Chorus

We pledge thee our love; we pledge thee our faith,
Whatever the future may bring.
And thus our devotion, fidelity too,
And homage we pay as we sing.

II

Fair Morgan, as on onward the years quickly fly,
And thou livest in memory sweet.
We bring thee our laurels whatever they be,
And lay them with joy at thy feet

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I pledge active membership in the National Alumni Association wherever I may be. Through association with fellow alumni, I shall ever do my best to uphold the ideals and traditions of Alma Mater.

I pledge as a citizen to exemplify the high ideals thus implied, rendering positive service to community, state and nation, and so to live as ever to bring honor and respect to Alma Mater.

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1866 The Washington Conference (African-American) of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, led by the Sharp Street congregation, enlists the
assistance of the Baltimore Conference (white) of the Methodist
Episcopal Church to establish a school to train preachers and community
leaders.

December 25. Bishop Levi Scott of the Methodist Episcopal Church calls
a meeting to plan the founding of an educational institution, appoints
thirteen members to the Board, and issues a draft of $5,000 for them to
begin their work in establishing the Centenary Biblical Institute.

1867 A "systematic course of lectures" delivered by Rev. James H. Brown
at the Sharp Street Methodist Episcopal Church to nine prospective
ministers begins on April 30, 1867.

November 27, 10:30 a.m. Articles of Incorporation are filed in the Supreme Court of Baltimore City, officially establishing "The Centenary Biblical Institute of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Baltimore."

1869 Twenty students are enrolled for the 1868-69 academic year.

1872 The charter is amended to admit African-Americans to the Board of Trustees. The first African-American Trustees are appointed to the Board: Wesley J. Parker, R. H. Robinson, Henry W. Martin and William Perkins.

Trustees purchase the Peyton Property (a house) on lot No. 44 E. Saratoga
Street for the permanent site of the Centenary Biblical Institute.

October 1. Rev. J. Emory Round, D.D., an abolitionist and Assistant Editor of Zion's Herald, is appointed the first teacher (President) of the Centenary Biblical Institute at an annual salary of $1,500.

1874 The first female students are admitted during the 1874-75 academic
year:

1878 The Institute graduates its first woman: Susie H. Carr.

The charter of the Institute is amended to admit students for training as
teachers.

1879 Rev. John F. Goucher donates property at the corner of Edmondson and Fulton and donates $5,000 for improvements to grounds.

The first African-American professors are appointed in the 1879-80 academic year.

1881 The new building at Edmondson and Fulton is dedicated on May 17, 1881.

1882 Rev. William Maslin Frysinger, D.D., of the Central Pennsylvania
Conference is named President of the Institute.

1883 The Trustees formally approve three divisions of the curriculum: Theological, Normal and Preparatory.

1884 President Frysinger initiates an Evening School.

1886 The Preparatory Department is moved to the Saratoga Street building,
and Rev. John H. Nutter ('77) is appointed principal.

The Institute establishes a branch in Princess Anne, Maryland: Delaware
Conference Academy (later Maryland State College, now UMES).

Rev. Francis J. Wagner, D.D., of the Minnesota Conference is appointed
President.

1890 The name of the Centenary Biblical Institute is changed to Morgan
College, in honor of Rev. Lyttleton F. Morgan, a member of the Board.

The College is granted permission to award degrees.

The Delaware Conference Academy is converted to Princess Anne Academy--Eastern Branch of the Agricultural College of Maryland.

1893 Morgan establishes Virginia Collegiate and Industrial Institute
branch in Lynchburg, Virginia.

1895 Morgan awards its first baccalaureate degree: George F. McMechen becomes the first graduate of Morgan College. (Three years later he is graduated from the Law School at Yale University.)

1901 Dean Charles E. Young is appointed acting President, on the resignation of President Wagner for poor health.

1902 Dr. John Oakley Spencer, Ph.D., Principal of the Hudson River Institute in Claverack, New York, is appointed President.

1907 President Spencer secures a pledge of $50,000 from Andrew Carnegie to build a new building, if the College and its friends will raise a matching $50,000.

1917 Morgan College purchases the Ivy Mill Property in Laurelville (then in Baltimore County), extending from Hillen Road to across Herring Run and bound on the south by Grindon Lane (now Cold Spring Lane).

The College renovates the Ivy Mill Hotel, a stone structure on the corner of Hillen and Grindon, to house classes and a library and renames it Washington Hall in honor of the Washington Conference. It renovates three other stone structures and names them Young Hall, Cummings Hall and Woolford Hall.

December 17, fire destroys the Virginia Collegiate and Industrial Institute during the Christmas vacation, and the College transfers the students and faculty to this new Baltimore site.

1918 The Laurelville community begins an unsuccessful campaign to revoke the sale of this property to Morgan. The campaign, lasting for several years, includes appeals to the Court in Towson, the State Court of Appeals, the Judiciary Committee of the Legislature and the Legislature itself (on three occasions), on the basis that African-Americans should not be permitted to establish a school in a white community and that no school should be built within five miles of Towson Normal School (now Towson State University). This campaign includes letters to Morgan officials and demonstrations and threats at the Edmondson and Fulton Avenues site.

1919 Carnegie Hall is completed, with an additional $40,000 from the Carnegie Corporation. Stone for the Hall is quarried from the grounds by African-American quarrymen.

1923 The College establishes a Graduate Program.

1925 Baldwin Hall is completed with donations of $130,000 from friends of the College, $50,000 from the General Education Board and $20,000 from the Methodist Episcopal Church, and named for Board Chairman Rev. Dr. Charles W. Baldwin.

Morgan receives full accreditation from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools.

1926 The College discontinues the Graduate School.

1930 Spencer Hall is completed with $125,000 from the Legislature, $100,000 from the College and $50,000 from a Rockefeller pledge.

1933 Morgan begins to offer majors in ten fields: English, Latin, French, History, Social Science (Economics and Sociology), Music, Biology, Chemistry, Home Economics and Mathematics.

1935 In the wake of the Murray vs. University of Maryland Case, in which an African- American was granted admission to the University of Maryland Law School, the Legislature appoints a Commission on Higher Education of Negroes in Maryland, with U.S. Circuit Judge and Chairman of the Morgan Trustees Morris A. Soper as chairman, to weigh the merits of Morgan's becoming a state-owned college.

1937 Hughes Memorial Stadium, built by unemployed laborers hired under the F.E.R.A., C.W.A. and P.W.A. programs of the federal government, is
completed and dedicated. It is named for W. A. C. Hughes, Class of '97, who introduced football to Morgan College.

1937 Howard University Graduate Dean Dwight O. W. Holmes is appointed fifth, and first African-American, President of Morgan College.

1939 November 9, Morgan College is officially transferred to the state, having been purchased from the Board of Trustees for $225,000.

Soper Library is completed.

1941 Tubman House is completed.

The Morgan Christian Center, located on the M. J. Naylor property adjacent to the campus and purchased by the Board of Trustees of Morgan College, after the sale of the College to the State, is completed.

1946 Truth House is completed.

1948 The College establishes the Reserved Officer's Training Corps (ROTC).

Martin David Jenkins, Ph.D., Professor of Education at Howard University, is appointed President.

1959 The College establishes the Institute for Political Education, with a grant from the Ford Foundation.

1964 The College establishes the Urban Studies Institute.

1965 The College reestablishes the Graduate School, offering degrees in five fields leading to the Master of Arts and Master of Science degrees.

1967 On July 1, by act of the Maryland State General Assembly, Morgan State College comes under the jurisdiction of the Board of Trustees of State Colleges and Universities.

1969 Morgan is selected as a model liberal arts program by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is ranked by a Newsweek poll among the top ten African-American colleges and universities.

1970 Thomas P. Fraser, Ed.D., is appointed interim President of Morgan
State College, on the retirement of President Jenkins.

1971 King Vergil Cheek, J.D., at age thirty-three, Morgan's youngest leader, is appointed President.

1974 Thomas P. Fraser returns as interim president, following the resignation of Dr. Cheek.

1975 Andrew Billingsley, a Howard University sociologist and expert on the Black family, is appointed President.

Morgan State College, by act of the Maryland General Assembly, becomes Morgan State University, with authority to confer the doctorate, and is designated the State's urban university.

The University establishes five academic divisions: the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, the School of Urban Studies, the School of Business and Management and the School of Graduate Studies.

1983 Morgan State University awards its first doctorate, the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership to Elzee C. Gladden.

1984 Following the resignation of Dr. Billingsley, Earl S. Richardson, Ed.D., Assistant to the President of the University of Maryland at College Park, is appointed Interim President.

In October, Richardson is appointed President.

The University establishes the School of Engineering, offering undergraduate degrees in Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Industrial Engineering.

1985 The University holds its first Presidential Scholarship Ball, in honor of the inauguration of President Richardson.

1987 Assets of the Morgan State University Foundation exceed $1 million for the first time in history.

1990 Student protest speeds up renovation of dormitories: Baldwin Hall, Cummings House, Tubman House and Harper House.

The University establishes the Center for Educating the African-American Male.

1991 Clarence Blount Towers and Clarence Mitchell Engineering Building open.

The University, following the accreditation of the Architecture Program, establishes the Institute for Urban Architecture and Planning.

1992 The University establishes the National Center for Transportation Management, Research and Development, with a $5.5 million grant from the
U.S. Department of Transportation.

November 12, the University launches its 125th Anniversary celebration.

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