Since her appointment as Interim President Castell Bryant has been using the University's upcoming reaccreditation process as a scare tactic across the university. Bryant has long claimed that the University had not addressed outstanding issues from its last accreditation visit. However, a 1999 letter from SACS indicated no problems. In fact, FAMU got a clean review and was recertified for 10 years.To have total control over the University's reacreditation process, Bryant appointed her longtime friend Vivan "I just got tenure" Hobbs and Joann Houston to lord over the process. Mrs. Hobbs and Houston are both SACS novices. Hobbs and Houston were choosen over FAMU's longtime resident expert Walter Mercer and his team.
Mrs. Bryant's SACS scare was raised again during last week's interviews for FAMU President, when Board Chair Challis Lowe moved to delay the vote for president by suggesting she didn't have enough information on FAMU's last SACS visit in 1999, while Mr. Ammons was Provost. See: Lowe questions SACs
Mr. Ammons, a SACS commissioner, is held in high regard by SACS and has lead over 14 accreditation team visits.
Also see: SACS contradicts Hobbs and Bryant
SACS expert not a part of the team
SACS Mess Part I
Looming SACS mess Part 2
Total Meltdown
that's a damn shame!
ReplyDeleteIs the moving van gassed up, yet?
ReplyDeleteWho is this guy Gabriel Hanway and what is his issue with FAMU?
ReplyDeleteHe's appeared in print before saying things like FAMU should be merged with TCC and there is no enough "diversity" at FAMU. His writing style appears to be the same as the guy "yoyo" who writes a lot of the same nonsense on the TDO "FAMU News & Views" message board.
Is this guy sick and demented? Or, is he just some unemployed reject who has nothing to do but try and get black people angry?
http://www.newsweb1.com/Opinions/letters.html
What's wrong with FAMU-TCC merger?
Hello, and may I ask why are you so opposed to a merger with TCC? Your comments have an undertone of racism to them. TCC being "white”, in your opinion, is not part of the solution?
I do hope one day that FAMU realizes that diversity is the key. FSU, UF, USF, and others are making great strides to increase minority enrollment and retainment.
However, it seems that FAMU and its stakeholders are vehemently opposed to any whiff of diversity as a threat to its very existence. Institutions change with time and FAMU will eventually change with them.
Hope FAMU can right the ship, but with all the infighting it seems a bit hopeless.
Gabriel Hanway
mail@gabrielhanway.com
Neither one of the SACS people that CVB "appointed" to do the reviews knew what the heck they were doing, and should never have sat down at the SACS table pretending that they did. The blind leading the blinded, is what they had going on.
ReplyDeleteRoosevelt Wilson's latest column says it all. See below:
ReplyDeleteAGAINST THE GRAIN
Branker, Lowe, two others must go
Published 2/6/07
By Roosevelt Wilson
Now that the Florida A&M University Board of Trustees has selected the best of nearly 40 applicants to be FAMU's 10th president, it is time for some changes on the board.
Dr. James Ammons, chancellor at North Carolina Central University in Durham, was selected on Feb. 1 by a 7-6 vote over Dr. Thelma Thompson, president of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore at Princess Anne.
But to any fair-minded observer aware of the public actions and statements of four trustees, it is obvious that the closeness of the vote was not a reflection of how difficult it was to choose between Ammons and Thompson. Instead, the votes of trustees Laura Branker, Leerie Jenkins,, Challis Lowe and Jesse Tyson were more anti-Ammons than pro-Thompson.
With that kind of bias against an incoming president, and the disdain in which they are held by all FAMU stakeholder groups, these four trustees should not be members of the FAMU board when the new president arrives. They should resign voluntarily - now.
Here's why:
— Branker has demonstrated that her personal bias against Ammons is to her more important than what is best for the university. Not only was she the only one among the five members of the search committee who did not have Ammons among her top three choices, she also refused to permit a consensus move by the other 12 members of the board to include only Ammons and Thompson on the final ballot before voting for the president.
She said publicly and arrogantly that her top two did not include Ammons but Dr. Howard Johnson instead. Johnson was the third finalist for whom not a single trustee, including Branker, voted.
Then, after the votes had been counted and Ammons declared the winner, Branker refused to go along with a suggestion by fellow trustee and search committee co-chairman the Rev. R.B. Holmes for the board to make the traditional symbolic show of unity by making the vote for Ammons unanimous.
That kind of mean-spirited, vindictive display is inconsistent with what is expected of one whose sole purpose as a trustee is to do what is in the best interest of FAMU.
— Jenkins has no respect for the concerns of FAMU's stakeholder groups, saying during one telephone conference meeting of the search committee that he deleted their e-mails, apparently without reading them, and, according to FAMU alumni in Jacksonville where Jenkins lives, he refused to meet with them to hear their concerns.
These are not the actions of someone who respects the university's stakeholders, has the best interest of FAMU in mind and certainly are not the appropriate actions of someone with the awesome responsibility of making high-quality decisions for FAMU.
— Lowe's blind allegiance has been to her good friend Interim President Castell Bryant and has supported and protected Bryant since Bryant assumed the interim presidency in January 2005.
As the public will learn soon, FAMU is in much worse shape now than it was when Bryant arrived.
In addition, Lowe showed her biased hand early by publicly condemning FAMU stakeholders and other Ammons supporters for exercising their constitutional right to meet and petition their university's governing board. Lowe went so far as to advise trustees via e-mail to disregard such communications which she called attempts to "corrupt" the presidential search process.
Further, after being on the losing side of the Ammons vote, as of mid-day the following day she had not contacted Ammons, who was on a flight back to North Carolina when the vote was taken.
She has lost all credibility among FAMU stakeholders not only as chairwoman but as a trustee as well
Perhaps Tyson, attending only his second board meeting, never should have been nominated for the BOT in the first place. He is totally out of his element.
Members of the audience looked upward, groaned, rolling their eyes in disbelief as Tyson questioned Ammons about the LEVEL of Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation Ammons would seek for FAMU. He has spent his credibility, so his vote against Ammons is viewed by stakeholders as uninformed and misguided.
Trustees like Branker, Jenkins, Lowe and Tyson would not be tolerated on any other board in the system and should not be tolerated on FAMU's board either.
The solution to this problem is to replace the four with people more sensitive to their roles as FAMU trustees and their obligation to respect the constitutional rights of the people to petition their university's government for redress of their grievances.
The new president should not have to come into a situation where a third of the board voted against him simply because they didn't like him, then compounding it by the classless act of refusing to agree to a symbolically unifying unanimous vote after he had won the official majority vote.
Ammons is a class act and is prepared to deal with board members who opposed his selection - with class.
But he shouldn't have to. The best thing for everyone would be for the four to resign voluntarily. If that doesn't happen, Gov. Charlie Crist should replace Tyson, who was appointed by former Gov. Jeb Bush but who has not been confirmed by the Senate. If Crist doesn't replace Tyson, then the thousands of FAMU stakeholders who inundated trustees with e-mails and phone calls will do the same to the Senate in opposition to Tyson's confirmation.
Similarly, although she has been reappointed by the Board of Governors, Lowe also has not been confirmed, and efforts already are underway to have her confirmation denied if she doesn't resign.
Branker, appointed by Bush, and Jenkins, appointed by the Board of Governors, have a year before their terms expire, but both should do the honorable thing and submit their letters of resignation now.
Is this the letter that was handed to Challis is Low during the board meeting that made it possible for the board to vote that day?
ReplyDeleteIt's past time that this smear campaign, that has gone on since the end of the Humphries administration, come to an end.
The facts are the facts, FAMU has taken a nosedive over the last five years. Which way is up?
The new Ammons administration will lead the way. All of you Corbin controlled smearers, here's another box for you to pack.
That is the letter that SACS refaxed to FAMU last week and alums/Trustees gave Lowe. Lowe/Bryant didn't want Trustees to see this letter.
ReplyDelete^^^^^
ReplyDeleteso why did this letter come to light much sooner?
how did the rattlers know to get this letter from SACS?
Keep on telling the truth, Roosevelt Wilson. Make it plain, brother!
ReplyDeleteLies, lies and more lies. Hope Ammons brings a big broom. We need a clean sweep.
ReplyDelete