Morris Davis

A quick scan of the advisory board members at the Rutgers Center for Real Estate Studies and many of the names are likely familiar. In fact, a number of them appear on either this, or another, NJBIZ Power list. And according to the man that drives the institute as academic director, Morris Davis, that’s by design.

“The greatest differentiation between what we’re doing at Rutgers and what’s being done at other real estate centers is the involvement of the industry,” he says in a video on the center’s webpage.

This past year, the Center added another big name to its roster when Walker & Dunlop signed on as its newest corporate sponsor – joining M&T Bank and Sill Cummis & Gross PC – which equates to internships for students, professionals from the firm serving as mentors and a case competition.

Also the Paul V. Profeta chair of Real Estate, Davis is widely published on issues related to U.S. housing, a hot topic in 2022, and a media resource regularly interviewed by NPR Marketplace, Bloomberg Radio, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. At less than 10 years old, the center now enrolls hundreds of students with courses such as law, finance and capital markets full or nearly so on a consistent basis. Outside of Rutgers, Davis is an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an independent director of the American Capital Agency Corp. Mortgage REIT.