Back when Chancellor Adam Herbert refused to support Sandy D’Alemberte’s bid for a medical school, Florida State University supporters didn’t tell their president to do a better job of getting along with him. They rallied behind legislation that axed Herbert’s job and authorized a medical school in spite of him.FAMU President James H. Ammons’ decision to push for a College of Dental Medicine has left him on bad terms with Chancellor Frank Brogan and the Florida Board of Governors (BOG). Even though the FAMU Board of Trustees voted unanimously to approve Ammons' dental school proposal, the results of the presidential evaluation show that some trustees are getting cold feet. An anonymous group of trustees has a problem with the fact that the chancellor, who is one of the biggest adversaries of the dental school, clearly isn't a fan of Ammons.
In Ammons’ 2010-2011 evaluation, his lowest score came for his relationship with the State University System of Florida (SUS) chancellor and BOG. The evaluation results were split, overall. According to the Associated Press, consultant Edward Penson “told trustees he had never seen such variation in any other collegiate job review he's worked on.”
If Ammons continues to stand behind proposals like the FAMU dental school, he has no chance of getting along with Brogan. The trustees who want Ammons to be liked by the chancellor do not want FAMU to have a president who was as strong as D’Alemberte.
In 2007, D’Alemberte recalled how Herbert did not appreciate his request for a FSU College of Medicine.
“We made a presentation to the Board of Regents [BOR],” D’Alemberte said. “The chancellor did not support us.”
He also remembered how it was clear that the BOR had already made up its mind to vote down the proposal before he even submitted his project feasibility report.
“I’m convinced that the people on the Board of Regents staff who were responsible in the area decided early on they did not want to see another medical school, and that they never really studied the documents,” D’Alemberte said. “I think they decided there were so many needs of higher education in Florida. Medical education already eats up so much of the available resources. We don’t want more medical schools because of that.”
Brogan and the BOG also used the Florida budget to question the need for a FAMU Dental School. But Florida’s tough budget did not stop them from approving a new College of Pharmacy for the University of South Florida in 2008 or a new College of Medicine for Florida Atlantic University in 2010.
FSU supporters fought back against Herbert by backing bills in the Florida Legislature that abolished the BOR and established a FSU medical school through law. The campaign was led by then-Fla. House Speaker and FSU alumnus John Thrasher. They all understood that universities don’t get anywhere letting a statewide governing board push them around.
Any trustee who does not want Ammons to fight BOG opposition to a FAMU dental school as hard as D’Alemberte fought BOR opposition to a FSU medical needs to resign and stay the hell out of the university.