Most FAMU “excellence” areas for performance-funding came from Robinson, Wright's year

Earlier this year, the administration of then-President Elmira Mangum sent out a press release that bragged about FAMU’s improvement in the state performance-funding metrics.

“The improvements shown in our 2014-2015 performance metrics are a reflection of the FAMU community unifying to ensure progression in our student success efforts,” Mangum said in the announcement.

Larry Robinson and Rodner Wright’s names weren’t mentioned even though most of the “marks of excellence” FAMU received were based on data or work from the 2013-2014 year.

Robinson was the interim president for eight of the months of that year. Mangum began on April 1, 2014 with about four months to go before the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2014. Interim Provost Rodner Wright, Interim VP for Research K. Ken Redda, VP for Development Thomas J. Haynes, and VP for Student Affairs William Hudson all stayed on through that date and continued to implement pre-planned initiatives to help FAMU improve on the performance-funding metrics.

The only “excellence” area that was entirely from Mangum’s first full year in 2014-2015 came from “Bachelor’s degrees awarded within programs of strategic emphasis.” That went down by 1.5 percent.

FAMU received marks of excellence in the following categories:

•    Percent of graduates employed full-time or continuing their education [2013-2014]

•    Bachelor’s degrees awarded within programs of strategic emphasis (includes STEM) [Down 1.5 percent in 2014-2015 under Mangum]

•    University access rate (percent of undergraduates with a Pell Grant) [Fall 2014 students recruited in 2013-2014 or retained from that year]

•    Percent of funding from external sources (research and development expenditures) [2013-2014]

FAMU received improvement ratings in the following areas:

•    Median wages of bachelor’s graduates employed full-time in Florida [2013-2014]

•    Academic progress rate (second-year retention with GPA above 2.0)

•    Graduate degrees awarded within programs of strategic emphasis

FAMU received $11,509,132 in performance funds for 2016-2017. Read the Florida Board of Governors summary report on the performance-funding metrics results here.