Morgan State accuses Towson of duplicating one of its academic programs, prompting Md. General Assembly to study degree approval process

By Gabriel Donahue, Editor-in-Chief

Morgan State University’s accusations that Towson University duplicated one of its academic programs has prompted the Maryland General Assembly to develop a workgroup that will study the Maryland Higher Education Commission’s degree approval process. 

The historically Black university objected to Towson’s proposed business analytics Ph.D. program and, after its approval, Morgan State’s President David K. Wilson wrote to state lawmakers, Maryland Matters reported. 

The 10-member workgroup is tasked with making recommendations regarding the Commission’s approval process on eight fronts, according to House Bill 200, the document that established the group.  

These include:

• Creating “measurable criteria” to determine if a proposed program is unnecessarily duplicative.
• Ensuring the “approval process has the primary goal of meeting the needs of the students and the State while ensuring full compliance with all applicable laws and legal precedents…with respect to the Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” 

Morgan State hopes that the workgroup will help the Commission “to develop and implement a just system to prevent program duplication from happening in the first place,” Larry Jones, a university spokesperson, said in an email Monday. 

The bill allotted $2.5 million in funding for the University System of Maryland, Morgan State, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and community colleges and private schools. 

This money cannot be used until a report is filed with the workgroup’s recommendations, the bill says. The report must be submitted by Dec. 1. 

A start-date for the workgroup has not been finalized yet, Rhonda Wardlaw, director of communications for the Commission, said in an email Sunday. 

The bill says one member from the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, one member from the Senate Education, Energy, and the Environment Committee, two members of the House Appropriations Committee, and the secretary of the Commission will make up half of the workgroup. 

The other five members will be representatives of the University System, Morgan State, St. Mary’s, the Maryland Independent College and University Association, and the Maryland Association of Community Colleges.

The representative for the University System has not been determined as of July 14, spokesperson Mike Lurie said in an email. 

Denied, appealed, approved 

The development of the workgroup comes after the Commission voted in June to approve Towson’s proposed business analytics doctorate program, overturning a previous denial by the Commission’s Assistant Secretary for Academic Affairs Emily Dow. 

Dow denied the initial proposal in a letter to Interim-President Melanie Perreault in April. 

Dow wrote that the Commission found the program “unreasonably duplicative of two specific concentrations” of Morgan State’s business administration Ph.D. program. One of these, Supply Chain and Logistics Management, is unique to Maryland, Dow said in the letter. 

Because Towson and Morgan State are both public colleges in similar locations, Dow said she believed that approving Towson’s program could threaten enrollment at Morgan State. 

Towson appealed the decision and the Commission held a special meeting on June 14.

Acting Provost Cynthia Cooper said Towson reached out to Morgan State three times, but had not received a response. 

“Unfortunately, Morgan State’s non-response to our outreach with this proposal left us with no avenue to resolve misunderstanding — that’s today’s hearing, which certainly would not have been our choice,” she said.

Dow reiterated her recommendation to deny the program at the virtual meeting. 

“We do not believe that Towson’s desire to seek R2 Carnegie classification [which requires 20 annual doctorate degrees be awarded] is an educational justification for the duplication of an existing program, particularly a newly-implemented and unique concentration at an HBCU,” she said. “On the contrary, allowing Towson to duplicate Morgan’s existing program to support Towson’s goal may cause demonstrable harm by preventing Morgan’s own desire to achieve a very high research activity, or R1, designation.” 

In a presentation to the Commission, Towson maintained that the pre-requisites, goals and content of its business analytics program differ significantly from Morgan State’s concentrations in supply chain management and information systems. 

Program Director Stella Tomasi said Towson requires candidates to have a master’s degree from a STEM program. Towson will not admit applicants with a master’s in business administration, she said, though an MBA is necessary for admission to Morgan State’s programs. 

“We are not pulling from the same pool of applicants whatsoever,” Perreault said.

Judy Harris, associate dean of Towson’s College of Business and Economics, said there are other colleges, including the University of Maryland College Park, that have degrees in all three disciplines, which the Commission approved. She said this recognizes the distinction between the concentrations. 

Wilson, however, said to distinguish between Morgan State’s program and Towson’s proposed program is “splitting hairs.” 

In response to Towson’s presentation, Dow said the content was too similar based on an analysis by Morgan State, which it provided in its objection letter. 

Tomasi said this analysis was done incorrectly. 

Further, Dow pointed out that Towson’s proposal letter specifically states that the program “is designed to prepare scholarly educators specializing in supply chain management and technology management.” 

The proposal also did not specify that the master’s degree required for admission must be in STEM. 

“[The difference in admission requirements] could have been clarified with Morgan State with a very simple phone call had they picked the phone up when we called,” Perreault said. “We respectfully ask that our program not be delayed again because there was that failure to pick up the phone on their end.” 

Morgan State representatives had 10 minutes to respond at the end of the meeting, wherein Wilson considered the situation a “classic example of program duplication.”  

Ultimately, the commissioners made a split decision to overturn Dow’s denial. 

“The majority found that while some elements of the programs were similar, ultimately the two programs have distinct differences in their curricula,” wrote commission Chair Mary Pat Seurkamp in a June 28 letter to Perreault. “This finding was made with the understanding that Towson’s admission criteria for the program are geared toward students who have a STEM background. Furthermore, we found that there was insufficient evidence of demonstrable harm to the existing program at Morgan.” 

Towson declined a request to comment.