Lawson, Proctor two of the last strong political voices for FAMU in Tallahassee

FAMU has received poor representation from its alumni in the Florida Legislature since 2015. They chose to keep silent as the state of FAMU’s administration went downhill.

Two of the last strong political voices for FAMU in Tallahassee are Alfred “Al” Lawson and William C. “Bill” Proctor, Jr. 

Back in July of 2015, FAMU lost budget authority for the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering (COE) after 28 years. FAMU President Elmira Mangum supported the changes that led to this.

Lawson, a FAMU alumnus and former Florida Senate Minority Leader, told a reporter the next month that he had offered his help to Mangum a number of times but she wasn’t interested in hearing what he had to say.

“I told her I wanted her to be successful,” Lawson said in a quote in the article. “I've been around for a long time, and I could keep her from running into roadblocks. … I was not trying to be hired or anything. I did that on three different occasions, and it did not work out.”

Lawson could have helped Mangum understand that the changes she agreed to for the COE without Board of Trustees approval were harmful if she had been willing to listen.

Proctor, a Leon County Commissioner who graduated from FAMU High School and is a current FAMU political science instructor, was also interviewed for the same article. He commented on Mangum’s poor relationship with the FAMU faculty.

The article reported that “Proctor said, ‘The majority of the people don't like her,’ including the faculty.”

Faculty Senate President and BOT member Bettye A. Grable gave Mangum a “Does Not Meet Expectations” rating for eight of the ten questions in her presidential evaluation in July 2015. She wrote that “the decision to move the [FAMU-FSU College of Engineering’s] budget control to FSU was based on a unilateral approval without the prior approval by the Board of Trustees and other constituents.”

In October of 2015, the alumni lawmakers who did nothing to stop FAMU from losing budget authority at the COE asked for the removal of the FAMU Board of Trustees (BOT) chairman who was asking tough questions about that problem.

Rep. Alan Williams, Sen. Arthenia L. Joyner, Sen. Dwight Bullard, Rep. Mia Jones, Rep. Shevrin Jones, and Rep. Bobby Powell all sent a letter to the FAMU Board of Trustees that said they wanted Rufus Montgomery out of the chairmanship. He had challenged the claim the Mangum administration made that the budget shift was consistent with FAMU BOT actions.

Lawson declined to join in on the calls for Rufus to step down when he was interviewed by the News Service of Florida. He repeated his concerns about the Mangum presidency and said “sometimes things are just not meant to be.”

The next month, Proctor wrote an op-ed in the Tallahassee Democrat about poor leadership by the Mangum administration.

“Using the presidency to orchestrate a personal patronage network is not what FAMU should be,” he wrote. “Favoritism over competence is the order of the day. Intimidation is an age-old tactic of insecure leaders who run totalitarian regimes. The workplace environment is filled with fear, uncertainty and lower morale with Mangum as president.”

Proctor also added that: “Unfortunately, senior staffers hired by Mangum, like their boss, fail to show any flashes of dynamism, communication excellence or leadership savvy. They also appear to be culturally incompetent, inexperienced and otherwise too tone deaf to lead Florida A&M University.”

FAMU needs more alumni politicians like Lawson and Proctor in Tallahassee who aren’t afraid to speak up and tell it like it is.