{"id":1653,"date":"2021-03-13T16:39:29","date_gmt":"2021-03-13T16:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=1653"},"modified":"2021-03-13T16:39:29","modified_gmt":"2021-03-13T16:39:29","slug":"former-ups-executive-boosts-pledge-to-alma-mater-by-15-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=1653","title":{"rendered":"Former UPS Executive Boosts Pledge To Alma Mater By $15 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/span>\u00a0Kevin Michael Briscoe\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

BALTIMORE \u2014\u00a0To help students avoid crippling college debt, former United Parcel Service executive and\u00a0Morgan State University<\/a>\u00a0alumnus Calvin Tyler is increasing his $5 million commitment to his alma mater by $15 million to fund academic scholarships.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0expanded Calvin and Tina Tyler Endowment Scholarship Fund<\/a>, created in 2002 to offer scholarships for Baltimore students, will now be used to attract students from around the country to a university eager to distinguish itself as a premier research institution, the university recently announced.\u00a0 \u201cA lot of young people in Baltimore and throughout the country are in need of help right now,\u201d said Tyler. \u201cPutting them further in debt through the reliance on government loans is just not the answer. Getting a college degree and graduating without debt is something that we think is very important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tyler Hall, the recently constructed student services building on Morgan\u2019s campus, stands as a legacy of Calvin and Tina Tyler\u2019s \u201clegacy of philanthropic giving.\u201d (Courtesy of Morgan State University)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Student demographics suggest that nearly every Morgan student will, in the form of partial or full-tuition scholarships, be impacted by the increased funds. Of the approximately 8,000 students currently attending the university, 90 percent receive some type of financial assistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cForty-five percent qualify for\u00a0Pell Grants<\/a>, federal assistance to support students, at various levels based on family support, and about 30 percent of that 45 percent are eligible for maximum benefits,\u201d said Morgan State President David Wilson. \u201cThousands of students will be impacted for decades and decades to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson said he \u201cliterally dropped the phone\u201d when the Tylers informed him that they wanted to raise their commitment to the university.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was having the conversation with Calvin, and he said that he and Tina wanted to make a larger investment, I went quiet, because he doesn\u2019t think in increments of a million dollars,\u201d said Wilson. \u201cWe talked about the impact of COVID-19 in the community they come from and how it\u2019s stressful under normal circumstances, and now students have to do three times more. He told me they wanted to do everything they can to ease the loan burden, so students could taste the magic of a Morgan State University education.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife and I have become keenly aware of the effect that the pandemic has had on a number of young people trying to get an education,\u201d said Tyler. \u201cWe have the resources to help a lot of young people \u2026 through our endowed scholarship plan. It\u2019s not so much that we\u2019re supporting Morgan, it\u2019s more that we are supporting Baltimore \u2026 Baltimore is our hometown, it\u2019s where we\u2019re from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forced to drop out of Morgan in 1963 due to a lack of money to complete his own degree in business administration, Tyler became one of the first 10 black drivers for UPS in 1964. He closed out his career with the package delivery company as senior vice president of operations, retiring in 1998 and taking a seat on its board of directors. Tyler\u2019s company stock options and board compensations make up the bulk of his benefactor\u2019s wealth, according to Wilson.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalvin was a hard worker who has made his money work for him,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t come up through diversity programs or human resources, though no slight on those organizations. At one point, he was literally the chief operating officer for a major corporation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calvin Tyler began his career as one of 10 black UPS drivers before retiring as senior vice president for operation at UPS in 1988. Now a UPS director, his endowment fund has helped more than 200 Morgan State University students through 46 full tuition and 176 partial scholarships. (Courtesy of Morgan State University)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Morgan\u2019s emergence as a top research university<\/strong><\/p>\n

Morgan State University has a long history as one of four historically black colleges and universities in Maryland. Founded as Centenary Biblical Institute in 1867 to train young men in the ministry, it was renamed Morgan College in 1890 in honor of Rev. Lyttleton Morgan, its first trustee board chairman.<\/p>\n

The school remained a private institution until 1939 when it was purchased by the state to provide more opportunities for black residents. In 1975, the school gained university status and expanded its offerings to include several doctoral programs.<\/p>\n

Today, Morgan has 12 colleges, schools, and institutes, with curricula that include liberal arts, engineering, architecture and planning, social work, global journalism, and communications. In 2007, by virtue of its growth among doctoral-granting institutions, Morgan was classified as a \u201cdoctoral research institution\u201d by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Ten years later, the university was designated by the Maryland General Assembly as the state\u2019s \u201cpreeminent public urban research university.\u201d<\/p>\n

Together with Bowie State University, Coppin State University, and University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Morgan State University is an engine that drives both the state and national economies, according to a United Negro College Fund\u00a0<\/a>report, \u201cHBCUs Make America Strong: The Positive Economic Impact of Maryland\u2019s Historically Black Colleges and Universities,\u201d released in 2017. Maryland HBCUs, said the report, generate $1 billion in total economic impact and account for more than 9,300 jobs and $9.5 billion in lifetime earnings among its graduates.<\/p>\n

\n

With the Tyler endowment, the largest private donation from an alumnus in university history, and a $40 million gift in 2020 from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos\u2019 ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, Morgan State is now reaping the benefits of a reputation that was decades in the making.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThese investments show what we\u2019ve known all along,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cMorgan is a serious institution that is turning out the best talent in the country in a period of immense innovation. Philanthropists are buying into the notion that, if they want a significant return on their investment, Morgan is the first option to consider.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMacKenzie Scott was vetting us from afar, the Tylers were vetting us from up close because Dr. Wilson has been able to establish a great relationship with them,\u201d said Donna Howard, Morgan State\u2019s vice president for institutional advancement. \u201cBut both gifts show that we passed muster as they considered their giving. These two gifts show them to be deeply embedded in altruism and wanting their wealth to have a positive and transformational impact on our students, their families, and our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: Zenger News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Kevin Michael Briscoe\u00a0 BALTIMORE \u2014\u00a0To help students avoid crippling college debt, former United Parcel Service executive and\u00a0Morgan State<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-stories-from-the-community"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1653"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1655,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653\/revisions\/1655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}