Jubilation spread across Florida A&M University when officials announced that Dr. James H. Ammons would return to lead his alma mater’s turnaround effort. When he left his post as FAMU provost and vice president of academic affairs to become chancellor of North Carolina Central University in 2001, FAMU basked in national renown for rivaling Harvard and Stanford in recruiting the most National Achievement Scholars.
Now, as FAMU president, Ammons faces unprecedented solvency and credentialing crises. A few weeks before Ammons took office in July, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools put FAMU on a six-month probation for myriad administrative lapses, including $39 million in unaccounted-for expenditures and missing employee paychecks.
However, numerous FAMU officials cite Ammons’ successful turnaround job at NCCU in declaring him the right man for the top leadership position. Ammons is credited with reversing years of fiscal mismanagement at NCCU, delivering a string of clean state audits and raising enrollment 50 percent during his six years as chancellor.
Since Ammons departed FAMU in 2001, enrollment has fallen from more than 13,000 to less than 12,000, so he has an eye towards boosting enrollment, particularly of Black males. Raised by a single mother of modest means, Ammons has a keen awareness of the challenges Black males face and has shepherded a number of initiatives at FAMU and NCCU aimed at increasing the recruitment and retention of at-risk minority males. Ammons speaks to Diverse about his plans for one of the larger historically Black universities.
DI: There’s been a host of data indicating that the population of Black males in colleges has declined in recent years. What are the numbers at FAMU?
JA: If you were to go back as recent as 1980, Black men in college outnumbered Black men behind bars by a ratio of more than 3 to 1. Now, there is an estimate that for every African-American male who receives a college degree, 240 will enter the penal system — it’s a crisis. Here at FAMU, we have examined our numbers and we’re about 60 percent female, 40 percent male.
