John S. Wilson is part of Marts & Lundy's Of Counsel team. He is an associate professor at George Washington University's Graduate School of Education and Human Development. He is writing a book about the education gap at historically black colleges and universities - a gap he has seen widen in recent years. While it's too soon to release his findings, Wilson recently discussed its broad themes and his life experiences that shaped his thinking.

Early in his college education, John Wilson knew something didn't add up for many black students such as himself. In the 1970s, he was a freshman at Morehouse College, the private, all-male college in Atlanta that educated generations of African-American leaders, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"I had high expectations for Morehouse, but after I arrived, I was a bit concerned about the way the place was run. Things were not as smooth as I thought they should be."

"Boy, it was like night and day," he reflected. "At Harvard everything was pretty much like clockwork."

Whether he was standing in long lines to pay bills or waiting for meals in the cafeteria, Wilson felt like he was wasting time better spent studying. He called his sister at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and asked, "Do you guys have to stand in line for two hours to register? Do you have to stand in long lines to pay a bill? Is the wait long in the cafeteria?"

His sister answered an emphatic, "No, no, no!"

Though he calls Morehouse "a great experience," Wilson became increasingly aware of the disparity between historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and their predominately white counterparts. After graduating, he attended Harvard University to earn two master's degrees - one at its Divinity School, the other in education. He also earned a doctorate in education from Harvard.

"Boy, it was like night and day," he reflected. "At Harvard everything was pretty much like clockwork."

He entered the field of college fundraising - including more than 12 years in resource development at nearby MIT. But Wilson never lost sight of his roots. "By the time I got to Harvard, I said, 'Wow, these are two different worlds... I began thinking about how we can close the gap from an infrastructure standpoint, to an operational standpoint, and on every measure, from the quality of the education to the quality of the course offerings. That's the path I've been on ever since. That's the issue I've always been moving toward the top of my career agenda - gap closure."

At MIT, Wilson was part of two campaigns, the first for $700 million, and the second for $1.5 billion, which stretched to $2 billion. After becoming MIT's director of foundation relations, he said, "I was understanding and demonstrating how a college or university can position itself to receive transformational gifts from the philanthropic marketplace."

By the mid-1980s, leading universities started launching billion-dollar campaigns. "From that time on, campaigns just skyrocketed, and the whole higher education industry changed."

All the while, Wilson remained an active alumnus of Morehouse, heading its alumni association in the Boston area. He also remained in touch with colleagues at HBCUs. It was easy to see that as many prestigious, predominately white colleges got richer, their own alma maters were falling behind.

"I saw a lot of predominately white institutions getting on this kind of superhighway, and I saw too many black institutions who were seemingly unable or undetermined to find the on-ramp."