FAMU hosts over 3,000 high school students for Spring Preview

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FAMU welcomed more than 3,080 high school students, and parents from, around the country on Campus, Saturday its annual Spring Preview recruitment event.

Prospective students met with faculty and staff and with the schools, colleges, and programs of their to learn what FAMU had to offer.   Workshops provided information about admissions requirements, financial aid, and housing.

“We are ecstatic to host the Preview again. It is an exciting time for prospective students to visit campus, meet faculty and staff, and visit the facilities,” said William Hudson, VP of Student Affairs.  “An added bonus is the renowned ‘Be Out Day’ where current students can mingle with potential students. This is the ultimate representation of the FAMUly experience as alumni are also intimately involved.”

Rattler baseball team hammers AAMU

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The FAMU baseball team took two games from SWAC foe Alabama A&M  Friday and Saturday at Moore-Kittles Field in Tallahassee to improve to 11-12 on the season (5-0 SWAC). The Rattlers hammered the Bulldogs 16-0 on Friday and  13-3 on Saturday.  

On Sunday, the Rattlers completed the sweep over AAMU by beating the Bulldogs 16-8.  

Tennis team stays perfect in SWAC

The FAMU tennis traveled to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and beat the Southern Jaguars 4-0 to improve their record to 7-9 overall and 7-0 SWAC. 

The Rattlers' Sunday match against Prairie View A&M was  postponed for the second time this season due to weather.  FAMU will return to Tallahassee to host Mercer on Wednesday, Mar. 29, at 2 p.m. Eastern.

FAMU expects to spend $275,000 to move the Marching 100 during the 2023 football season

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The Marching 100’s projected travel expenses for the 2023 football season would cost the university $275,000, according Board of Trustee documents.  The projected costs include $100,000 for the band to travel to Tampa with two nights lodging and meals when the Rattlers take on USF. The game contract with USF only provides $50,000 for the bands' travel.

FAMU is budgeting $175,0000 for the band to travel to Baton Rouge, LA, on October 7, when the Rattlers take on Southern University.
 
The bands travel expenses to travel to Miami for the Orange Blossom Classic, and to Orlando for the Florida Classic are fully covered in the game contracts.
 
Looking ahead
FAMU will take on the Miami Hurricanes at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, on Sept. 7, 2024 and then again two seasons later on Sept. 12, 2026. FAMU will receive guarantees of $700,000 for the 2024 contest and $740,000 for the 2026 contest, according to a copy of the contract obtained by fbschedules.com
 
That contract states that IF the Marching100 band makes the trip to Miami Gardens, they will be paid an additional $40,000 in each year. 
 
In 2025, the Rattlers are scheduled to travel to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Fla., to take on the Florida Gators on Oct. 11, 2025. The Gators will pay the Rattlers a $500,000 guarantee for the game.  No mention of the band in that contract.

Leading scorers for men's and women's basketball teams enter transfer portal

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With March Madness well under way, both the leading scorers for the FAMU men’s and women’s basketball teams have entered the transfer portal.   Late last week Jordan Tillmon, a junior guard, who averaged 10.6 pts per game, announced via twitter that he was entering the transfer portal.  Then yesterday, Dylan Horton a senior guard for the Lady Rattlers who averaged 15.8 per game, announced that she would also be entering the portal as a graduate student with one year of eligibility left.  

Tillmon joined the Rattlers just last season after playing for Connors State (Jr) College. While Horton played two years for the Rattlers after transferring from the University of Virginia.   

Horton was the SWAC’s fourth best scorer.

The Rattler men finished the season with a disappointing 7-22 (5-13 SWAC) record, its worst record in six years, 11^th in the conference.  The women finished with a 6-23 record, (4-14 SWAC).  Both teams failed to qualify for the SWAC tournament this year.  

FAMU cheerleader goes viral

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FAMU cheerleader Nailah Clarington is going viral for her off the court antics at a recent basketball game.  Clarington was mic’d up during a recent basketball game giving opposing teams a large helping of trash talk.

Clips of the cheerleader are now making their way around social media, leading many basketball fans to post their responses.

The FAMU mens' basketball team struggled on the court this year, winning just seven of their 29 games. The Rattlers finished the season at 5-13 in conference play, ending the campaign at 10th in the 12-team SWAC standings.

 

Those struggles didn’t stop senior cheer captain Clarington from talking trash on the sideline.

The FAMU cheerleader gave viewers a show during a recent Rattlers outing, providing top notch content throughout her mic’d up session. The footage has since been posted to ESPN’s TikTok page with the caption, “She didn’t hold back,” causing many to react.

Many quickly posted their responses to the clip in the comments section. They can’t seem to get enough of the FAMU cheerleader.

One person wrote, “I’m going to need just an hour of her mic’d up. I love it!” Another person said, “You can tell she’s someone’s little sister…always instigating!”

Someone else hilariously commented, “She worked the ref and then started cooking the players.” No one was safe.

This is far from the first time we’ve seen a college basketball cheerleader make headlines. Earlier in the year, we saw one squad member attempt to distract opposing players during free throw shots.  

This was certainly one of the more entertaining cheerleader moments this season.

FL HB 999: ‘State-Mandated Censorship’

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Faculty members in Florida are worried that their departments and academic freedom are at risk after lawmakers in the state proposed banning majors and minors in “Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, or Intersectionality, or any derivative major or minor of these belief systems.”

House Bill 999, a 23-page piece of legislation before Florida’s state legislature, follows the lead of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, in targeting what’s taught in higher education and how academe operates. If passed, the bill would prohibit public colleges from funding any projects that “espouse diversity, equity, and inclusion or Critical Race Theory rhetoric.” It would also give boards of trustees unprecedented power over faculty hiring, tenure review, and rewriting university mission statements; ban general-education courses that teach “identity politics” or define American history “as contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence”; and ban academic programs in gender studies, critical race theory, and intersectionality.

Although there aren’t many majors or minors that go by those names, many academic disciplines discuss those topics in the classroom. Faculty members across disciplines are worried their programs could be targeted as well.

Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, said HB 999 is a violation of academic freedom, which she says requires faculty to have control over curriculums, regulated through peer review. “The profession has been self-regulating in this way for decades and has resulted in a system of higher education that’s the envy of the world.” 

Mulvey said academic freedom is important to uphold democracy and that HB 999 presents a threat to both.

“It is state-mandated censorship,” Mulvey said. “Under HB 999, the state is dictating what can be taught and what can be learned and what must not be taught. This is positively incompatible with democracy. It’s a complete violation of academic freedom. People should recognize how dangerous this is.”

2018 FAMU grad becomes the first Black woman to study at Vanderbilt's Department of Neurological Surgery

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Tamia Potter

Tamia Potter, a 2018 FAMU graduate, with a bachelors in Chemistry, this week was selected to become the first African American female neurosurgery resident to train at the Vanderbilt University College of Medicine, Department of Neurological Surgery in its 148 year history.

After graduating from FAMU, Potter received a full tuition scholarship to study at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine.  At CWRU, Potter had 17 research publications, 12 citations, and 262 reads, including: Percutaneous vertebral augmentation for acute traumatic vertebral fractures.

 
Potter says her first job was as a certified nursing assistant at 17 years old in 2014.  She received this latest bit of good news on March 17, "National Match Day", when thousands of graduating medical students learned where they will be training for residency for the next several years.  

While at FAMU, Potter was an initiate of the Beta Alpha Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.