “green” roof, a loading area and 300 parking spaces.
As Dr. DeLoatch said, seconded by his colleague Dr. Akers, engineers and architects must collaborate as a mat- ter of course, and relocating the School of Architecture and Planning next to the engineering school will improve oppor- tunities for the two faculties to plan courses, do research, and make sure their class schedules can mesh well for the students.
The university has mandated that the new facility will be at the forefront of “sustainable design” practices, intend- ing that it will meet the standards for LEED (Leadership in Energy, Environmental Design) certification by the U.S. Green Building Council.
The Demographic Challenge Dr. Richardson meant what he said about competition
in the 21st Century. Unlike during earlier eras, Morgan State —and all the other 14 member institutions represented by the Council of Deans of the HBCU Engineering Schools as well—now are meeting competition from “mainstream,” majority white institutions working to recruit increased numbers of African American students to their campuses. Where once historically black institutions could expect to enroll major shares of high-performing black students as a matter of course, today they are competing against MIT, Harvard University and a host of better-endowed private institutions at the top of the academic ladder for those students. At the state university level, competition also is intense for black students once less desired by flagship universities. A look at the dramatic shifts in the nation’s population base shows why.
42 USBE&IT I Deans Edition SPRING 2010
Table A-7-2 in Appendix A, page 137 of the Center for Education Statistics’ most recent Condition of Education Report, shows that across the country, differential birth rates and immigration patterns have greatly reordered the racial and ethnic balance among students working their way through the public schools’ K-12 educational pipeline. In the Northeast, the end destination for millions of black Southern out-migrants during the Great Migration, black and Hispanic children made up 17.9 percent of the K-12 stu- dent body to whites’ 81.4 percent in 1972, but by the year 2007, blacks alone represented 13.5 percent and Hispanics nearly 15 percent. Whites’ percentage had fallen to 64.0.
In the Midwest, a Great Migration endpoint tellingly described in Nicholas Lemann’s turn-of-the-century book and video documentary The Promised Land, blacks made up only 10.6 percent of the public-school students, with Latinos a mere 1.5 percent compared to white children’s 87.5 percent in 1972. But Table A-7-2 shows that by 2007, whites’ share had fallen to 72.0 percent, while blacks had grown to 13.2 percent, and Hispanics had expanded their population to an 8.5 percent share.
In the South, white children made up 69.7 percent of the public school student body in 1972, followed by blacks with 24.8 percent and Hispanics with 5 percent. In 2007, white children’s majority had fallen to 51.1 percent while blacks’ share remained stable at 24.3 percent, and Hispanic students made up 18.8 percent.
The biggest change came in the West: Whites, 72.8 per- cent of the K-12 student body in 1972 with blacks making up 6.4 percent and Hispanics adding 15.3 percent, saw their population fall off stunningly. In 2007, whites were 43.4 percent of the student body, black students had fallen to 5.0 percent, and Latino students had grown to become 39.1 percent of the K-12 students.
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