Morgan State professor fined for presenting himself as licensed architect

In a scathing order published earlier this month, the state board regulating architects slapped a $20,000 fine on a Morgan State University professor known for championing the preservation of Maryland’s oldest Black communities.

Dale Glenwood Green has taught courses on architecture and related studies at Morgan State since 2008. He claims on his university bio to share ancestry with both Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Last year, he consulted for the developer behind the reimagination of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and Harborplace pavilions.

But it’s one thing to teach about architecture and consult on historical preservation. It’s another thing to represent oneself as a licensed architect.

The Maryland Board of Architects ruled that Green crossed that line repeatedly, determining that he forged a license to practice architecture and created a fake email exchange to hide the truth. Green has never been licensed, according to the board.

Green did not respond to requests for comment.

His attorney, Paul Knupp, called him “a world-renowned historic preservationist who has been working at an architecture firm.”

“The board got it wrong, factually and legally,” Knupp said, adding that Green plans to appeal the decision to circuit court. “We look forward to having a real court to adjudicate the issues and defenses.”

States across the country require practicing architects to be licensed. Licensure ensures that architects aren’t designing dangerous structures and are following building codes. A license typically requires formal education, years of experience and accreditation from a national organization.

The $20,000 fine against Green is the largest issued by the Maryland Board of Architects since at least 2012. The board sometimes goes an entire year without issuing a disciplinary action. The case against Green was built by a state-paid investigator and presented by a senior assistant attorney general.

The investigation began in the spring of 2023 and culminated in a four-day virtual trial that fall. An administrative law judge found that Green violated state law and recommended a $15,000 fine.

But when the board issued its 27-page final order on Dec. 9, it increased the fine to the maximum $20,000, citing Green’s “incessant bad faith.” The board said his “cavalier attitude to licensure is appalling” and that it could not “abide such blatant and unabashed disregard” for state regulations.

The case centered on Green’s employment at a Baltimore-based architectural firm called Sulton Campbell Britt & Associates. The president of the firm, Stanford Britt, testified at the virtual trial that he hired Green in 2011, partly because of Green’s knowledge of technology. One of Green’s responsibilities, Britt said, was managing the firm’s website.

Britt was a licensed architect through the state of Maryland for decades. A few years ago, he stepped back from the firm and moved to Virginia to take a teaching position at Hampton University.

According to the board, Britt’s license expired in February 2022, but Green continued to operate the business while toeing the line of acceptable professional behavior.

The firm’s website identifies Green as a partner at the firm, for instance, but Britt testified that Green was never made partner. Britt and Green are the only listed employees on the firm’s website. Attempts to reach the architectural firm went unanswered.

On his LinkedIn page, his biography at Morgan State and his resumé linked on the school’s website, Green does not claim to be a licensed architect. He does list numerous accomplishments and memberships, including an affiliation with the American Institute of Architects, or AIA.

Those three letters might not mean much to the layman, but the board said they send a clear signal to other professionals that the person using them is licensed to work as an architect.

Last year, Green negotiated a consulting agreement with MCB Real Estate, the company that plans to raze the Inner Harbor pavilions and replace them with five new buildings.

According to the board, Green signed an agreement with MCB in July 2023, months before the developer revealed its plans for the beloved but dilapidated pavilions. The board said Green agreed to provide MCB with “several aspects of design, including promenade and public park design.”

A spokeswoman for MCB, Alexandra Hughes, said in an email that Green was not engaged to design any part of the project and was contracted only to provide a historical evaluation of Harborplace.

A national architectural firm also considered hiring Green last year to consult on the renovation of City College high school, according to the board. When a senior project manager at the firm asked Green if he was a licensed architect, Green texted back, “yes,” and emailed his credentials, the board says in its order.

But when the project manager looked at Green’s license, he found that the fonts did not match, and he reached out to someone who had known Green for almost two decades, Baltimore architect Jerryn McCray.

McCray said he taught architecture at Morgan State as an adjunct professor in the mid-2000s, when Green was an undergraduate there.

According to McCray, Green carried himself as though he were already a professional, always wearing a suit and bow tie.

“He’s the best presenter and the best salesman I’ve ever met,” McCray said. “His work is probably some of the worst student work I’ve ever seen.”

McCray said he warned people for years that Green seems to overstate his qualifications.

In his resumé on Morgan State’s website, Green claims to have completed all the coursework for a Ph.D. in architecture and historic preservation from the University of Missouri, except a dissertation. A school spokesman said Monday that Green has never enrolled there.

When McCray saw the license with fonts that were clearly wrong, he said he reviewed the state’s database of licensed architects. He keyed in the license number, and it pulled up the license of a woman now living in Georgia. McCray said he spoke with the woman. Both then filed complaints against Green.

Those complaints led to the investigation and the $20,000 fine from the board.

According to the board’s final order, the project manager who first noticed the suspicious lettering on Green’s credentials also passed along the information to administrators at Morgan State.

The order describes what happened next: Green told his bosses it was all a misunderstanding and that it was his intern’s fault. He sent school officials emails to back that up. In one message, the intern apologized for faking the credentials. In another email, Green scolded the intern. But those emails were sent in 2023. The intern left his job in 2020. As webmaster, Green was the only one with control of the departed intern’s email account.

Morgan State did not respond to requests for comment.

Green has continued to teach as a full professor, including studio classes where students typically get hands-on experience designing buildings, according to his page on Morgan State’s website.

Outside of Morgan, Green has worked for years to publicize the history of African American communities on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

To Pete Lesher, a historian and a Talbot County Council member, Green was an enthusiastic scholar who shared his love for bow ties. He was someone “with a degree of question and caution and not given to overstatement,” Lesher said.

Lesher said he worked with Green when he was an Easton councilman. Green was instrumental in educating people about a neighborhood in Easton called The Hill, Lesher said, which might predate Tremé in New Orleans as the oldest community of free Black people in America.

Rob Etgen, who retired as president of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy in 2021, said Green had an “infectious enthusiasm” about unearthing the forgotten stories of Black people on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

“Dale certainly brought it to everyone’s attention and led walking tours until we all had to get new shoes,” Etgen said.

At a speech a few years ago at a community center in Anne Arundel County, Green spoke passionately about Black history and the importance of historical preservation for nearly an hour.

He didn’t talk about blueprints or building designs, but he did refer to himself as a “conservation architect.”