The group that accredits Florida A&M University has placed the troubled school on probation for six months, citing "significant problems" in its finances and administration.
This week's move by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools could jeopardize federal financial aid to students and their ability to transfer FAMU credits to other schools.
"I don't think the school has ever been at a lower spot than it is right now," said state Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, a FAMU alum. "It's really a shame the Board of Governors and Board of Trustees has been so unprepared and hands-off that they would allow a university to get into this kind of position."
Before revoking a school's accreditation, the association gives either a warning or a notice of probation. Probation is the more serious of the two.
If the association yanks its accreditation, a rare move, FAMU students wouldn't be able to receive federal financial aid, and they would have much greater difficulty transferring credits to accredited schools.
Committee to visit this fall
A committee of members from accredited colleges and universities will visit FAMU in the fall to see whether the school is improving, Benberg said. The association will meet again in December to discuss FAMU's accreditation.
One of three things can happen then: The association can lift FAMU's probation, it can keep the probationary status in place, or it can drop its accreditation.
Tom Benberg, Vice President, SACS Commission on Colleges, says the agency has removed accreditation from only one school in the past year and a half: St. Andrews College in North Carolina. The agency places about 16 to 18 schools on warning or probation every year.
RN, I know you're outraged. We all are. But please consider changing that picture. While it conveys our gut feelings, we should remember that prospective students and state reporters will still be visitng this page.
ReplyDeletePlease find another, less profane and crass picture to convey the FAMU's community anger. Remember, you're one of our most visible spokespersons.
Frankly, as an Alumni, I believe that it is FAMU's administration that needs to "find another, less profane and crass picture to convey." Were it not for their calculated irresponsible and, in most cases, illegal behavior, there would be nothing negative for reporters and prospective students to receive.
ReplyDeleteAmmons has to fix it. if not, we're screwed.
ReplyDeleteThese troubles don't have anything to do with being Black, but they are caused to a great extent by our thinking that Blacks protect Blacks against complaints by Whites, even when the Whites are right. Some of our own folk brought this on our university, and they counted on us to defend them against all complaints, valid and invalid. The chickens do come home to roost, and folks, THEY HAVE! We can get bitter or we can get better. Let's get BETTER!!
ReplyDelete6:21---Too late, I'm afraid for "if this, that and the other." The situation is now an "IS," and I agree with the 2:28 poster. We can do better. Thousands of people come here and read what we have to say about our school, and the graphic doesn't speak well for this site. The probabtion is very, very bad, indeed, but we're not helping the situation by the very degrading photo. I'm sure if Dr. Ammons were to visit the site, he would find the photo quite disturbing.
ReplyDeleteAmmons alone cannot save FAMU. There are folks right now sitting at FAMU (when they actually work) who have no intention of working to forward the goals of the school and they have pulled every string to keep their paycheck because the reality is their quality of skills would not be acceptable in ANY OTHER JOB on ANY OTHER PLANET! That's how bad it is. Those Boa Constrictors pretending to be RATTLERS have to go...NOW! They need to be FIRED, God know we fired a bunch of people who were in fact ethical and hard-working.
ReplyDeleteThat picture looks like the bathrooms at the college of engineering!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYes, CRAP is falling! It will continue to fall. Why? Well, why do we have past Board members (like Jennings who was tied to the invisible Cunningham mess) speaking for FAMU?...
ReplyDelete"We'll be prepared, in a very public way, to work to address those issues so we can restore the public's confidence and SACS' confidence in the university," said FAMU trustees chair Bill Jennings.
Any voice for FAMU at this critical stage should be a forward looking voice, not anyone that has been stained by past scandals, WHETHER OR NOT they were punished.
Every Board of Trustee member needs to be released from their duties immediately! If the Governor can't see that they dropped the ball, then he needs to be held accountable as well. The fact that the school has been placed on probation proves their ineptness as a board. This situation is utterly ridiculous and could have been avoided.
ReplyDeleteHow is it, that a university has a local reverend on the board??? What is his purpose? What "business sense" is he bringing? It's shameful that our board is mostly comprised of people placed here by republican favors or a need to be looked at as important to the community. The fact that our board isn't comprised of members nationally recognized for their accolades is a red flag too. Why do we have mostly local talent?
A board should be made of members that are indifferent to the emotions of the body they direct and more concerned with progression and advancement. We should protest the governors office until he releases information on why he appointed these people and their credentials. Then he should be made to cross reference our appointees and their credentials with those appointed to other state institutions.
This mismanagement of the school has placed us in this predicament. We bleed from the top!!!! As long as incompetent people are in charge of hiring and watching over staff, the more incompetence we will endure.
The jugular is cut. FAMU will perish.
ReplyDeleteI am afriad that there is some writing on the wall. FAMU cannot continue to pretend it is a great institution and we will return to our glory days. We need to step back, cut our losses, downsize if necessary, and get back to the point where we are mean and lean. I think we have tried to be too many things to too many people. Let's focus on educating minority undergraduates and professionals to be great national citizens and stop trying to grow like every other university in the state. Let's be small and efficient, not large and inefficient.
ReplyDeleteI am appalled by the biased coverage of the Tallahassee Democrat and the St. Petersburg Times. I am also surprised that SACS can do this to FAMU. Where is the process? Did we have notice that this is happening? Why would this happen outside of the routine SACS accredidation? If they can blindside FAMU in this manner, they can also take out accredidation away. If we were not blindsided, when did Ammons get notice of this? I hope that someone calls SACS on this. At some level, I don't care about SACS, as they are obviously run by white folks who are running roughshed over HBCUs and who wish to shut them down. FAMU will survive independent of SACS and its biased officials. They can fuck themselves.
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 6/23/2007 3:21 PM
ReplyDeleteAmen! Amen! Amen!
Anon @ 6/24/2007 10:17 AM
ReplyDeleteWhy all the cussin on a Sunday morning. This is about HBCUs standing up to their intended purpose (or the one that they stated was their purpose)- to effectively educate Black people- despite the indicators that say our population is incapable of successfully completing college. The community colleges are doing a heck of a job all over the country by providing quality remedial courses like reading. The attrition rate among Blacks at majority schools is obviously declining (white schools like Temple, Rutgers, GSU & FSU graduate more blacks than the majority of HBCUs). It's time for us to love ourselves enough to give quality service to our own.
10:17am. R 4 real? Did they give us notice? Of course they did. WE DID NOT COMPLY. So they put us on probation! The response to their inquiries just happened to be released on Friday. If we do not get off probation (in 6 months) we lose accreditation. Those are the breaks. We have been focusing on the wrong things and hoping folks would cut us a break. They should not. What is happening is tragic. We have to get on the ball. Not sure that can happen in 6 months. We have been paying people salaries "that don't work fo us", having issues with fin. aid and spending money on things that didn't benefit FAMU. On top of that we were submitting incomplete, inaccurate and substandard financial reports. What did you think was going to happen? You should look up some FAMU reports of the that have been made to the state. I am not even going to ask that you compare them to other schools, (becasue we are not even close). Unfortunately, I think that the best way to start moving forward toward the great FAMU that we are is by looking at our mistakes, correcting them, and getting back to the business of educating and training bright and talented young people.
ReplyDeleteBytehway, Ammons used to sit on the "all white" SACS committee (and so do many other black college and univ. professionals, that you referred to. Let us get the info right before we start spreading information that is not. It benefits no one.
Will someone help name 5 leaders that were good to FAMU. Everybody gets attacked here, from Humphries to the janitors, so I was wondering who was any good at leading??? I was just wondering...
ReplyDelete10:17---Have you been reading the papers lately? The probationary status that we now find ourselves in is not a surprise. No one has been, as you term it, "blindsided." SACS can do whatever it wishes to do in order to make sure that the public institutions in Florida meet certain fiscal, managerial and academic standards. We should not get mad at the messenger for bring us the news for which we were already aware.
ReplyDelete10:17, you are very, very misinformed. We cannot say, "F SACS." Without a fully accredited university, FAMU loses it ability to secure financial aid for the multitude of students who depend on financial aid to fund their educations at the university. We cannot say that this is "white folk" anything. We must acknowledge our own undoing in this crisis. Only then can we began a rectification of the problems that ail us. To otherwise, well, look no further than the place we now find ourselves. We cannot continue to blame others for our misdeeds. You must inform yourself of the events that have transformed the university. Otherwise, you are are as much at fault as the people you wish to "blame." Read the newspapers. You may actually learn something other than what you see here.
ReplyDeleteAnon 10:17, it doesn't matter one iota if you "don't care" about SACS. These people run the accreditation show, whether you like it or not. It also does not matter if these folk are blue, black, polka dot or striped. What matters is that the uiversity begins the intimate challenge of correcting the deficiencies of the past, present and future, which will allow us to move forward and again be and become the academic powerhouse that we once were.
ReplyDeleteIs that photo the parking lot at the college of engineering or something???/
ReplyDeleteIf you seriously think SACS is run by white folks, read this welcome to SACS by its president, Belle S. Wheelan, a black woman with a Ph.D.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sacscoc.org/president.asp
She spoke at last year's faculty "planning session" (the one where administrators who know little about teaching gave advice to teachers who do).
Its time to stop playing the race card regarding SACS. Every other school in Florida has their fiscal houses in order, its time for FAMU to get its house in order too or Dr. Wetherell at FSU will have found a solution to his "living space" problem with 450 acres of what was once known as FAMU if the problems with accounting arent fixed like yesterday...
ReplyDeleteFAMU will survive the SACS probationary Status. However, please understand that SACS did send to Castell a warning notice that we were slipping into this position but she ignored the warning and did not properly inform the BOT. She responded to SACS by sending them some some shallow letter and ignoring the importance of the warning. Once again CVB put the University in jeopardy of closure. IF FAMU loses it accreditation, it will not only lose financial aid, but all federal funding sources such as NSF, US Dept of Ed funding, USDA land-grant dollars as well as some private sources. In many cases our faculty salaries are paid as well as some student work activities. Federal, State and Private Agencies and organizations will not fund non-accredited Universities and Colleges. The whole institution has been placed in a position of possble closure. We need that re-affirmation from SACS and I am confident we will get it restored. However, we must understand the importance of the stamp of approval from SACS. CVB has utimately committed a crime against the future generations of students.
ReplyDeleteit is also worthwhile noting that on several past occasions (pre-CVB, pre Gainous) FAMU has met or exceeded the requirements necessary to receive the SACS acreditation.
ReplyDeleteFAMU was in free-fall, thanks to CVB, and the SACS probabtion was the end of free-fall -- we've hit the ground. It hurts, but she is gone and we have the talent to pick ourselves up and exceed our past performance. I hope you all saw that the president of SACS is a black woman - we are in good hands IF we stop looking back and start looking forward. We ought to declare the day before Ammons takes over as the last day we dwell on the past. The FUTURE is here, and we're to the challenge!!!
ReplyDeleteYou can't say white folks are running roughshod over our HBCU's. If we are mismanaging funds and ignoring problems that every university faces, action must be taken to protect the students and the integrity of their degrees.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter who grants accreditation, but what we do to maintain and expand it.