TALLAHASSEE, Fla.
Ten years ago, Florida A&M University was on top of the academic world, celebrated as one of America’s top universities after being chosen college of the year by Time magazine and the Princeton Review.
But it’s been almost all downhill since 1997. Dr. James H. Ammons, who took over Monday as president of Florida’s only historically Black public university, has just six months to resolve long-running financial woes that have put his alma mater’s accreditation at risk.
“It would be mission impossible for most people,” says Barney Bishop, who resigned after three frustrating years on the university’s board of trustees.
Ammons is familiar with tough missions: He won praise as North Carolina Central University’s chancellor for calmly handling a racially divisive situation when one of his Black students falsely accused three White Duke University men’s lacrosse players of rape last year.
And Ammons knows FAMU well: He was provost for six years before leaving in 2001, when the latest troubles worsened. The school’s bookkeeping became so sloppy that lawmakers threatened criminal investigations this spring and others talked about closing the school down. Hundreds of employees went unpaid earlier this year.
The situation deteriorated in June, when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools put the university on probation because of 10 rules violations. Most of the infractions were the result of FAMU’s inability to account for millions of dollars of inventory and some contractual arrangements made without proper approval.
SACS will make a campus visit in September to check on the school’s progress, and then review the sanctions in December. If FAMU loses its accreditation, its students would be ineligible for federal financial aid.
An accreditation expert says the process is intended to help schools improve.
“It’s not like the Department of Agriculture walking into a meatpacking plant looking for things to penalize people on,” says Richard Porter, a spokesman for the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
