Legendary FAMU President Frederick S. Humphries dies at 85

Dr. Frederick Stephen Humphries, who served as the FAMU president for nearly 17 years and built it into an academic powerhouse, and the first TIME Magazine/Princeton Review “College of the Year” in 1997, has died, the the family announced this evening through Facebook.  He was 85 years old.

During his nearly 17-year tenure at Florida A&M, where he created the Life Gets Better and established the Graduate School Feeder Program (GSFB), and more than doubled enrollment from 5,100 students in 1985 to 12, 316 students in 2001, while simultaneously raising academic standards. 

He increased the number of National Achievement Scholars at the school ranking first in the nation three times, out recruiting Harvard and Stanford. He made Florida A&M the nation’s number one producer of African-Americans with baccalaureate degrees and third in the nation as the baccalaureate institution of origin for African-American doctoral degree recipients. 

Rattlers, today, most remember him by his famous "Rattler Charge", which he penned, "When the dark clouds gather on the horizon...."

Dr. Humphries was respected throughout the United States and internationally for his keen insights on the education of minority students, particularly in math and the hard sciences, and his unique and visionary approaches to producing successful educational outcomes. He has served as Chairman, Board of Directors of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, Member, Board of Trustees, University of Pittsburgh and a Member of President Bill Clinton’s White House Advisory Committee on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. 

Corporate America also sought his expertise as a member of the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.; Brinker International (owners of Chili's Grill and Bar and Maggiano’s Little Italy restaurants) Barnett Bank (Bank of America), Florida, the National Merit Corporation, the Princeton Review, Academy for Educational Development (AED) and a Founder and Board Member, Thurgood Marshall Fund. 

Dr. Humphries, also served as president of Tennessee State University, from 1974 to 1985, where he oversaw the successful merger of the University of Tennessee, Nashville (a Traditional White Institution) and Tennessee State University (a Historically Black University - HBCU's) after a landmark legal case that set the precedence for the first time a Historically Black College had successfully merged and/or acquired a Traditionally White Institution in the history of the United States.

He held a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Florida A&M University (Magna Cum Laude) and a PHD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh, where he was the first African American to obtain a PHD in this discipline. 

He is preceded in life by his wife Antoinette McTurner Humphries.