Angry state legislators called for a criminal investigation of Florida A&M University's continuing financial woes today, as the head of the State University System said the survival of the state's historically black university is at stake.In response to a preliminary audit of FAMU operations, which cited widespread accounting discrepancies and unaccounted-for spending, university system Chancellor Mark Rosenberg said the Board of Governors will create a special task force to find out what is wrong. He said he consulted interim FAMU President Castell Bryant and Challis Lowe, who heads the FAMU Board of Trustees, as well as incoming FAMU President James Ammons in setting up the task force.
That was not enough for Sens. Ronda Storms, R-Brandon, and Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, who said FAMU has had auditors and consultants before. They said it's time to turn the books over to the attorney general's office of Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
continue reading: Chancellor to review FAMU finances
I was embarassed as an employee, and more importantly, as an Alumnus of FAMU to hear and see the webcast of the committee meeting. Just to let you know how bad things are, I was approached by a consultant who looked at some of the webcast and said, "Sounds like you all need help".
ReplyDeleteThese legistalators are seriously talking about FDLE coming in here. Forget another $300K to KPMG and all their bullshit smokescreens. This is beyond serious. I don't know who the guy was at the end of the meeting who asked the Chancellor what was worst thing that the Legislature could go is to not fund FAMU, but, you have to believe that these folks are seriously considering it. All praise to God to Al Lawson for going to bat for us (wish there were more like him).
I think while all FAMUans are cringing, Castell has to be off in her office wondering if she can pull off her plan of FAMU's destruction before Dr. Ammons has a chance to really take corrective action. Please get here quick, Dr. Ammons!! Your FAMily needs you!!
Saw Cast-hell and Lizzie McBee at Delta luncheon today for Delta Days at Capitol event and ol' Cassie looks beat down. Not sure if she can take much more. And Lizzie McBee looked a little worn as well. Not even their sorors acknowledged them at an event that was to recognize Deltas who are public servants. Things that make you go hmmmm!
ReplyDeleteMan,
ReplyDeleteThis is so serious. Al Lawson is literally fighting for FAMU by his got damn self. If FAMU shuts down I vote that we deal with Castell the way the white folks use to deal with us back in the day..........A good ole fashion hangin.
Is someone on the committee going to ask for the $85,000 ($35K bonus + $50K raise) Cassie owes FAMU, which was given to her on the premise of the $8,000,000 surplus (especially now that it has been said under oath that it doesn't exist)?
ReplyDeleteAnd forget just looking at the chair of the board; what about the BOT audit committee that verified this supposed surplus and gave her this money? The entire BOT needs to be criminally investigated.
Please take a look at this editorial and the quotes from CASTELL.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sptimes.com/2007/03/18/Opinion/Crony_culture_imperil.shtml
This is a clear indication of what she thinks and the FAMU BOT thinks of Dr. Ammons. This is an outrage and very inappropriate for her to make such comments.
It's just like we have been saying all along that woman is/was no good for the school and now we're looking down the barrel of a "Morris Brown" like closure due to that BITCH Castell.
ReplyDeleteWhere is Godblesscastell now? Who's going to defend the interim president other than the St. Pete Times?
ReplyDeleteGod Bless Castell is still here and praying for all of you evil people who make such awful statements about her attempts to help this school. I pray for each of you, her, Dr. Ammons and FAMU. The language and level of evil rhetoric on this board makes me cringe sometimes....Also, the Good Lord still shines upon Castell, depsite the manner of evil that is being stated aginst her by some of you. You should be ashamed to speak of any woman in such a manner, no matter how much you dislike her personality or politics. She is still God's child, you Pharisees...
ReplyDeleteWith Ronda Storms involved in this, FAMU better get ready. This lady will not stop until every stone is unturned. This could get very very ugly!!
ReplyDeleteThank you Castell and crew
God Bless Castell is still here and praying for all of you evil people who make such awful statements about her attempts to help this school.
ReplyDeleteDo you even understand the meaning of evil?
Was it not evil for Castell to lie to the public about the true state of FAMU's financial health? Was it not evil for Castell and her supporters to try and rig the presidential search process in Thelma Thompson's favor?
If you think those who take Castell to task for harming the university are "evil," then you have a very warped perception of "good."
I don't know who you're praying to, but it sounds as if you worship the devil. You clearly worship the force that came "to steal, kill, and destroy."
It's time for you to put down the Book of Satan, blow out your black candles sitting on top of human skulls, stop listening to the "Best of Marilyn Manson," and get a reality check.
God did not send Castell Bryant to FAMU!
Rattler Nation is in denial if they think Castell is the sole purpose of this mess. It goes beyond Castell and Co. Feast your eyes on this!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sptimes.com/2007/03/18/Opinion/
Crony_culture_imperil.shtml
If the link does not work, go to www.sptimes.com, on the top right corner of the page you can find a past articles box, type famu and start reading
If the ALIMNI does not STRIKE NOW, our words will not be able to save this institution.
ReplyDeleteThe man that wrote the article in the St. Pete Times is a Bethune Graduate. Bill Maxwell needs to "Sweep around his own Bethune's Doors before he try to sweep around Ours (FAMU)". Bill Maxwell need to shut-up and stop echoing from an interview with only Castell. His opinion might have meant something if he had interviewed others that have vital information on the historical facts on the human resources and financial operations of FAMU over the last few years. He needs to report responsible journalism. If he wants to dip in FAMU's business, please review the real facts.
ReplyDeleteFAMU and this message board is full of excuses!
ReplyDeleteWhere did the 1.8 million go.....oh maybe a Bethune graduate took it.
Criminal charges should be brought and the people responsible should be brought to justice.
Excuses, excuses, excuses!
Castell is directly responsible for the decline in enrollment, budget deficits, payroll crisis, and probationary status of Pharmacy.
ReplyDeleteShe cannot blame those problems on previous administrations.
Futhermore, Castell is no one to talk about anyone else hiring cronies. Her staffers like Debra Austin, Altha Manning, Vince June, Rufus Little, and Grace Ali are a big group of incompetent "yes-people."
No one's making any excuses for Castell. She's a horrible administrator and needs to be fired. She and her senior administrators should be arrested and prosecuted.
ReplyDeleteHeaven's really going to have to help when the real story at the Law School is told. Trying to have all the mud stick to Luney failed. They couldn't get him criminally and they don't have a case for civil action. We're about to really step in it now and all the mud's going to follow the paper trail back to Tallahassee. What a mess!
ReplyDelete7:55--ain' nobody listening to that smack you're talking, ok? Whatever is being said about Castell is surely deserved. She must take into account all of the chaos she created since she's been at the helm. While I'm certainly not saying that the woman has committed all of the sins that are now being heaped upon her, she did commit 99.9% of them. And it is that percentage, not the one percent, that has gotten us in this mess. You, 7:55, can go fly a kite, and take ol' Lizzie and Fish-eye Challis along for the ride out of Dodge.
ReplyDeleteI'm not 'studdin' how Castell feels right about now. She wasn't thinking about all the people she came up in there and gave pink slips to with/without adequate notification and treated so doggone nasty. Castell gets no sympathy here. Change the "C.A.S.", substitute the "t" with an "h", and that's where she can go for all I care. If she looked beat-down and or beat-up at the Capitol today, good. She's earned every damn wrinkle and then some.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteGod Bless Castell is still here and praying for all of you evil people who make such awful statements about her attempts to help this school. I pray for each of you, her, Dr. Ammons and FAMU. The language and level of evil rhetoric on this board makes me cringe sometimes....Also, the Good Lord still shines upon Castell, depsite the manner of evil that is being stated aginst her by some of you. You should be ashamed to speak of any woman in such a manner, no matter how much you dislike her personality or politics. She is still God's child, you Pharisees...
GO TO HELL AND TAKE CAST-HELL, CHALIS LOWE, AND JAMES CORBIN WITH YOU.
The alumni need to hurry up and come down here to Tallahassee. Its a complete mess and nobody is trying to fight for the betterment of this university, except for senator Al Lawson, its time for the slumni to mobilize and get ready for a fight. All this chaos going on is really making me feel like transferring away from here before we become Lemoyne Owen, or God help us Morris Brown #2. Theres alot of people that feel the need to talk about this issue, but if nobody's moving, and trying to fight for our great institution then how are things expected to be done. The days that we could slip up and get away with things of this matter are over. The fighters that we once had are gone. Senator Al Lawson can do only so much in his power for us because he is a true fighter for this institution. There are alot of falculty and students that are really concerned and are freightened about the what the future holds for their careers and this university. I'm just saying and this comes from a concerned student, i've grew up watching all the great people from this institution and wishing one day to attend college and be somebody, it hurts me to know a school with over 200,000 alumni are ineffective. Let this would have been the case at one of floridas PWI's and you best beleive their alumi's would be reaking hell, its just a shame, there needs to be an answer, because hope is looking lost
ReplyDeletemisspelled alumni somewhere in there sorry bout that
ReplyDeleteI just want to ask this, how possible would it be for FAMU to just go private and get away from the state having a say so in our business? And what are the challenges in making it happen. Cause its seems the white folks are constantly looking for ways to get rid of FAMU and merge with with some other school
ReplyDelete11:22--are you a student or graduate of the university? Whichever you are, you need to enroll in a basic writing course; either that or stay off the blog until you learn the basic structure of writing sentences, the business of mechanics, spelling, etc. I know you may be pecking this stuff out, but really, I believe that you should proofread what you write before you hit that send button. But you probably proofread what you write. This is a public forum, and folks from all over read what is written here and pay attention to the manner and structure in which the commentary is presented. I don't mean to be ugly here, but come on. I KNOW you can do better than what you've presented here. Show us better than you tell us.
ReplyDeleteTo anon 12:57 it doesnt matter about the boys writting skills, we're not here to discuss that. The topic is concerning the university, not his writting. Many people on here comment and have many spelling errors. So who are we to question his writting skills, if he gets his point across than thats what matter most. Eventually his writting will get better. Some of our greatest writers have grammar errors.
ReplyDeleteThe school is sinking quicker than the Titanic. When it is dead the only people to blame will be ourselves. I think that anonymous at 11:46 siad it best by suggesting that the school should strongly consider privatization. The problem is a lack of alumni giving and a lack of black corporate giants making sure that the needs of our institutions are met. As Spike Lee pointed out in School Daze, Jews would never allow Brandeis or Yeshiva to sink, but we are sitting by and watching one of our top universities face the brink of a complete takeover, or worse, a complete shutdown by the state. Wake up folks!!!
ReplyDeleteI reiterate Bruce Gordon's comments--black institutions need to focus on policies and procedures and forget about personalities. As long as we keep trying to point the finger at who caused what, the university will continue to sink. It does not matter when it started or who started it. What matters is that we must fix it.
ReplyDeleteWe must have competent dedicated people highly trained to operate all aspects of the university. The president does not do every job on the campus.
People on the campus are doing what they want, when they want and without any regard for policies and procedures. While we waste our time blaming Castell, FAMU is going under.
We need alumni who have the experience to make the commitment to offer their services to FAMU. We need alumni who have dollars to pour dollars into the university to cover some of the shortfalls.
Various aspects of the university have been working hard trying to get more monies into the university to offset some of these issues. Some of the issues are funding, some are procedural, some are complacency, some are lack of training and expertise.
Part of our problem in the past has been shifting money all over the place--- robbing Peter to pay Paul. Eventually these practices will catch up to you. We have been operating in a dysfunctional manner for far too long.
There is not one known event that any of us can put our hands on that says, "this is when it happened". We do not know what day our fiscal controls got away from us. We do not know what day we were no longer keeping up with technology. We do not know what day our practices and workers became outdated.
It's just like a relationship---all of a sudden there is no more love---don't know what day you fell out of love, why you fell out of love--it just isn't there any more.
Let's stop trying to play the blame game. It is not going to help FAMU now. We need alumni offering support to the university.
Where are the alumni who wanted to write about removing people from the Board? Why aren't the alumni lobbying for more resources whether financial or labor to help fix the problem? Where are the alumni volunteering to take leave from their jobs to come to Tallahassee to work through these issues?
We say we have one of the best business schools in the country. We need some of these graduates to come into the university with a plan to fix it.
The problems of FAMU are experienced by so many other HBCUs and other black organizations to varying degrees. We are not the only hbcu that is having problems with finances etc. It is a culture in black organizations where we do not have the proper accountability, policies and procedures.
This is what happens when people have a philosophy that a university is not a business. It IS a business and must be run like one which has been the problem. Black folks love a hook-up and this is what happens when you have too many hook-ups. You no longer know how to operate in a normal manner.
FAMU like other black organizations has been run like a Mom and Pop operation on a shoe string budget. We cannot do it any more.
We must bite the bullet roll up our sleeves and save our university. Asking for the ouster of Board members and presidents will not change any thing.
There is a cancer on the campus of FAMU that has existed for many many years. We don't know when it started, however we now know that it has spread. While we are all pointing fingers and blaming and wondering how did the cancer start and where did it start---the patient, Florida A&M University is dying. Are we going to let the patient die or are we going to discuss radical, innovative and proven techniques to save the university?
I would like the rest of this thread to focus on ideas to help the university and not just idle chit chat.
Yes I am a proud graduate of FAMU. However, I am tired of people tearing my university down and the people associated to lead the university. We must ban together to help fix the problem. We cannot continue to be a part of the problem by castigating people and pointing fingers. We do not need any more crabs in the FAMU barrel we need talented people who are willing to step forward and help.
I suggest we write a letter to the legislator to provide us more resources to fix this problem. We have cut back on employees, we have lost critical mass just to run the university. We must be provided adequate funds to run the university, to hire the expertise that we need.
The state of Florida pays poorly and in many instances we cannot hire the middle management, lower management workers with the expertise that we need. You get what you pay for.
We need more dollars to build and improve our fiscal infrastructure. We can no longer do more with less. We need resources to run our operations.
As alumni that is the letter we need to write. It is insulting to believe that we cannot fix these problems ourselves. The black folks need the Great White Hope to come in and fix it. We should applaud Castell and others who took the stand last year to allow us to fix our problems. Unfortunately, those responsible up to this point have not been successful, may be because every one was not on-board to save the university.
Castell is not the problem. e would have had these problems no matter who the president was/is. The dyke has broken and water is rushing out. The one finger we had in the dyke can no longer hold back the mess.
12:57 AM -- You have a lot of nerve jumping on the young man that wrote the comments at 11:22 PM, when you yourself cannot write (i.e. "But you probably proofread what you write." You should have said "But you probably proofread what you wrote.") No matter how many spelling or grammatical errors that young man may or may not have had, it does not take away from the substance of what he wrote, which a call to action on behalf of the alumni. Too bad we do not have other students as an intelligent as you, 11:22 PM. Unfortunate for the world we have too many "smart" people such as 12:57 AM, who amount to being nothing but DUMB WANNA BE SMART FUCKS.
ReplyDeleteFabian,
ReplyDeleteKeep saying what you gotta say son. We got your back
11:33--No, I meant exactly what I said. The "proofreading" statement was constructed in the present tense, therefore, the verb, "write," was written in the present tense. I accept your apology for not understanding basic verb tense as well, and I still assert the fact that Fabian needs to take a basic writing course, as perhaps you might also wish to consider. Also, you might wish to purchase a thesaurus so that you can have an ample supply of suitable words to utilize (in view of the fact that you vocabulary is so very, very limited, as evidenced by the profane language). I rest my case.
ReplyDelete...your vocabulary... (on my commentary above...)
ReplyDelete...your vocabulary... (on my commentary above...)
ReplyDeleteTo this person: I just want to ask this, how possible would it be for FAMU to just go private and get away from the state having a say so in our business? . . . 3/19/2007 11:46 PM
ReplyDeleteHow IGNORANT are you? Look at the Alumni giving rate at FAMU (broke a** grads). FAMU gets more money from the state than any other public university in FL. If FAMU went private, you'd have to close the doors. Also, many FAMU students are in financial need, and could not afford tuition if FAMU were private.
SOLUTION: Why don't you FIX the problems, keep track of the money given to you by the state, stop letting jerks like Cast-Hell steal the funds, and get your act togther so FAMU can continue? The few good programs like the Pharmacy school and the tech-school with FSU are going to fail because of the problems with the school in Tallahassee and the law school in Orlando.
I do not care when you created your "proofreading" statement, you were still referring to an action that took place in the past and therefore you should have used a past tense verb. Just to break it down for your slow mind I do not proofread what I write, but I can proofread what I wrote. The last time I checked proofreading is an action that takes place not during the writing process but after one has written something. It is apparent to me that those grammar classes that you love to refer people to were of no help to you. FYI my thesaurus contains the words arrogant and fuc when it comes to describing individuals such as you. I rest my case, you silly buffoon (there’s another word from my thesaurus for you)!
ReplyDeletei say launch the b------
ReplyDelete