64% of FAMU students are women, but there are no alumni women in BOT’s 11 appointed seats

Source: FAMU Office of Institutional Research

For Fall 2017, 6,428 of the total 9,909 students at Florida A&M University were women. That’s 64 percent. But there are no women who graduated from FAMU in any of the 11 appointed seats on the FAMU Board of Trustees.

Vice-Chair Kimberly Moore and Trustee Nicole Washington are the only two women who have appointed seats on the BOT. They were both selected by the Florida Board of Governors.

Bettye A. Grable was elected to the BOT by a vote of the FAMU Faculty Senate. She is the only woman on the BOT who has a degree from FAMU. Grable earned a M.S. in journalism from FAMU.

None of the five current gubernatorial appointees to the BOT are women. Gov. Rick Scott still has not appointed anyone to the seat that was left vacant when former Trustee Gary McCoy resigned in August, 2017.

The two FAMU alumni who have appointed seats on the BOT are Chair Kelvin Lawson and Trustee Craig Reed.

FAMU went from having six of the 11 appointed seats on its Board of Trustees 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.

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

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