FAMU NAA Executive Board says Gardner and Hill’s “terminations are ill-timed, disruptive”

On Tuesday, the FAMU National Alumni Association (NAA) told the President Elmira Mangum that the decision to layoff two employees in the Office of Alumni Affairs (OAA) was “an unwarranted setback for Florida A&M University’s greatest arm of support.”

NAA President Tommy Mitchell, writing on behalf of the NAA Executive Board said the two former employees were “Ms. Regina Gardner, assistant director of accounting, and Mr. Brandon Hill, coordinator, alumni engagement and membership services.”

Mitchell said that Gardner and Hill carried out “duties that are crucial to the FAMU NAA accomplishing its mission and goals for this academic year with success.”

The NAA president explained that “Gardner processes all of the checks that the NAA delivers to the university in order to ensure that they are documented properly with the university foundation. She manages the financial aspects of NAA chapter events developed in conjunction with the OAA.” According to Mitchell, “Hill is responsible for receiving all of the NAA memberships and plays a critical role in the NAA election process, which now has reached a critical phase of the election timeline.”

“For these reasons, we must express emphatically that these terminations are ill-timed, disruptive and cause and unwarranted setback for Florida A&M University’s greatest arm of support,” Mitchell wrote. 

Mitchell asked Mangum to reinstate the two employees to their positions and permit them complete their contracts through June 30, 2016. He also asked Mangum to provide the NAA “with documentation that justifies the rationale to terminate the persons in these positions as well as the plans for hiring new personnel.”

Mitchell requested a response from Mangum by Friday, September 18.

Read the full NAA Executive Board letter to Mangum here.