BOT shouldn’t give Mangum its trust as long as she refuses to answer questions about alleged Cassidy call

big rattler
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Back during a discussion with the FAMU Board of Trustees on August 5, President Elmira Mangum was uncooperative when she was asked for a “yes or no” answer to a question about an alleged phone call that the chairman said he received from a vice-president in her administration.

At the Special Committee on Governance meeting held on that day, Chairman Rufus Montgomery said that a senior member of the FAMU administrative team had called him and asked him if he would be willing to have the committee end its discussions on two topics it was considering. According to him, those topics were the possibility of having the FAMU general counsel report to the Board of Trustees in addition to the president and clarifying the options that are available to the board for employing outside counsel.

The chairman said the administrator told him that in exchange, Vice-President for Legal Affairs and General Counsel Avery McKnight could be replaced with a new potential general counsel.

“I was told in exchange for replacing Attorney McKnight, we would drop this whole thing,” Rufus said.

The chairman later said that the caller was Dale Cassidy, vice-president for finance and administration. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, “Montgomery also said he’d been given the name of a possible replacement and that he was told the call came at the request of Mangum.”

Mangum gave a set of vague responses when Vice-Chairman Kelvin Lawson asked her if she had any knowledge about that alleged call. When the chairman asked her for a “yes or no” answer to that question, she refused to give one.

The FAMU Board of Trustees shouldn’t give Mangum its trust as long as she declines to give a “yes or no” answer to that question. Members of the board have a duty to do everything they can to ensure the integrity of the administrative operations at FAMU. If Mangum is unwilling to be straightforward with them, then that means she shouldn’t receive the benefit-of-the-doubt when she gives them her word during future discussions.

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