What’s Kept Morgan State’s President at the Helm After 15 Years

At a time when historically Black colleges and universities have experienced massive turnover, David K. Wilson at Morgan State University is an outlier: He has led the institution for the past 15 years.

Amid another wave of sweeping change to higher education nationally, Wilson is now one of the longest-serving HBCU presidents in the country. His presidency is often referred to as the “Morgan Modern Era” by people in the campus community. 

Some highlights of his tenure include a record enrollment of more than 11,700 students for the fall 2025 semester, as well as an investment of $1.2 billion in new campus facilities. All told, Morgan State today generates $1.5 billion annually for Maryland’s economy. 

As the 10th president of Morgan State, Wilson follows the late Earl S. Richardson. Richardson served as president of the university for 25 years, from 1984 to 2010. Before Wilson took the role as president, the university had over 7,200 students in both undergraduate and graduate programs in 2009. 

“It’s hard for me to believe I’ve been at Morgan for 15 years, because I’m still having so much fun,” Wilson told Capital B. Before becoming president at the university, Wilson worked in senior administrative roles at Rutgers University and Auburn University, and as chancellor in the University of Wisconsin system. He said he thought the leadership position at Morgan State “was the crowning jewel” of his career, where he could put all those experiences together. 

“However, it was at Morgan that I was able to find purpose, and I didn’t know that I did not have it,” he said. 

Wilson details below a reflection on his 15-year tenure and how he’s been successful over the years. His conversation with Capital B has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What were some of the steps that you took in the earliest days of your tenure that contributed to that longevity? 

The first thing we had to do was to build trust, because I followed a president who had been there for 25 years, and I had to spend some time making sure that the university community knew that I was not that person. I respected what the person had done at the institution, but I was leading that institution in the current moment, and I couldn’t lead it back. I had to lead it forward, and I could not do that alone, so I had to build trust amongst the faculty, the staff, the students, and the elected officials. That took a minute, and it was not without its own challenge.

I have a couple of theories of leadership, and especially being president of an HBCU, where all of our institutions are so steeped in history and so steeped in culture. As a result of that, they can be real difficult to change, and they must change in a positive way if they want to continue to be relevant.

I have come up with a whole theory of how you actually change a culture in a positive way and keep an institution relevant. My theory — the David Wilson theory — is that … you have to distinguish between the president and the presidency. If you just focus on the president, you’re focusing on one person. You’re focusing on you. When you just do that, as one of my former colleagues at Morgan often says, if you only focus on yourself in this role as president, you can think that you are leading change, that you are transforming an institution, and you have a whole army of people behind you, and all of a sudden, you look back and you don’t see anyone. You discover that you have just been on a long, lonely walk by yourself.

How did you build trust among the Morgan State community?

Once the trust started to take shape, it took me about two years to create what I call a shared vision. A shared vision — not the David Wilson vision, but the Morgan State vision — that would be shared by all of the constituents at the institution. And so that was the first part of putting in place a future for Morgan where everyone saw themselves as a part of it, and people really began to get excited about where, collectively, we could take Morgan. 

If you want to be successful in this role, you really have to be lockstep in alignment with your board, and you have to spend a lot of time with that board. They need to know you, not just the person on paper, but who you are, what your values are. You know, what inspires you, what motivates you, what keeps you energized and focused on pushing an institution forward.  I’ve had that same relationship with the chair of my board. Often, I say that sometimes the chair of my board may know what I’m having for breakfast the next morning before I know, and so you have to really put in the work to cultivate an effective relationship with your governing board. 

I have a rule of thumb where I communicate the same thing to them almost 30 times. Not in one memo, but in all kinds of ways to make sure that they are understanding what’s going on at the institution. You know, the good, the not so good. I never want to put the board or the chair of the board in a position where they’re ever blindsided or surprised because I did not share something with them. And in doing that, they understand what their role is. 

I’m not inviting them into the administrative aspects of running the institution. That’s not their role. That’s why they hired me, the president: to be the chief of staff and to actually run the university. But they have just become a great sounding board for me. We are thought partners in this work that they don’t overreach, but I think that is because of the level of trust that they have in my ability to make solid decisions and to keep the institution vibrant and consequential and moving in the right direction. 

Can you talk about how you navigate the political realities of leading a higher education institution today?

Morgan is a public institution in Maryland. We are not a member of the University System of Maryland. I have a home Board of Trustees. And so I had to understand that the entire legislature in Maryland, not just the representatives from Baltimore City, but the entire legislature, had to be cultivated, and they had to really understand that shared vision and see how achieving it would be in the best long-term interest of the entire state. I formed great relationships with then-Gov. Martin O’Malley (a Democrat), and I followed that with a superb working relationship with former two-time Republican Gov. Larry Holden, and then just a terrific relationship with current (Democratic) Gov. Wes Moore. 

I spent a lot of time in Annapolis [the state capital] showing the legislature that an investment in Morgan will turn into incredible dividends for the state of Maryland. 

You have to really respect the mission of your institution.

And if you can’t respect the mission, you don’t need to be there. And when you respect the mission, and in many of the cases, the mission is very clear for HBCUs, those institutions — the founders of those institutions — they fought hard to push America to live out the ideals embedded in our Constitution, those ideas of freedom and justice and liberty for everybody.

And so, in understanding that those are not partisan, our founders were pushing for inclusion. 

I wrote a chapter in a book a few years ago titled “When the Fight for Democracy and Justice is the Founding Purpose of your Institution.” I have to intertwine that with the political environment and make sure that whoever I’m communicating with is understanding that this is the mission of Morgan, and I’m committed to that mission. I get joy and satisfaction from doing that.

And so for our communities, the president cannot be seen as above the communities. I spent time walking the streets of Baltimore, knocking on doors, going into the homes of people in neighborhoods that abut the campus, and they were so happy to see the president do that. 

They would invite me in for coffee and whatever in their kitchen, and I’m in there,

basically showing them that, yes, I’m the president, but we’re in this community, and we have a shared vision, and you are part of it. 

How much interaction is there between you and your colleagues in HBCU leadership outside of Morgan? What are those conversations like? 

One of the things that I was really able to do was establish a very good relationship with four other HBCU presidents. All of us were so competitive, which was great. It was absolutely great because being competitive, you are going to move your institution forward. I had a really great relationship with Ruth Simmons at Prairie View. Wayne Frederick at Howard, Harold Martin at North Carolina A&T, and Larry Robinson at FAMU.

We knew all of us were on a mission, and we knew that our jobs were to lead these jewels to better places. Each one of us wanted to outdo the other, which was just terrific, and I miss them so much in these spaces. You know, because I love competition, that’s what fuels me. I think if you look at how all of those institutions move under those leaders, the results would speak for themselves. 

They remain friends [of mine] now. Wayne and I communicate almost every day, and I congratulate him on returning to Howard and wish Howard well in this process. 

I’ve developed a really good relationship with several HBCU presidents, including President Darrell Williams at Hampton, who’s just a terrific leader, and also Dr. Javaune Adams-Gaston at Norfolk State, who, once again, are very competitive leaders. We kind of gravitate toward each other. 

It’s just nothing like being in a community that is so supportive. And as I said, while I really thoroughly enjoyed being associate provost at Rutgers and vice president at Auburn, chancellor in Wisconsin, I really haven’t had the kind of supportive community of individuals across institutions the way I do in this space.

I wish as many of our HBCUs go through leadership changes, they would attract people who are competitive, who are hungry, and who see these leadership opportunities as being ripe for transforming an institution to be amongst the best in higher education.

Is there anything else that you encourage new HBCU presidents to do, if they would like to lead for more than a decade?

Get to know your board if you want to have a successful presidency. Make sure you are never, never bereft of ideas and innovations. 

If you’re in a position, and you’ve been in that position for three years, my advice is make sure that year two was not a replica of year one, and year three was not a replica of year two. One of the things that I have been real conscious of, and that’s why the 15 years have just flown by, is that I almost don’t want people to describe me as a president who has a 15-year tenure, because I don’t want them to think that I’ve had one year of experience 15 times. But no, It’s been 15 solid years of innovation and of continually elevating what I must bring to the table every single year.

I would say, stay relevant and always stay on the cutting edge of the higher ed sector. And [think] of where you think your institution should be going. And have fun.

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