Alumni lawmakers silent as Tripp co-leads BOG selection process for 3 FAMU BOT seats

The FAMU alumni in the Florida Legislature are continuing to give the Florida Board of Governors (BOG) a pass on its treatment of their alma mater. They are currently remaining silent as Norman Tripp, one of the last individuals who should have anything to do with choosing leaders for FAMU, is serving on the BOG subcommittee that vets candidates for the FAMU Board of Trustees (BOT).

Tripp is one of the two members of the FAMU Subcommittee of the BOG Nomination and Governance Committee. The other is Mori Hosseini. They have been reviewing applications and nominations for three vacancies on the FAMU BOT now that Spurgeon McWilliams has resigned and the terms of Cleve Warren and Karl White have expired.

The three FAMU BOT vacancies are on the agenda for the BOG meeting that will take place today and tomorrow at Florida State University.

Tripp has been one of the biggest voices of criticism against FAMU’s six-year graduation rate even though his record at Florida Atlantic University shows he isn’t the least bit qualified to do so. He blasted President James H. Ammons for FAMU’s 39.3 percent six-year graduation rate in 2012 and did the same to President Elmira Mangum for FAMU’s 39.03 percent six-year graduation rate in 2015. But during the six years Tripp was on the FAU Board of Trustees, that university’s six-year graduation never rose above 39.8 percent.

FAMU’s alumni lawmakers still haven’t taken him to task for this.

Back at a September BOG meeting, Tripp lectured Mangum with the statement that: “We don’t have separate but equal anymore.” He then went on to tell Mangum and Provost Marcella David: “You two women are very, very bright.”

Former FAMU President Walter Smith and Carolyn Collins, former president of the FAMU National Alumni Association, both immediately denounced the offensive statements that Tripp made. The FAMU alumni in the legislature should have taken the lead in demanding a public apology from Tripp and the BOG, but they still haven’t.

FAMU used to have alumni legislators like Carrie Meek and Al Lawson who spoke out when members of the then-Board of Regents talked down to the FAMU president. But now that FAMU lacks strong alumni like them in the Florida Legislature, the BOG is running over the university.