But Robinson publicly took him to task for mischaracterizing
his position.
“That is totally incorrect,” Robinson said in response to
Thrasher’s claim in a Miami Herald blog story by reporter Tia Mitchell.
According to the Tallahassee Democrat, “Thrasher said Robinson and former FSU President Eric Barron had been discussing the topic ‘for a long time’ and insinuated their agreement to the plan.”
Robinson told the Democrat he never agreed to any such
thing.
“My position has always been that this is a bad idea,”
Robinson told Democrat reporter Doug Blackburn. “You have what has been held up
as a model of collaboration nationwide, and here we are talking about
separating it without any solid reasons for doing it. All this talk about how
Robinson and Barron agreed to it, is really comical to me.”
At the time Thrasher made the comments, he was leading the
charge to provide FSU with money for a stand-alone College
of Engineering. He called for FSU to receive $3M in new operating dollars and
$10M to begin constructing a new engineering building on the university’s main
campus.
Thrasher failed to get the money approved during the 2014
legislative session. Lawmakers opted instead to give the Florida Board of
Governors (BOG) funds to study the COE, first.
A year later new FAMU President Elmira Mangum helped
Thrasher, then president of FSU, put an end to 28 years of FAMU budget control at the COE. She didn’t understand that FAMU had been in charge of those operating dollars.