830 WESTVIEW DRIVE, S.W. I ATLANTA, GA 30314 I 404-215-2660 I morehouse.edu

ARETHA ROBINSON

MUSIC ACADEMIC BUILDING

December 3, 201310 a.m.

Naming Ceremonyof the

MISSIONThe mission of Morehouse College is to provide a comprehensive academic, social and spiritual experience that prepares its students for leadership and success in the larger society.

PRESIDENTJohn Silvanus Wilson Jr. ’79 is the 11th president of Morehouse College. He is the former executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Before working with the White House Initiative, Wilson was an associate professor of higher education in the Graduate School of Education and an executive dean at The George Washington University. He also spent 16 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served as director of foundation relations and assistant provost.

ENROLLMENT With an enrollment of approximately 2,100, the student body represents more than 40 states and 14 countries.

FACULTY164 full-time; 69 part-time; 100% of tenured and tenure-track faculty holds terminal degrees

ACADEMIC PROGRAMS Morehouse operates under the semester system offering the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees. The College offers 26 majors in three academic divisions: Humanities and Social Sciences, Science and Mathematics, and Business Administration and Economics, and a dual-degree program in engineering with the Georgia Institute of Technology.

ACCREDITATION Morehouse is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to award baccalaureate degrees. Morehouse is one of five Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and one of four undergraduate institutions in Georgia, with a Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society chapter. The College also is one of only four liberal arts colleges in the nation with accreditation from both the AACSD International Association for Management Education and a Phi Beta Kappa chapter.

SPECIAL PROGRAMSSpecial programs include Phi Beta Kappa, Honors, Study Abroad, The Andrew Young Center for Global Leadership, and Research Careers. The College also houses the Morehouse Research Institute, the Leadership Center at Morehouse College and the Morehouse Male Initiative.

AFFILIATIONSMorehouse is a member of the Georgia Research Alliance, Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education, Associated Colleges of the South, and Atlanta University Center, a consortium of four historically black institutions, including Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse School of Medicine and Spelman College.

ATHLETICSMorehouse is a member of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II. Varsity letter sports include football, basketball, tennis, golf, baseball, cross country and track and field.

MOREHOUSE COLLEGE AT A GLANCE

AboutARETHA ROBINSON

legendary musician Ray Charles credits the love, guidance and strength of his mother, Aretha Robinson, for his ability to navigate through the darkness and achieve a brilliant career in music. “She let me roam, let me make my own mistakes, let me discover the world for myself,” Ray said. But because of his mother’s devotion and tough love, Ray developed a fierce independence and the ability to maneuver so adroitly that some people, later in his life, doubted that he was really blind. Aretha and Bailey Robinson lived in abject poverty, first in Albany, Ga., where Ray was born on Sept. 23, 1930, and later in Greenville, Fla., where they moved when Ray was a few months old. She took in laundry, and Bailey worked off and on for the railroads. However, she became a single mother when Bailey left their home, leaving her to raise Ray and his younger brother, George, alone. Aretha’s youngest son, George, drowned in one of her washtubs when he was five years old. Soon after, Ray began to lose his sight, apparently as the result of untreated glaucoma, and was completely blind by age seven. Aretha prepared her son to live without sight, making him continue to do his daily chores. “You may be blind,” Ray remembered that she told him, “but ... you have to do things for yourself, no one else will do them for you.” Aretha managed to get him accepted as a charity student at the Florida State School for the Deaf and the Blind (known at the time as the Institute for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb), in St. Augustine, about 130 miles southeast of Greenville. She died shortly before Ray’s 15th birthday. It was, Ray wrote later, the most devastating experience of his life. He felt like “truly a lost child.” But because of Aretha Robinson’s unflinching devotion to her son, Ray Charles was able to scale unimaginable musical heights. Morehouse granted Ray an honorary degree in 2001. Later that year, the musician—who was often referred to as “The Genius”—made two $1-million gifts to the College to seal a mutual commitment to find, educate and inspire the next generation of music pioneers. The gifts became seed money for the Ray Charles Performing Arts Center and Music Academic Building. The naming of the Music Academic Building for his mother would have been a dream come true for Ray. Valerie Ervin, president of The Ray Charles Foundation, said that before his death in 2004, Ray made very clear his desire to leave a lasting legacy for his mother. Ervin announced the foundation’s $3-million gift during the “A Candle in the Dark” Gala in February 2013 to secure the naming of the Aretha Robinson Music Academic Building, making Ray’s wish a reality.

Ray Charles with his mother, Aretha Robinson, circa 1944

NAMING CEREMONY PLANNING COMMITTEEPhillip D. Howard ‘87Vice PresidentOffice of Institutional Advancement

Kathleen JohnsonCommittee ChairSpecial Assistant to the President and Associate Vice PresidentOffice of Institutional Advancement

Ardis BlanchardManager of Major Giving ProgramsOffice of Institutional Advancement

Shiekgo CarterEvent Support Services CoordinatorOffice of Campus Operations

Satyn Geary Researcher Office of Institutional Advancement

Vickie G. HamptonPublications ManagerOffice of Communications

Toni O’Neal MosleyDirector of Public RelationsOffice of Communications

Leroy Richardson Special Assistant to the President Office of Institutional Advancement

James SmarttDirector Office of Event Support Services

SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTSUzee Brown ‘72ChairmanDepartment of Music

David Collins Technical Support Analyst Office of Institutional Advancement

Blake Gaines Director, Bands Department of Music

David Morrow ‘80Director, Morehouse College Glee ClubDepartment of Music

THE MUSIC ACADEMIC BUILDING of the Ray Charles Performing Arts Center is designed to address the instructional, rehearsal and performance space needs for several generations of Morehouse students. The building features 12 faculty studios, two electronic classrooms, nine practice rooms, dedicated storage areas for students’ instruments, a library for sheet music and three academic labs—one of which is the David Geffen Keyboard Digital Music Laboratory. There are two rehearsal rooms—one each specifically designed for the Morehouse College Marching Band and the Morehouse College Glee Club. The rooms also accommodate small performances. The Ray Charles Performing Arts Center is a $20-million, 76,000-square-foot facility located at the edge of the historic West End district at the corner of Joseph P. Lowery and West End avenues. The Center also houses the Emma and Joe Adams Concert Hall, with a 550-fixed-seat capacity (a motorized orchestra pit that can be raised to provide additional seating) and a state-of-the-art digital/analog recording studio; a two-story atrium and reception area; and the Eugene Mitchell Performance Lawn, which seats approximately 200 patrons.

MUSIC ACADEMIC BUILDING IN THE RAY CHARLES PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

Naming of theARETHA ROBINSON MUSIC ACADEMIC BUILDING

About theDear Friends of Morehouse,

We are pleased and honored to gather here today to formally dedicate the Aretha Robinson Music Academic Building, an extraordinary facility named after a most extraordinary woman. This building, which was made possible in part by the Ray Charles Foundation, reflects Charles’ strong support for Morehouse College. Through the years, Charles gave generously of this time, talent and treasure to strengthen the financial underpinnings of the College and took a particular interest in our diverse music education programs. Thus it is fitting that this building will bear in perpetuity the name of someone who steadfastly supported Charles’ music education and aspirations so that he would one day become an international treasure who would earn the title “Genius.” Within the Music Academic Building, the legend of Ray Charles lives on. Morehouse students enjoy the benefits of new and expanded practice and performance space, including, among other facilities: rehearsal rooms, fully-equipped studios, listening stations, reading rooms and a performance library. These state-of-the-art facilities allow our students to hone their music talents in ways that simply were not possible before. In this way, the Aretha Robinson Music Academic Building represents the fulfillment of Charles’ distinctive intent to find, educate and inspire the next generation of music pioneers, and is a direct extension of his legacy of giving. I thank all of you for joining us today on this special occasion. The Morehouse family is profoundly grateful to the Ray Charles Foundation for helping us bring this building to fruition and for consistently supporting us in a variety of ways. And we are indebted to a host of College friends, alumni, faculty, staff and students who leant their support to this endeavor. This is truly a great day for all who treasure the memory of Ray Charles and his beloved mother, Aretha Robinson. Long live the Genius.

John Silvanus Wilson Jr. ’79President

OCCASION Dr. Garikai Campbell Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

DEDICATORY PRAYER Dr. Lawrence E. Carter Sr. Dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International

Chapel and Professor of Religion

REMARKS Mr. Robert C. Davidson Jr. ’67 Chairman of the Morehouse College Board of Trustees

Dr. John Silvanus Wilson Jr. ’79 President

NAME UNVEILING Mr. Davidson

ACCEPTANCE Ms. Valerie Ervin President, The Ray Charles Foundation

CLOSING REMARKS Dr. Campbell

SPECIAL PERFORMANCES IN THE EMMA AND JOE ADAMS CONCERT HALL10:45 A.M.

GUIDED TOUR11:45 A.M.

NAMING CEREMONY IN THE ATRIUM OF THE RAY CHARLES PERFORMING ARTS CENTER10:00 A.M.