Rattlers remain divided over decision to reopen band director search

Back when he was a college student, Shelby Chipman dedicated himself to carrying the torch of legendary Marching 100 Director William P. Foster. He highstepped in the band as a Rattler student and then went on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees, as Foster did.

For ten years, he led the Miami Central Rocket Marching Band and modeled its drills on Foster’s examples. He then returned to FAMU as a music professor and worked his way up to become the second-in-command behind Marching 100 Director Julian White, the man who had succeeded Foster.

So when FAMU’s interim administration turned Chipman down for the band directorship this year and opted to reopen the search, many Rattlers were outraged.

FAMU alumnus and former state senator Alfred “Al” Lawson directed very strong criticism against Interim President Larry Robinson. He suggested that the interim administration might be bending to outside pressures that are suspicious of Chipman simply because he was on the Marching 100's staff when the hazing death of band member Robert Champion took place in 2011.

“You should not let the politics of the band situation prevent a person of his caliber from getting the job,” Lawson told reporter Tampa Bay Times reporter Tia Mitchell.

But former FAMU President Frederick S. Humphries disagrees with Lawson. He thinks that Robinson made the right decision when he chose to reopen the search.

Humphries spoke about the Marching 100 director search during a national telephone conference with FAMU alumni on February 6.

“The band director has to come from outside of the university and that person has to be squeaky clean in terms of their operation in a band configuration,” Humphries said.

Student safety in the Marching 100 was one of the concerns that led the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to place FAMU on a one-year probation back in December, 2012.

According to The FAMUan, Humphries explained that “it would be impossible for the school to show [SACS] that it is working in honesty if a Marching 100 staff member is chosen as the new director of marching and pep bands.”

Humphries knows the written rules and unstated rules of SACS from decades of experience. He led Tennessee State University through a successful SACS reaffirmation process and achieved reaffirmation of FAMU’s SACS accreditation twice.

If FAMU loses its accreditation, it will become ineligible for all the grant and student financial aid programs run by the federal government. Alumni who graduate after the accreditation is revoked would be ineligible for jobs or graduate schools that require a degree from an accredited baccalaureate program.