Morris Brown College (MBC) ended the fall semester with a $3 million grant from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation (AMBFF) to help launch its hospitality program and begin its partnership to build a hotel on campus.
The grant will help develop the school’s Hospitality Certification Program, which includes a partnership with Hilton Hotels to help with the construction of the facility.
The on-campus hotel will be equipped with classrooms and education training spaces to help the students gain the skills needed for work, connect them to job opportunities and help address the labor shortage in the hospitality industry.
The grant is the largest awarded to the Historically Black college in the last 20 years.
The grant is part of the Blank Family Foundation’s Youth Development portfolio which helps create alternative pathways to economic mobility for young people who may face challenges with transportation, childcare or inconvenient work schedules.
The program is one of AMBFF’s five new giving areas that will help find new ways to improve economic mobility for young people through learning opportunities.
“One of the ways we can support young people in achieving economic mobility is by contributing to employer-focused efforts that strengthen the career pipeline between young people and engaged employers,” said Daniel Shoy, managing director of the Youth Development and Atlanta’s Westside for AMBFF.
With the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projecting that the hospitality industry will provide almost two million jobs by 2031, the grant will help MBC’s students get immediate job opportunities in this thriving business.
“We anticipate Morris Brown becoming a prominent source of diverse talent for careers in hospitality and organizational leadership,” said Dr. Kevin James, president of MBC.
James said that the support from AMBFF will make MBC one of the premier institutions in the nation for Black and Brown individuals to acquire expertise in hospitality, particularly in managing restaurants and hotels.
Morris Brown will begin developing its Hospitality Certificate program with an online platform beginning next year, with the first cohort expected to enroll in the fall 2024 semester.
That grant money should go to an engineering, medical, or law school at Morris Brown. Developing a humanities school and social science program is where that money should go. Construction and the building trades would also be productive areas where that money could go. Hospitality industry is dependent on the wealth of others. Morris Brown needs to develop professions that build wealth independent of others. This is just another white man using his money to treat black people paternalistically. Morris Brown needs to raise money to develop programs that build wealth independent of this condescending approach.