Chris Timmons: In Battle with University President, FAMU’s Board of Trustees has Lost its Credibility

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (FloridaPolitics.com) -- Finally, the Florida A&M University Board of Trustees has lost its credibility.

Its credibility as a governing body. Its credibility as a professional organ. Its credibility as a guardian of the best interests of FAMU.

Its credibility in its ongoing dispute with FAMU President Elmira Mangum, which reached a point of high camp at a meeting arranged to address audit findings on extravagant (curiously, also undocumented) expenses accrued remodeling the president’s house and bonuses for high-ranking administrators paid on the state dime (a violation of Florida statutes).



 Memo from President Mangum

FAMU trustees lost credibility because the proceeding itself was hastily arranged on dubious evidentiary grounds. Finally, trustees lost credibility because no persuasive case has been made for firing the university president for cause (audit, etc.), or even for no cause. (They hate Mangum.)

Bad personal relations can be part of any motive for firing a university president, of course; but not without, say, an attendant example of malfeasance.

In the case of Elmira Mangum, that’s not a point that has been established. She has made a case — an effective case, in a rebuttal memorandum that was sent through the wires, that FAMU trustees have created the worst place for a president to work. Or, plainly, are the worst bosses ever.

And besides, as she notes, the remodeling for the president’s house commenced two months before she arrived and the staff bonuses were a clerical error that has since been corrected.

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