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| L-R: Keisha Lance Bottoms, Cheryl Harris, Melanie Roussell Newman, and Anika Noni Rose |
Six of the appointed seats are filled by the governor and the other five are filled by the Florida Board of Governors (BOG). The last two trustees are the elected Faculty Senate president and Student Government Association president.
The lack of any alumni women in the 11 appointed BOT is an insult because there are thousands of FAMU alumnae who would be excellent trustees. Four examples are Keisha Lance Bottoms, Cheryl Harris, Melanie Roussell Newman, and Anika Noni Rose.
Keisha Lance Bottoms (B.S., Broadcast Journalism, 1991), Mayor of Atlanta
Bottoms has led the City of Atlanta since the beginning of this year. She recently won a battle against a proposed state takeover of the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Hartsfield-Jackson has been the busiest passenger airport in the world since 1998 and is the single largest employer in the state of Georgia. It is run by the Atlanta mayor’s office.
Bottoms’ predecessor, Kasim Reed, became a member of the Howard University Board of Trustees in 2002 while he was in the Georgia General Assembly. He continued to serve on the Howard board when he was inaugurated as the mayor of Atlanta in 2010 and remained until June 30, 2017.
Cheryl Harris (B.S., Business Administration, 1989), Senior Vice President of Sourcing and Procurement Solutions at Allstate Insurance Company
Harris is responsible for optimizing Allstate’s multibillion spending portfolio and oversees Allstate’s supplier diversity program. She also serves as a senior executive sponsor for FAMU on behalf of Allstate. Over the last 20 years, in various capacities, she has helped to mentor and place hundreds of FAMU students with promising career opportunities. Harris is also chair of the FAMU Industry Cluster and a member of the FAMU Foundation Board of Directors.
Melanie Roussell Newman (B.S., Broadcast Journalism, 2001), Chief Public Engagement and Communications Strategist for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF)
Newnan began working for the LDF in 2017. Prior to her current position, she held several jobs in the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, including Director of the Office of Public Affairs (OPA) at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where she led the Department’s communications team and oversaw messaging and public engagement strategy for Attorney General Loretta Lynch. She also served as Associate Director of Communications and Strategic Planning at the White House Office of Management and Budget and Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Anika Noni Rose (B.A., Theatre, 1994), Actress
Rose is an alumna of the FAMU Essential Theatre program who won a Tony Award in 2004 for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for her role in the Broadway show, “Caroline or Change.” She also played Lorrell Robinson in the movie “Dreamgirls” and Grace Makutsi in HBO’s Peabody Award Winning series “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.” Rose was the voice of Princess Tiara in the Disney animated movie “The Princess and the Frog” and starred as President Eva Fletcher in the BET series “The Quad.” This summer, she will play the title role in the Broadway return of the play “Carmen Jones.”
Rose remains a passionate defender of FAMU. One example was back in 2015 when she spoke out against FAMU losing budget control of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering.
“Fla State has been attempting to manhandle FAMU’s engineering program for YRS. Appears it’s finally happened. Shame,” Rose wrote in the tweet sent July 7, 2015.
FAMU went from having six of the 11 appointed seats on its Board of Trustees filled by alumni in 2015 to now only two. At both the University of Florida and Florida State University, alumni hold the majority of the 11 appointed seats.
The FAMU National Alumni Association has spoken out publicly about the problem. But so far Gov. Rick Scott and the BOG haven’t announced any intention to correct it.
No candidate in the Florida gubernatorial race has publicly promised to work to restore the alumni majority on the FAMU BOT if elected.
The major candidates for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Florida are: Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, business owner Chris King, and former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine. The major candidates for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Florida are: U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis and Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam.