Petition credits Mangum for performance metrics work that happened before she arrived

The change.org petition by  “Rattlers4FAMU Real Rattlers” that asks the FAMU Board of Trustees to grant President Elmira Mangum a contract extension gives her administration credit for all of the university’s improvement in state performance-funding metrics.

“Dr. Mangum has brought stable and strong leadership to FAMU that has led to increases in the unfair BOG performance metrics,” the petition claims.

But most of the “marks of excellence” that FAMU received on the Florida Board of Governors performance-funding metrics were actually based on data or work from the 2013-2014 year.

Interim President Larry 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.