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| 450 students at a 2018 FAMU summer orientation session |
“There are forces that would like to cap our universities growth in terms of student population when our leadership has met the objectives set before them for steady growth,” NAA President Gregory Clark said in a message on Facebook.
Clark has asked all alumni who can to show up at the Florida Board of Governors (BOG) meeting today and support President Larry Robinson as he delivers his presentation.
“We need to show up in numbers in Orange & Green,” Clark said.
Rattler Nation reported in January that the presidents of FAMU, Florida International, and the University of Central Florida are pushing forward with their plans for enrollment growth despite harsh questioning on the issue from some members of the BOG.
UCF and FIU have been called on to defend their big student numbers at BOG meetings ever since they both surpassed the University of Florida in enrollment.
Robinson raised enrollment in Fall 2017 even after a member of BOG said that recruiting top students shouldn’t be a major focus.
“Aim higher, please because these students are smart…that the success rate would be much, much more significant than striving to create more programs or try to compete in recruiting more students that have the grades and are able to go to other universities that are having better success right now,” BOG member H. Wayne Huizenga said.
But months later, Robinson reversed the FAMU enrollment decline by boosting the number of students up to 9,913. The freshman class for Fall 2017 has a 3.39 average GPA and an average score on the SAT that is higher than the state and national averages for high school students.
“Every time we make progress, the playbook changes as it relates to us,” Clark said in his Facebook message. “We cannot let FAMU be stagnated and she must grow and will grow if given the proper resources.”