While most Florida A&M University football fans prepared to cheer for their team during Saturday's game at Legion Field, university representatives spent the morning in pursuit of some Birmingham-area high schoolers.About 150 people including students, parents, school counselors and teachers attended FAMU's 2007 Recruitment Fair at the Harbert Center which offered information on the historically black university and its programs. The fair featured brief speeches by university President James Ammons, student leaders and alumni and a performance by The FAMU Connection, a traveling student theatrical troupe that tells about the university's history through song and dance.
The university, which was founded in 1887, has 14 schools and colleges offering baccalaureate degrees in 63 disciplines, master's degrees in 36 disciplines, 11 Ph.D. programs, two professional degrees as well as a College of Law.
"We want you to join us and continue this legacy of African-Americans making a difference in this world," Ammons told the students. "When you come with us and when you finish up, the biggest problem that you're going to have is which offer you're going to accept."
Ammons said the school hosts the fairs in cities the school visits for events such as football games. The Rattlers played the Southern University Jaguars at Legion Field on Saturday afternoon.
"It's important for us to send a message to the cities where we are that this university has strong academic programs," Ammons said.
The university awarded 26 scholarships during the recruitment fair, including six "Life-Gets-Better Scholarship" awards. Each Life-Gets-Better scholar can receive four years' tuition and fees at the in-Florida state rate, room, board, books, $500-per-semester stipends, internships and laptops.
Read more: FAMU courts students
The St. Pete Times should use stories like these to paint a balanced picture of what's going on at FAMU instead of always rushing towards anything and everything negative.
ReplyDeleteHear that Ron Matus?
The Tallahassee Democrat has posted a very informative interview with Dr. Ammons on tdo.com. In it, Dr. Ammons has listed some very revealing figures about FAMU's financial impact on the Tallahassee community:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070905/BREAKINGNEWS/709050336
-FAMU student living expenses generate $224M for the city.
-FAMU athletic events bring in $18M, annually.
-FAMU's annual payroll is $150M (with most of course, going towards living expenses for Tallahassee-based employees).
-FAMU has over 3700 employees.
Clearly, FAMU is a giant economic force in Tallahassee that deserves the entire community's respect.
The FAMU Connection just gets better and better every year. The performing arts students in the Connection dance and sing like professionals. And they, ALWAYS, bring down the house at recruitment fairs.
ReplyDeleteIt feels good to see that FAMU has another true Rattler in the president's seat who's doing everything he can to promote and build the university.
ReplyDeleteThis is a refreshing 180 degree turn from what we saw during the last 2.5 years with a temporary leader who was trying to make the institution look bad and dismantle over 100 years of progress.
we're kicking ass and taking names now. JA Rule is in the house
ReplyDeleteWow! RattlerNation is back. Welcome! And what a way to start off.......with a great piece on recruitment. Congrats!!!!!
ReplyDeleteGood to see Rattler Nation back up and running!!
ReplyDeleteI heard there wasn't any money for this scholarship. Can someone please verify as to how we are going to pay for this. Honeywell pulled out of this program years ago and they funded the scholarship. Welcome back!
ReplyDeleteAlso heard some good news about the upward bound program. See news release below.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, September 6, 2007
MARTINEZ ANNOUNCES $273,348 FOR FLORIDA A&M UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) today announced $273,348 in grants awarded to Florida A&M University (FAMU) in Tallahassee. This funding is made available through the U.S. Department of Education’s Upward Bound Math and Science program for educational programs that lead to careers in the fields of math and science.
“These investments will help encourage and train our young people for careers in math and science,” said Martinez. “The future of our nation depends on these kinds of critical investments that ensure we remain competitive in the global economy.”
The Upward Bound Math and Science programs provide summer intensive math and science training, year-round counseling and advisement, contact with mathematics and science research faculty members, computer training, and mentor-guided / participant-conducted scientific research.
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8:2O, all of this information was in CVB's economic impact study. Know she is hated but she at least let the dixiecrat know that FAMU means a lot to the state. Ammons used all of the information from the study for this article.
ReplyDeleteHoneywell wasn't the the only company funding Life Gets Better Scholarships.
ReplyDeleteSeveral other companies also funded scholarships.
Ammons says he's only paying the "in-state" rate. Maybe Alumni contributions are funding these LGB scholarships, until we get companies to come back?
We hope so. I heard we really mistreated recipients because we didn't have money to pay what Humph promised. Has Ammons laid out a plan/budget on this issue or is each school responsible for the LGB student in their program? Is this for SBI students only?
ReplyDeleteYou probably heard that from that lying witch Cast-hell !!!!
ReplyDeleteNo not from the president, but a former dean who didn't like the way her money was being mishandled.
ReplyDeleteIMO, this was one of the most important things that needed to be revived. Effective recruitment of quality students is KEY to keeping FAMU a competitive institution, and I'm elated to see that Dr. Ammons is making this a priority.
ReplyDeleteThat's right. Bringing in more high-achieving students raises FAMU's retention and graduation rates.
ReplyDeleteIf I can put in my three cents here: Since RN is back (and with a vengeance, I hope), let us all try and keep our comments clean and dandy. Only if it's absolutely necessary, should we bring up CVB's name. She's gone and hopefully, forgotten. We know that she did a lot of damage while while she was at the university, but she's not here now. Let us move forward and let us not sully our RN comeback with the likes of her misdeeds. I know we are all reeling from the damage, but a new administration is on board now, and we must move forward, in our comments as well as in our deeds. Let us not give CVB the pleasure of knowing that we are even thinking about her tired you-know-what. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI disagree about "just forgetting CVB." She has become an icon for the worst anti-FAMU elements in Florida, such as the St. Pete Times and Board of Governors chairwoman Carolyn Roberts.
ReplyDeleteCastell was the black mouthpiece who publicly said what many anti-FAMU whites were afraid to say directly. She was the first FAMU president to ever state the university was corrupt, dysfunctional, and unworthy of being a research institution.
In the future, we should expect to see Castell being quote on more FAMU articles and being appointed to Board of Governors special committees on FAMU.
Additionally, there are rumors out there that Castell is lobbying hard to get the newly renovated Student Commons named after her.
FAMUans cannot have short memories and permit Castell to ever launch a come-back or become memorialized on our campus. Every generation of FAMU students should be educated about the fact that she was a complete traitor. If we don't then, anti-FAMU people will try and re-write history to say that Castell "wasn't that bad."
As a former LGB scholar I am so excited to hear this news! I thought I was the last of a dying breed.
ReplyDelete