Today's column by Tallahassee Democrat Associate Editor Bill Berlow is one of the most riddiculous pieces of crap I've ever seen in print. Columns, however, are nothing more than opinion pieces and the old adage about opinions and everybody having one rings true here.
In comparing Mr. Ammons to Moses, Mr. Berlow would have done well to heed that motherly advice, "if you don't have anything to say, just keep your damn mouth shut."
Here's Berlow's column: Can Ammons save FAMU?
Berlow has it right. This is actually a very realistic and sobering view of what Dr. Ammons faces. While I am certain that Ammons will be a great president, Berlow's comments about some of the diffculties in the past are credible.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who is waiting for acceptance to the part time program at the law school, I'm not hoping for Moses, just someone who will get to work on the ABA accredition. I have been placed on a priority waiting list and told that openings in the program will be filled from this list throughout the summer. I didn't think the part time program had ever previously been filled to capacity. Can anyone tell me if this is the normal process or is something delaying the filling of the incoming 1L classes? I'm getting nervous that there's an issue. Does anyone know where to find class schedules or FAMU law students' message boards online?
ReplyDeleteHey I thought the article was a good analysis of the issues...I'm not quite sure i understand your dissatisfaction RN.
ReplyDeleteDr. Ammons can save FAMU by doing two things: (1) raising the bar and (2) hold people accountable. Believe or not people would respond to this type of leadership. Most people want to do a good job, some don't know how and some need to be told that they need to upgrade. People do not want to lose their jobs. He looks like he can provide the leadership and vision that we need. I am very hopeful.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do not necessarily agree with the Moses analogy, I do think that Berlow has a very good analysis here.
ReplyDeleteWhat article did you read? Turn on th elights, ther is no monster under that bed
ReplyDeleteOn another note, did anyone catch that Dr. Charlie Nelms became new Chancellor of NCCU. Nelms was the same guy that was supposed to be our president when Ganious was selected by Castell, Corbin and crew. Also, I like the was NC does there business. No one heard anything about the search process or who was even in the top three. Maybe we (Floridians) need to take a look at what they are doing to get the best people for all of our jobs.
ReplyDeleteI hate to say this but the people at NCCU seem to have more sense than we do when making decisions about leading our institutions. They made a good choice with Ammons. They are making a good choice with Nelms. Although we chose Ammons now, we did so by the hair of our chinny chi chin.
ReplyDeleteI am a FAMU graduate, and I hate to admit that we have some ignorant folks trying to lead this place. HObbs, McBride, Castey, Debra, Greenleaf, and Co are really a dumb bunch and so was thier board. They can say what they want to about Viney J., homeboy/girl knows his/her stuff. I'm keeping it real. Don;t piss him off cause he will tell your a.. off, but he is smart as hell. That Dantley guy is too. FAMU just has a bunch of homophobes.
He may know his stuff, but what has he & his office done to enhance the University since their arrival. Homophoic, to some degree, however how many straight people have they helped. You cannot hold that position no matter your sexual preference and be unjust. You can run but you can't hide. Some things will be revealed in due time.
ReplyDeleteSome alumni members and I have read and discussed the last(WE HOPE)publication of Castell & Company 'In Perspective'. If you haven't received one tey, please read it.
June & company's lauding of their accomplishments is a true joke. Believe me they are going to be challenged. I guess when you are looking for employment, you will use WHATEVER you can.
Wonder how much that SELF POTRAIT set us back or did the Consultants sponsor?
My concern is that Dr. Ammons may keep a few of the VPs under the Castell Administration. No matter what capacity, they all should go; otherwise the University may continue to be jeoporadize.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing Ammons can do for us is to make sure asinine headlines like the one in today's Tallahassee Democrat are eliminated. "FSU, FAMU Boast 10 Fullbrights." The next sentence says FSU has 9, and FAMU has 1 - for a total of 10. Once when Michael Jordon scored 88 points and a teammate scored 2, the other player joked "Michael Jackson and I scored 90 points between us tonight." Come on y'all. This was done by the paper to make FSU look good, and FAMU look bad - more so because of that stupid headline. Why not "local students earn Fulbrights" and then tell about the STUDENTS. Watch how many white folk get stirred up by this, and it isn't our fault.
ReplyDeleteMoses? How about Mighty Mouse!
ReplyDeleteHere I am to save the day!
One cat can kill alot of mouses...VD.
Berlow isn't "comparing" Ammons to Moses, and the article isn't ridiculous. It is, in fact, a very well-written opinion piece. All he is saying is that many people are depending on Ammons to fix FAMU, that perhaps after the last two "failed presidencies," we have placed all of our hope on one man who might be able to deliver us from our destructive selves. James Ammons, to a lot of people, is being seen as a savior of the university, that whatever ailments the university is facing, well, Ammons can save us. I think Berlow hit this thing right smack in the middle: that James Ammons has a huge moutain to climb and we are waiting with baited breath for him help us climb out of the trenches of fiscal irresponsibility and academic mis-administration. Many times we simply refuse to accept the truth. Now, think about this: had the byline (Berlow's) been, say Roosevelt Wilson's, would you, RN, think the article was, as you termed it, "ridiculous"? I think the article was an apt description of what many folks are expecting Ammons to deliver: us to the promised land of yesteryear. Good job, Berlow.
ReplyDelete12:33--James Ammons may be able to "control" some thing, but I assure you, he cannot control the press. When FAMU wishes to tout its great and glorious accomplishments, it looks to the Tallahassee Democrat to portray our achievements--just think: HOMECOMING and the excellent coverage we recieve. And I simply pointing out hHomecoming, because they almost always do good job in covering the events. Even if we don't like it, we must learn to take (not necessarily "accept") the bitter with the sweet. There is such a thing as Freedom of the Press. James Ammons' administrative control doesn't extend to what folks put in the paper. He ain' got that kind of power.
ReplyDeleteJames Ammons neither writes the headlines for the Democrat, nor does he work for (or at) the Democrat, so he can't "make sure" that any headline, whether it's about FAMU or anything else, is "eliminated." So when did James Ammons start controlling the press? Some of you can be so silly.
ReplyDeleteHere are some ways Dr. Ammons can help FAMU.
ReplyDeleteI apologize in advance for this long list. It has a long history.
1. Stop the attempt to use SACS rules as a pretext for firing faculty. The narrow interpretation of the 18-hour rule has been absurd. Many faculty teach in areas that did not exist until recently; many have contributed to developing what they teach, so they could not have taken graduate courses in those subjects.
SACS rules permit reasonable alternatives for certifying faculty. Use them.
2. Either implement PeopleSoft or replace it. This half-electronic, half-paper system is chaotic. There is no one who understands how it works, and no one is responsible for anything any more.
Assign managers who are responsible for understanding and for the smooth functioning of each aspect of the ERP system. Give them cell phones and publish those numbers.
3. Demand that personnel at all levels function at a high level. There are just too many people on campus who "have a job" rather than "do a job."
Too many people on campus are there to express their personalities in public, rather than serve others. Too many people on campus hold jobs because they are kin to someone else. Train them or replace them.
4. Ask the legislature to withdraw FAMU's permission to offer remedial courses. (We are the only university in Florida that gives remedial courses.) Insist instead that underqualified students go to community colleges; if they do well, they can transfer as juniors. FAMU should not be accepting high school graduates who fail to meet admissions standards.
Raise standards, improve quality, re-build the student body at a higher level of achievement. FAMU should get out of the business of making excuses for students who didn't study in high school.
5. Start an anti-litter campaign. Demand that students pick up trash whenever they see it. The campus suffers from neglect by the very people who use it. You can change that.
6. Start a campus courtesy campaign. Tap into the wonderful graciousness and good will of your students. Use that to crowd out the gangsta element and the rude middle school attitudes some students display when, for example, they walk down the sidewalk three abreast and force others off, or when they cheerfully shout out racist words. (Right. It's a fad that comes in waves. Just listen.)
7. Make FAMU a standard English zone. Demand that all officials speak in standard English. Demand that students speak in standard English. They can speak however they want at home. But on campus, they need to practice the language of achievement, to learn to use standard English at such a high level of proficiency that they can express themselves powerfully and be understood by everyone, not just by their homeys.
8. Enforce the CLAST. Require it of everyone. Earning a B in a high school course does not indicate achievement any more. Don't let anyone become a junior without passing the CLAST. Period. Do or die. Once students can no longer get out of a requirement, you'll be amazed how hard they work on it.
9. Sponsor open discussions of real problems. Keep away the loud talkers who think they have all the answers, and invite people who understand that real problems can never be solved, only improved. Make FAMU a place where issues affecting African Americans get discussed, not just proclaimed.
10. Teach all leaders a different kind of leadership style from the one they learned in church. FAMU has to stop acting and sounding like a religious institution. It's time to base progress on discussion and reason, and not on recruiting people to adopt the same belief system.
11. Honor teaching. That means honor the real demands on teachers. Don't ever, ever give advice on how to teach unless you yourself are a full-time teacher at that institution. You can't imagine how hard it is to teach underqualified, underprepared, undermotivated students in a setting that provides erratic support.
Get rid of the "African American learning styles" approach. Black students learn like everybody else -- by working hard. Teach your students how to learn -- especially how to learn from a variety of different approaches to teaching. Most of all, teach them how to learn from books. That remains the key to lifelong education.
12. Lead the campus away from its relentless obsession with popular culture, entertainment, and sports. Many students know everything about these topics. They live and breathe them. It's time for them to apply that focus to academic topics.
Withdraw funding from pop culture events and put it into cultural events and academic activities. Ask student organizations to stop encouraging discussion of celebrities and entertainment television, and instead to discuss issues, skills, and world events.
Demand that students realize they are on campus to gain skills, not to watch TV and chat about it online.
13. Rein in the IT folks. Put a faculty committee over them, to make sure IT does not make any changes without first understanding how it might affect teaching on campus.
IT has a bad habit of announcing changes with a "get used to it" attitude. Some have been disruptive of the very things IT is there to serve.
14. Get rid of the arrogance at every level of administration. Administrators are there to serve. Yet many act as if they are the bosses, rather than the unintentional byproducts of teaching and learning.
15. Integrate FAMU. Our students are too isolated from other groups and cultures. Some are smothering in blackness.
A student editorial earlier this year betrayed a shocking ignorance of the Irish history and contribution to America, with an "if it's not black, why should we care?" attitude.
FAMU students NEED whites, Hispanics, Asians, because these are the people they will work with all their lives. The campus is too isolated, too withdrawn into blackness.
In the absence of other cultures (the campus is about 97% black) FAMU students develop a strange overconfidence that they understand others, without actually knowing many of the others they think they understand. This is detrimental to our students.
Yes, celebrate black achievement and arts. But for goodness sake, put it in perspective. Students also need to know the foundations of Western civilization. Too many students graduate ignorant of the things most Americans have some acquaintance with, as an unintentional byproduct of emphasizing blackness.
16. Encourage intelligent dissent. Put a stop to the destructive tradition of coercing everyone on campus to agree of keep silent (this is a religious view -- cultivating shared belief rather than exploring real differences). Instead, demand that everyone articulate and defend their positions, the way people have to do in the real world.
Make FAMU a place where people with dissenting suggestions like mine do not have to make them anonymously.
17. Openly discuss and confront the culture of victimhood and other self-defeating tendencies that tempt too many African American students. No blame here; it has a real history. But it's time for students to learn to manage these tendencies in themselves, in order to achieve.
Bring some black conservatives to campus to challenge the easy assumption that all blacks think alike. Let the conservatives provoke discussions on affirmative action, personal responsibility, and other key issues affecting students' lives that are not covered on entertainment TV and pop music.
Sorry for the long list. I think about these things. I'm not necessarily right (that's why everyone needs to talk more), but I care, and I want to see FAMU find its real mission and thrive in it.
I'd like to expand on one of the most important points in my original post.
ReplyDeleteFor a long time, FAMU had as one of its chief missions gathering in black students who, as a result of poor schools, were poorly prepared -- then giving them a college education and a chance in the world.
This has always been a noble goal.
Unfortunately, this mission causes serious problems. I don't know how many underqualified students FAMU admits today (in a recent year, the president announced that 42 percent of incoming freshmen did not meet the minimum standards for admission). Today that figure must be at least 25 to 35 percent, judging from students in courses.
Many of the students that FAMU sets out to rescue are underprepared, undermotivated, do not know how to study, and they do not accept the basic rules of good behavior on campus and in class. These are students who chronically come late, never buy the textbook, talk to one another while the teacher is lecturing, disrupt classes by an ingenious variety of middle-school tricks, and generally cause problems for the better students.
Or they sit in classes disengaged, confused, wanting to do well but not knowing how.
FAMU has not so far provided what these underprepared students need -- serious, heavy-duty remediation. Boot-camp intensity remediation. Many of these students need something more like parenting than like teaching. Many of the old timers at FAMU wanted to collect these students and redeem them through heroic efforts.
When you get classes that have a mixture of serious, well-prepared students along with these underprepared, unmotivated students, the poor students drag down the good ones. They exhaust the teacher's time with repeating assignments and lessons, goofing off, distracting others, trying to fake answers by verbal inventiveness, and sometimes by being surly and even intimidating. Some are unresponsive, don't do the homework, or don't remember because they have not learned how to learn. Some students exude an air of menace, as if they were in a gang war, not a class. Many, many of them swim through a swirl of preoccupation with hip-hop, celebrities, and popular culture, displaying a kind of misplaced brilliance in their knowledge of these topics, but unable to do well in courses.
FAMU has not reliably provided remedial services for these students. But because FAMU has not really opened its doors and its recruiting to non-black students, and because the best black students are actively recruited by other universities, FAMU gets stuck with many, many students who are far down the list of achievers. Judging from reports of national test score averages, some of these students leave high school testing at the 9th or 10th grade level. That means, for those students, FAMU is a high school, not a university.
FAMU has to decide whether to be a high school or a university. If it is going to continue to admit large numbers of underqualified students, it has to develop the best remediation service in the known world. To run that center, it needs to hire great teachers -- but great high school teachers. It needs to prepare those underprepared students to succeed at the community college level, then at the college level.
This is a daunting, prodigious goal. Luckily, community colleges have already taken over the first and most difficult part of it. If these underprepared students would go to community colleges close to home, they would have time to learn to become students before being subjected to the temptations of a residential campus.
If FAMU wants to become a research university, however, it needs to raise the standards of admission, stop remediating underperforming students, and maintain high academic standards. Then it can build a different student body by recruiting higher achieving students.
To get enough such students, FAMU will have to think outside the box of recruiting only black applicants.
So here's FAMU's choice as it seems to me: Stay black and add a huge remedial high school or community college division, or integrate and have a shot at becoming a research university. I don't see how FAMU can do both. The two goals conflict.
If someone knows a better way to understand this situation, I'd love to hear it. From my perspective, FAMU is not serving the underqualified students very well, and they are dragging down the qualified students.
The good students may not even realize they are suffering, because they don't know any other university. So they can't imagine what it would be like to be surrounded by students who are prepared and motivated.
That's what the good students deserve.
Poster 7:34 & 7:35 p.m.
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU. You raise most of the issues I have with my alma mater.
Opinions and insights such as yours is why I visit this blog.
I wish there were opportunities for those of us who think like you and I to meet and work together.
Thanks again and thank RN for this blog.
Anon at 12:07, extreme delay and other inconsistencies are the norm at the law school. There have always been communication issues with main campus with makes registration a nightmare and results in errors in the schedules, which in turn leads to late or incorrect booklists, etc. If you can't handle this type of environment, the law school in its current state is not for you.
ReplyDelete