Mangum administration says FAMU needs COE deanship, but agreed to let FSU professor be interim dean

Back on May 20 the Joint College of Engineering Governance Council of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering (COE) unanimously passed a resolution that said the fiscal agent duties for the college would transfer from FAMU to Florida State University on July 1. The Governance Council, which includes voting representatives from the FAMU administration, went forward with that action even though the FAMU Board of Trustees has a policy that states that FAMU wants to be the fiscal agent for the college.

The FAMU administration defended the resolution in a press release last week. It said the resolution was good for the university because FAMU will soon become the tenure home for the deanship instead of FSU.

“Arresting the decline in FAMU’s student body means hiring new faculty, which is an important factor in attracting students. The dean has the responsibility of approving vacant and new line items. Gaining the responsibility of selecting the dean will help to address this issue,” the press release said.

But despite what it’s said about the importance of having a COE dean with tenure at FAMU, the FAMU administration agreed to let a professor with tenure at FSU become the interim dean of the COE. FAMU Provost Marcella David and FSU Interim Provost Sally McRorie have announced that FSU Associate Provost Bruce Locke will become the interim dean after current Dean Yaw Yeboah, who is also an FSU employee, steps down on July 31.

FSU will have the interim deanship and budget authority for the COE on August 1. But FAMU will just have a vacant faculty line that is designated for the next dean.

That is a problem because FSU can make an extension of the “interim deanship” happen without FAMU’s approval. The two universities must make a joint decision on the appointment of a dean, so FSU could decline to let a new dean be selected.

Locke will be in charge of hiring faculty members at the COE until FSU comes to an agreement with FAMU on who the new dean will be. That means the “interim deanship” could go on for months or even years.

The FAMU administration still hasn’t explained why a professor with tenure at FAMU wasn’t chosen for the interim deanship. FAMUans can’t be expected to believe that there isn’t at least one tenured FAMU engineering professor who could lead the COE just as well as or better than Locke.

The FAMU Board of Trustees needs to ask tough questions about the process that was used to select the interim dean of the COE. Were tenured FAMU professors given a chance to apply for the job? Was the FAMU faculty asked for its input about candidates for the interim deanship?

Now is the time to start getting answers about this issue.