Joyner recommended confirming Woody despite his attempt to fire Mangum

Robert Woody has been one of the biggest opponents of FAMU President Elmira Mangum ever since Gov. Rick Scott appointed him to the Board of Trustees (BOT) on March 27, 2015. He gave Mangum a “Does Not Meet Expectations” rating for every question in his individual evaluation of her in July and then moved to terminate her contract “without cause” and with “no confidence” on October 22, 2015. The motion narrowly failed with a 6-6 vote.

A Capital News Service story on October 29 reported that Florida Senate Minority Leader Arthenia Joyner, a FAMU alumna, wanted all the trustees who tried to get rid of Mangum on that day to leave the board.

“State Senator Arthenia Joyner is now calling on the trustees who voted to oust Mangum to themselves step down,” the report said.

But Joyner changed course in December and said that she supported Woody staying on the FAMU BOT.

Joyner is a member of the Florida Senate Higher Education Committee that vets appointees to university boards. Woody’s appointment was on the agenda for the November 17, 2015 meeting that took place less than a month after he brought up the motion to fire Mangum. The committee opted to delay action on all the appointments that were before it that day.

“There were some questions on the appointees,” said Chairwoman Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland. “Some of the members had asked to have an opportunity to speak with them before we bring this up so at this point we’re just going to move the confirmation of the appointees to our next committee meeting.”

At the December 1, 2015 committee meeting, Joyner said she had spoken with Woody and planned to vote in favor of recommending his confirmation.

“I had an opportunity to speak with Mr. Robert Woody up for confirmation as trustee of Florida A&M University,” Joyner told the committee. “We had an hour-long conversation and based on that I’m going to vote for him today and thank you for putting this off for a week to give me that opportunity to have that engagement with him.”

The Higher Education Committee voted unanimously to recommend the confirmation of Woody. The full Florida Senate later voted to confirm Woody for a term that ends on January 6, 2020.

View the video of Joyner’s statement about Woody here (beginning at 1:10).