The BOT Special Committee on Presidential Leadership
unanimously approved a proposed exit plan on Friday that could lead to Mangum going
on administrative by September 15, the date when the full BOT will discuss the
recommendation.
The Democrat reported that if the BOT approves the plan, “trustees
would likely name Provost Marcella David to the position of acting president,
trustees chairman Kelvin Lawson said. That is spelled out in the university’s
operating procedures, he said.”
FAMU BOT members should scratch David’s name off of the list
of potential replacements for Mangum. The university has a big enrollment
crisis and David hasn’t shown the skills that are needed to fix it.
The university’s enrollment in Fall 2015 dropped to 9,920
(down from 10,233 in Fall 2014) under Mangum. That decline cost FAMU $9M+ from
tuition and fee losses. FAMU expects to lose about another $10.5M due to its
projected loss of 920 students in 2016-2017.
Historically black universities like North Carolina A&T University and North Carolina Central University have succeeding in reversing
their enrollment declines and bringing in freshman classes with 3.0+ GPAs at
the same time.
FAMU also had growth in enrollment (up until the 2011
federal financial aid program overhaul) and freshman classes with 3.0+ GPAs
under former President James H. Ammons.
FAMU must get its recruitment program in gear right now during the fall semester in order to compete for the best high school students. David hasn’t displayed strong leadership on recruitment as the #2 official in the Mangum administration. Her comments at the June 22 meeting of the Florida Board of Governors (BOG) showed that she still doesn’t even understand how FAMU was able to grow its enrollment with top flight student scholars in the past.
During that BOG meeting, David spoke about FAMU’s efforts to
recruit more transfer students who’ve finished associates of arts (A.A.)
degrees. She told the BOG that she’d heard a good idea from some other higher
education leaders.
“I’ve heard other presidents and provosts talking about recruiting students the way you recruit athletes and that’s one of the ways that we’re going to focus on, in particular, our transfer students, is recruiting them in the way that we recruit athletes as well,” David said.
David is 31 years late in realizing the need for FAMU to
recruit student scholars like athletes. Back when Frederick S. Humphries became
the president of FAMU in 1985, he did just that. His top targets were the best
performing high school students. Humphries’ recruitment strategy was key to his
success in taking FAMU to #1 in the recruitment of National Achievement
Scholars and boosting overall enrollment numbers by more than 100 percent over
his 16 years in office.
FAMU needs a better recruiter in the presidency than David.
Or else the university will probably face another $9M+ loss in tuition and fees
from declining enrollment again this time next year.