BOG study set to become another battleground in fight to defend FAMU’s engineering programs

The fight to defend FAMU’s current engineering programs is just beginning.

On Sunday, the Florida Legislature put the brakes on a proposal to break up the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. The Senate and House reached a deal to appropriate $500,000 for the Florida Board of Governors (BOG) to study the issue first. That’s up from an original proposal for a $150,000 study.

According to the budget language, the BOG is to produce "an academic feasibility analysis" that will consider "options relating to separation of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering with the goal of achieving world class engineering education opportunities for students in both universities."

But the rest of directive makes it clear that FAMU must prepare to defend itself against possible recommendations for the reduction of the university’s current engineering programs.

The Senate originally proposed language that read: "The study shall be of indisputable academic integrity and shall examine the pros and cons of: 1. Maintaining the status quo collaboration between the two universities; 2. Establishing an independent College of Engineering at one or each of the universities; or 3. Developing differentiated engineering programs at each university."

According to the Miami Herald, the Senate agreed with a House proposal to delete second option on Monday. That could have resulted in a recommendation that the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering be closed in order to give FSU an independent College of Engineering. The Herald reports that the BOG is still free to consider recommending “differentiated programs at each university, meaning certain majors or degrees would be offered at FAMU and different ones would be available at FSU.”

The House also revised the first option to read: "Maintaining the status quo collaboration between the two universities, including an examination of the original mission."

The current mission statement of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering includes a pledge "to attract and graduate a greater number of minorities and women in professional engineering, engineering teaching and research." FAMU will have to fight to make sure that is not changed if the College of Engineering remains a joint program.

The option of creating "differentiated engineering programs at each university" also presents a big possible problem for FAMU. The BOG could recommend that this take place by dividing up the current shared engineering programs between the two institutions. That could lead to FSU getting most of the Ph.D. programs and FAMU being stuck with just a few undergraduate programs.

Those who doubt that the BOG would seriously weigh that option should look back at the Pappas Plan that was released back in 2007.  The $200,000 report, written by a consulting firm hired by the BOG, called for FAMU and five other public universities to become baccalaureate-only institutions.

The language in the House’s offer states that "the study shall include a cost-benefit analysis of each option analyzed in the context of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, U.S. v. Fordice, 505 U.S. 717 (1992), and other U.S. Supreme Court opinions interpreting those provisions." FAMU and its supporters must also remind the BOG to make sure that the study confirms compliance with the state’s desegregation consent decree with the U.S. Department of Education. Florida agreed to fully fund a FAMU College of Engineering as part of that consent decree.

If FAMU is left with a College of Engineering that is only a shell of the current joint program in Innovation Park, then that could violate the consent decree.