BALTIMORE — Morgan State University is bringing an essential HBCU perspective to a new international effort to prepare the next generation of leaders to bridge society’s deepest divides. As the only Historically Black College or University (HBCU) among the Reconciliation League’s 13 founding institutions, Morgan has secured six student fellowships for an immersive program beginning in summer 2027, connecting its scholars with peers whose experiences, beliefs and backgrounds will challenge them to listen more closely and lead more thoughtfully.
Four Morgan students will participate in the League’s inaugural session at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, while two will attend the session at Wroxton College in Oxfordshire, England. The University will identify candidates for the fellowships, which combine academic study with shared residential experiences designed to help students engage constructively across differences and bring those skills home to their campuses and communities.
The opportunity positions Morgan students within a deliberately diverse network of institutions spanning four continents. Their charge will extend beyond discussing polarization: Fellows will learn how to sustain difficult conversations, examine their own assumptions and build relationships with people whose perspectives may differ substantially from their own.
“Our students are inheriting a democracy whose future will depend, in no small measure, on their willingness to remain in conversation with people who see the world differently,” said David K. Wilson, president of Morgan State University. “Morgan brings to this work the perspective of an institution whose history is inseparable from the struggle to make America live up to its promise. We want our students to enter these conversations with the confidence to speak honestly and the humility to listen deeply. When they return, the measure of this fellowship will be the conversations they make possible for others.”
The Reconciliation League was conceived by John Sexton, president emeritus of New York University and dean emeritus of the NYU School of Law. Sexton, who helped establish NYU Abu Dhabi, designed the League to bring together students from institutions with markedly different traditions and missions. Wilson and Sexton have both served on the American Council on Education’s board and are elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
“The Fellows will gain skills of connection – and connections to friends – they could not have imagined before they came to the program,” said Sexton, the architect of the League. “Every college or university worth the name strives to foster critical reasoning and an ability to engage in dialogue. But no single university can match the League’s capacity to press the boundaries of dialogue.”
Morgan joins African Leadership University, Asian University for Women, Brigham Young University, Fordham University, Lafayette College, the London School of Economics, New York University, Pomona College, San Carlos Apache College, the University of Kentucky, the University of North Carolina and Yale University in the founding coalition.
At the center of the fellowship is an Anchor Course that develops students’ capacity to explore opposing viewpoints with openness and civility. Drawing on techniques used in religious dialogue, the curriculum asks Fellows to understand how others see themselves, consider how others perceive them and reflect on what those encounters reveal about their own beliefs and approaches to conversation.
Additional courses and seminars will provide opportunities to practice these skills through subjects such as international law, religious history and climate change. Shared living, structured exercises and team-building retreats will extend the learning beyond the classroom, creating opportunities for students to work through unfamiliar situations together. The program carries academic credit, with application toward a Morgan degree subject to University requirements.
The League’s philanthropically supported fellowships cover tuition, housing, meals and required program activities, along with other specified participation expenses. Fellows are generally responsible for travel to and from their summer session site.
The fellowship will continue virtually during fall 2027, as students return to their institutions and apply what they have learned. An in-person summit is planned for early January 2028. Organizers are also developing a possible visit to NYU Abu Dhabi in summer 2028; that component has not been finalized.
For Morgan, the work connects directly to the role HBCUs have played in expanding democratic participation and preparing students to exercise civic leadership. Fellows will be encouraged to engage pressing questions about threats to American democracy while learning to make room for disagreement without surrendering the possibility of shared purpose.
The premise is grounded in a familiar national aspiration: E pluribus unum — out of many, one. Through sustained encounters across differences, students can discover common concerns and build the trust needed to address them. Morgan’s six Fellows will carry that work from the seminar table into the places where democratic life unfolds every day, helping classmates and community members begin conversations that division too often prevents.
