The following excerpt from Mangum’s interview comes from an
Orlando Sentinel story that ran today (September 16, 2014). Rattler Nation has
inserted some of the comments that the Orlando Sentinel edited out in bold. The full interview is available on the Orlando Sentinel’s YouTube channel.
Q: In 2012, the Sentinel found thousands of students enter
FAMU despite being ill-equipped for college rigor. How are you addressing this?
A: [As] part of the response to the declining enrollment and
the economic changes, the university admitted additional students who did not meet
the initial criteria that we had established for admission as an opportunity;
we call them access and opportunity scholars. I know in Florida, some people
call them profile admits. That’s not friendly to me. So I like to call them access and opportunity [scholars]. What we are doing is taking a bet on
students who may or may not meet certain criteria with regard to admission and
taking a bet that they will succeed. What we’re doing different now is
providing the support for those students in our learning environment by
creating additional counseling sessions and having the assessment tools
available to determine if they would be successful in certain courses. So we
are basically increasing our learning support and retention activities through
advising, “intrusive advising” as we say, where if faculty members find
a student in their class who’s not quite prepared for a course they refer them to
the advising center or the counseling or study center to get the support they
need.
Below is a follow-up question-and-answer that did not make
it into the Orlando Sentinel’s published story.
Q: So are you saying prior to your tenure there that these
remedial wrap-around programs didn’t exist for these profile admits? And I
know that’s not your term.
A: They did have programs but they were not as intensive as
they are now.
Mangum also explained that due to performance funding rules
set by the Florida Board of Governors, there are new limits on the enrollment of
students who do not meet the standard admissions requirements. These students may now only make up about 25 percent of the total in each incoming
class.
Rattler Nation addressed the 2012 Orlando Sentinel article
that the editorial board referenced in its interview with Mangum in a July 23, 2012 report entitled “FAMU's grad rate neck-and-neck with FAU and FIU's despite its profile admit rate.”
Below are some excerpts:
The Orlando Sentinel, following the lead of the Florida Board of Governors, is dedicating lots of attention to FAMU's six-year graduation rate, which was 39 percent in 2010-2011. Its attempts to link this to so-called “unprepared” students doesn't add up when the six-year graduation rate at FAMU is compared to that of Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and Florida International University (FIU).
FAU and FIU's six-year graduation rates were both 41 percent in 2010-2011. Those two universities barely graduate more students than FAMU in six years despite the fact that they only admit a very small number of students who don't meet the State University System of Florida's (SUS) standard admissions requirements.
NOTE: According to the latest data in the State University System of Florida Fact Books, FAMU and FAU's six-year graduation rates were both 41 percent for the 2012-2013 academic year.If profile admits were really the biggest factor preventing FAMU from having a higher six-year graduation rate, then its current six-year graduation rate wouldn't be anywhere close to that of FAU and FIU, two universities that take in very few profile admits.