Just a few years ago on-campus housing was a commodity in high demand with a waiting list of about 900 +/- students. Ohhhhh what a difference a day makes. Today, the Housing Department, even with several dorms closed for renovation, can't meet is mark.To reinforce the eroding demand for on-campus housing, James McMillan, special assistant to the interim president, is enforcing a new rule that requires all scholarship recipients to live on campus. This rule will be enforced beginning spring 2007.
Declining enrollment is affecting the university on many levels
The university is no longer a major competitor when it comes to recruiting National Achievement Scholars, or semifinalists, or merit scholars. We have all but dropped off the radar and have ceded the #1 position in the south and Florida to the UF.
By-the-way, where's the new recruitment plan that was to be unveiled by Provost Austin in March 2006?
And so what?!! A large majority of universities require scholars to live on campus.
ReplyDeleteObviously, you weren't a scholar. Because, if you were you would have gotten the point about how the dorms went from over capacity to well under capacity. So there!
ReplyDeleteSo what? So where the fuck is all of the students. Why is the census down for on-campus housing to the pointthat we can't fill the dormitories to capacity without strong arming mofos with threats of lost scholarships.
ReplyDeleteAll of this changing the rules mid-stream is fucking crazy and speaks to the minds of those in charge. Plain and simple, they don't know what the fuck is going on!
It's a new day at FAMU when students are complaining about the caliber of students admitted and attending classes. Just look for more decisions like these to stymie the bleeding. Castell is killin the patient and its going to be a long, long, painful death before it is all over.
ReplyDeleteA stab here and a cut there.
Removal of the wrong foot, now you have to remove the disease one as well. Patient is now footless and can't walk or run. No transportation for escape.
Tomorrow, she will start plucking teeth one at a time. Patient can't eat. Patient malnourished, but she ain't done yet.
Let's see, in Florida students pay less than 1/4 of the actual cost of the education. The state picks up the other 3/4. So by turning down students, FAMU also forgos the state match.
ReplyDelete"9/21/2006, 1:21pm" You must not have been a scholar yourself, b/c clearly if you were you would know that no institution mandates its scholars stay on campus their entire college career. Most mandate that you live on campus for your first 2 years to sort-of establish a foundation and get used to living away from home. This make students "break" a lease agreement half-way through is absolutely non-sense..by the way I was a National Achievement Scholar, recruited by the great one Fred Hump. The students who are refused funding for the Spring 2007 semster should get together with the Presidential Scholars Asso. and file a lawsuite to make FAMU honor their contractual agreement that they all signed upon recieving their scholarship. What ever happen to the good-ole-day when the SGA would stand-up against this non-sense, protest, pass resolutions of No-Confidence, etc...Enough is Enough!! If the student leaders are not going to step up and be leader then they should resign or be impeached!
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell. Just 4 years ago when I was at FAMU, you had to suck somebody's dick to get a dorm bed. Don't get me started on how you could get Phase III.
ReplyDeleteNow with two dorms closed we can't fill up the spaces??? So much so that we are going to force scholars to live oncampus (regardless of classification) during what is normally the MIDDLE of their standard one-year leasing contracts. If FAMU is going to force people to break their leases, then FAMU is ethically obligated to pay whatever lease breaking fee.
It's gotten that bad yah. Damn damn damn.
By-the-way, where's the new recruitment plan that was to be unveiled by Provost Austin in March 2006?
ReplyDeleteSome place buried just like everything else. Don't worry, they'll pull it out soon enough and have a press conference or editorial about how successful it is, while faculty members are being assualted verbally across campus by students who leave much to be desired let alone with even less to teach with.
I can see June and Debbie at the mic.
I do not understand why they need to make student break leases when the housing department is constantly turning students down for housing saying only one student moved out or graduated o they do not have housing for the students who want to live on campus. Somebody is lying around here but that is nothing new this is like having a cup of coffee in the morning.
ReplyDeleteHELLO! Where is Phillip Agnew and Gillum on this muck-up? As the student leaders and representitive on the BOT they are the voice for the students. What are they doing?
ReplyDeleteA signed lease, I am sorry it cannot be broken without a penalty. How am I going to pay for an apartment spring semester and move on campus and pay there as well?
All of the furnishings my family chipped in to make my apartment cozy cannot be relocated to campus. My roommates are fuming because I pay a portion of the lease and they now have to find a new roommate in the middle of the semester. I am so stressed I can't think about anything but this, let alone my science courses.
I am really thinking about transferring. The whole scholarship process has been to stressful. Stressful getting it, stressful get the administration to pay the bill on time, it's just everything is a struggle here. I am sorry, but the alumnus that shared his scholarship experience with me and pretty much influenced me to come here must have been at another university, because nothing he bragged on is happening to me. I feel like I am in the twilight zone.
This is all so depressing. Can someone do something to help us out?
Lord, have mercy. All of this news is just so stressful to everyone, including faculty members, of which I am one. I have been at FAMU for 14 years, and believe me, the administration treats the faculty horribly, horribly, horribly. No respect whatsoever. Look at how shabbily the SBI 8 were treated. Almost every faculty member in each division and school at the university has a horror story to tell. No one listens to us, no one gives us an iota of respect. Don't think that it's just the students that are treated so horrendously. We get treated horribly as well. The only thing that keeps the majority of us there at the university is the fact that we love the students and we love what we do. But I tell ya, CVB & Co. make our jobs very, very difficult, and they make coming to work the most difficult decision of our day. Believe me when I tell you: You are not alone.
ReplyDeleteThere was never a recruitment "plan" by the provost, just talk of a plan to keep the naysayers and wolves from the door. Talking about a plan is not a plan. The provost, who has never been at the helm of a four-year institution--only community college experience--doesn't know jack about what she's doing. Has never published an article in a refereed publication or anything. How can you be provost at ANY university and have never, ever published an article in a peer-review, refereed journal. That's one of the first thing that's expected at an institution of higher learning. Well, the interim president hasn't done that sort of thing either--had an article published--so, I suspect the provost is following the lead of the interim. The blind leading the blind: both of these poeple have only community college experience. Same as Fred Gainous. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteFAMU had the best recruitment plan in the nation. TIME Magazine said so and the enrollment and caliber of students enrolled confirmed it.
ReplyDeleteWe don't need Debra or any of these so-called administrators to create another thing, unless it's their exit strategy to get the hell out of FAMU.
Actually, the lives of FAMUans would be better if they ALL never had to go out into the city and slave for rent money. All of my classmates who lived ON campus for the duration, at least for two years, graduated. Bowdoin College is a great model for housing. Of course, the facilities and accomodations must be up to par. I'm not proposing the dorm life forever, but mixed purpose is definitely the answer. You got all your life to pay bills and the LAST thing that we should be teaching young people and their families is that: paying rent is useful. Its actually a destructive mentality and cycle. There SHOULD be MORE of a FAMUan community of homeowners surrounding the campus and surrounding areas.This idea that these large"off-campus privatized dorms" has taken over Tallahassee and has not left the community nor more directly FAMUans better off at all. Outta sight, outta mind. That goes both ways. Otherwise, I know of students who were under the impression that there was no room available on campus. What should have been done to help all involved is to contact your students and find out if any are looking for housing still. Maybe paying to get out of a bad or unnecessary lease. We need a real sensitive , RESOURCEFUL, (non-contract slinging lol)solution-oriented administration. And what is the hold-up with the progress with YOUNG and SAMPSON HALLS?! That was SUPPOSED to be DONE before Gainous was out. But BRAGG MEMEORIAL was to get work done starting the day after(that sunday of campus clean-up and closing events) the football game so we were told. I didn't think that would happen because I didn't see any set-up for that to start. And since I'm on projects, big and small. What happened to the start date of the Lab School? The Multi-purpose center? And can we call it something more purposeful. Multi-purpose sounds like a Walker-Ford project or something. Is it too late to change a few things like, add MULTIPLE LEVELS of PARKING under the center, how about transportation docks for Star-metro or school busses. Since we're probably going to invite the masses. And while we're at it, why not have a capital campaign to add about ten thousand or more seats. If you tell people what they're paying for(provided that you're the show and prove type administration), they will likely throw a few more eagles in the collection tray. Even students, I'm sure. And BRAGG MEMORIAL should get parking to encircle the stadium and that way people can park in certain areas and on certain levels(according to tickets), and walk directly to their vehicles. Yes, that would require adding ticket gates elsewhere. Just don't hire the rent-a-cops. they seem to think that it's ok to attack students! It can be done. Additional seating for expansion could be put atop the parking to up the number of seats and raise the bar for the better. I'm sure that there should be a garage accross from the Perry-Paige building even. Pharmacy should get the building that they were promised, immediately. This campus can really be awesome. I think that it should extend from Lake bradford road to Monroe. The sbdc corridor should be along Adams street. As a designated area of commerce. You see the city went scrambling for that area. From Orange Avenue or further south to Gaines street. It should have a patrnership with Disney and whoever else to manicure this campus to the point of almost an aboretum. We have a landscape design graduate degree program! Look at Vanderbilt, and they house everyone. Look at UVA www.virginia.edu, grduation rate is 86% for our people there. Look at Bowdoin www.bowdoin.edu(pronounced bowden), who's student life is amazing (so is the food) stop looking at THE WRONG sexamples as "MODELS" for a thriving FAMU! FSU, I'd never compare the two. What we need to do is burn these leeches off of us asap.
ReplyDelete