FSU COE response

FSU, FAMU respond to engineering college study


"The State University System’s Board of Governors has pushed back the deadline to Jan. 12 for a final report from the consulting firm hired to conduct an in-depth analysis of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. California-based Collaborative Braintrust (CBT) had been scheduled to submit a final report by Dec. 19.
CBT’s draft report, received by BOG in mid-November, estimated it could cost as much as $1 billion to uncouple the joint college and create separate top-tier engineering programs at5 Florida State and Florida A&M.
The contentious issue, supported by FSU and opposed by FAMU, emerged in full force during this year’s legislative session. John Thrasher, then a powerful Republican senator from St. Augustine and now FSU’s president, proposed adding $3 million to the state budget for FSU to explore developing its own college of engineering.
A split would end a unique 32-year partnership created by lawmakers in 1982, but it has been deemed essential by FSU officials if their institution is to make significant strides in the national rankings and be eligible for membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities.
FAMU, the state’s only public historically black college, has said it is not prepared financially or academically to host its own college of engineering.
The Senate approved the $3 million for FSU, but the House of Representatives did not. Their compromise resulted in a $500,000 appropriation for BOG to study the joint college and provide recommendations to the Legislature. BOG is expected to consider the report's findings at its January or February meetings, and the 17-member, governor-appointed board is scheduled to make a decision by March 1. The board could decide to request additional funding from the Legislature.
FSU and FAMU have each responded to the draft report, with FSU providing considerable context to federal statutes – Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the subsequent
U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Fordice – and CBT’s cost estimates.
In a letter signed by Thrasher and FSU Provost Garnett Stokes, the university reasoned that the federal laws prohibiting separate-but-equal educational opportunities do not necessarily apply to the circumstances at the joint college.
The trustees at FAMU wanted to weigh in on the draft report during their final meeting of the year earlier this month, but university President Elmira Mangum – who was forced to deal with the proposed split on April 2, her second day on the job – said that FAMU would not be making any formal responses until CBT’s final report has been submitted.
Individual faculty members at FAMU have written letters to BOG and CBT in response to the draft report. FAMU officials contend that a letter being attributed to faculty in the college’s Department of Mechanical Engineering is in fact from only FSU members in the department, and that no FAMU faculty signed the letter.
“This statement should be corrected," F”MU's letter states. FAMU also contested the data in several tables compiled by CBT, and asked that they be corrected.
Mangum has said that no matter the decision by BOG or lawmakers, she wants FAMU to be able to continue offering engineering opportunities to students at FAMU.
While the Legislature was debating in April the merits of splitting the college, FAMU administrators provided an estimate that they would need $100 million annually to operate an engineering scjpp; on the FAMU campus.
CBT’s draft report echoes an analysis by the Tallahassee Democrat that appeared in the April 22 edition of the newspaper.
The two universities have distinctly different missions. FSU, with more resources, has been more committed to building the faculty at the college; almost one-third of the college's faculty are on a separate FSU budget line and not the joint college's budget. In 2013, based on BOG data, FSU awarded 267 degrees to students in the college while only 34 FAMU students earned degrees."