Attorneys for Mangum and FAMU had come to an agreement on a
three-year contract that included a $425,000 base salary, ten percent bonus
option, and 15 percent annuity. But rather than approve the joint
recommendation, the FAMU board chose to go to battle with the woman it just
voted to hire as the university’s 11th president three weeks ago.
The Board of Trustees ordered FAMU’s lawyers to get back in
the negotiating room and demand that Mangum’s lawyers accept changes in areas
such as compensation and benefits. Some of the loudest criticism of the
proposed contract came from Trustees Rufus Montgomery and Glen Gilzean.
But what the board is actually willing to approve is
anyone’s guess. The trustees failed to reach a consensus on what type of salary
and benefit package they would find acceptable. Individual trustees will send
their own recommendations in to the university’s attorneys.
The tension over Mangum’s contract appears to extend from the
shenanigans that took place during the presidential search.
Morehouse School of Medicine President John E. Maupin, Jr., who was widely seen as the top choice of numerous FAMU trustees before he even
applied, abruptly dropped his candidacy in the wake of FAMU alumni criticism
over his past treatment of the faculty at Meharry Medical College. Some
ex-Maupin supporters then made a last-minute push to seat former University of
North Texas at Dallas President John Ellis Price, but trustees began to realize
that his past disrespectful treatment of his Dallas faculty members would lead
to an ugly public battle with FAMU professors and alumni if they picked him.
Mangum was not the preferred choice of a number of the FAMU
trustees who ultimately tried to save face by voting to hire her. That
continues to show in the way she is being treated by the board at present.