Most FAMU “excellence” areas for performance-funding came from Robinson administration

FAMU President Elmira Mangum talks often about how the ribbon-cutting for the 3,800 acre federal land transfer in Brooksville, Fla. took place during her second year in office. But she doesn’t talk as much about the fact that the agreement to transfer that property was actually signed by Interim President Larry Robinson and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in 2014.

Last week, the Mangum administration sent out a press release that bragged about FAMU’s improvement in the state performance-funding metrics.

“The improvements shown in our 2014-2015 performance metrics are a reflection of the FAMU community unifying to ensure progression in our student success efforts,” Mangum said in the announcement.

Robinson’s name wasn’t mentioned even though most of the “marks of excellence” FAMU received were based on data or work from the 2013-2014 year.

Robinson was the president for eight of the months of that year. Mangum began on April 1, 2014 with about four months to go before the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2014. Interim Provost Rodner Wright, Interim VP for Research K. Ken Redda, VP for Development Thomas J. Haynes, and VP for Student Affairs William Hudson all stayed on through that date and continued to implement pre-planned initiatives to help FAMU improve on the performance-funding metrics.

The only “excellence” area that was entirely from Mangum’s first full year in 2014-2015 came from “Bachelor’s degrees awarded within programs of strategic emphasis.” That went down by 1.5 percent.

FAMU received marks of excellence in the following categories:

•    Percent of graduates employed full-time or continuing their education [2013-2014]

•    Bachelor’s degrees awarded within programs of strategic emphasis (includes STEM) [Down 1.5 percent in 2014-2015 under Mangum]

•    University access rate (percent of undergraduates with a Pell Grant) [Fall 2014 students recruited in 2013-2014 or retained from that year]

•    Percent of funding from external sources (research and development expenditures) [2013-2014]

FAMU received improvement ratings in the following areas:

•    Median wages of bachelor’s graduates employed full-time in Florida [2013-2014]

•    Academic progress rate (second-year retention with GPA above 2.0)

•    Graduate degrees awarded within programs of strategic emphasis

Read the Florida Board of Governors summary report on the performance-funding metrics results here.