Alumni hold most seats on Morgan board, only 2 alumni in appointed seats on FAMU board

L-R: Kweisi Mfume, Frances Draper, Larry Ellis, Charles Griffin, Tracey Parker-Warren, 

Shelonda Stokes, Marquis Walker, and Winston Wilkinson

Morgan State is a public historically black university and is classified with the “R3: Doctoral Universities – Moderate research activity” schools in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Alumni also hold most of the seats on the university’s Board of Regents (BOR).

The alumni members of the Morgan State BOR are Kweisi Mfume (Chair), Frances Draper (Vice-Chair), Larry Ellis, Charles Griffin, Tracey Parker-Warren, Shelonda Stokes, Marquis Walker, and Winston Wilkinson.

There are a total of 15 appointed trustees on the Morgan State BOR. They are appointed by the governor of Maryland and serve six-year terms. The governor also appoints a student regent for a one-year term.  

Florida A&M went from having six of the 11 appointed seats on its Board of Trustees (BOT) filled by alumni in 2015 to now only two. At both the University of Florida and Florida State University, alumni hold the majority of the 11 appointed seats.

For state university BOTs in Florida, the governor appoints six members and the Florida Board of Governors (BOG) appoints five. The SGA president and Faculty Senate president serve as ex-officio members.

The FAMU National Alumni Association has spoken out publicly about the problem. But so far Gov. Rick Scott and the BOG haven’t announced any intention to correct it.

No candidate in Florida gubernatorial race at this time has publicly promised to work to restore the alumni majority on the FAMU BOT, if elected.