FAMU board votes to fire president Gainous
By BRENT KALLESTAD
Associated Press Writer
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida A&M President Fred Gainous was fired by the school's board of trustees Tuesday after a little more than two years as head of the state's only historically black public university.
The trustees voted 9-4 to dismiss Gainous effective Dec. 31. It provided what all agreed was a meaningless caveat - that he could keep the job if he wins unanimous board support by then.
"We knew the job was dangerous when we took it," Gainous said after Tuesday's meeting. "We thought we could make a difference. And I think we have."
Gainous, who was paid $348,946.80 last year, became the school's president July 1, 2002 and immediately encountered problems at the school.
His decision earlier this year to delay moving the football program to NCAA Division I-A left a badly split board, as well as divided loyalties among the school's alumni.
"There needs to be an environment in which the administration and the board of trustees can work effectively," Gainous said. "It needs some work."
Gov. Jeb Bush, who appoints the trustees at Florida 11 public universities, said it was the board's decision to make and he supported that duty.
"It is my sincere hope that the interests of FAMU's students remain the school's number one priority," Bush said in a statement released from his office. "As the university moves forward, it is important to continue that proud tradition and serve its students well."
Trustees chairman James Corbin, who has feuded with the president and other board members, called it a sad day for the university.
"You never like to do this," said Corbin, who added he would initiate a national search for a replacement.
"I'm really shocked," said Marcie Forgue, a senior psychology major from Pompano Beach. "He (Gainous) still needs more time. He had to reconstruct FAMU."
Gainous faced tougher scrutiny from FAMU boosters and alumni, as well state officials as well, than his predecessor.
Frederick Humphries was president for 16 years and credited with a growth in prestige and enrollment. He pulled millions from corporate America and landed more black national merit scholars than Stanford, Harvard and other elite private schools.
One of the four trustees who supported Gainous criticized the ouster.
"It is a railroad job," Barney Bishop III said. "This agenda was manipulated to get the result that they wanted."
Bishop said he feared the decision to remove Gainous will slow Florida A&M's fundraising efforts.
"People are going to wait and decide whether they're going to give any more money until they see who the new leader is," Bishop said. "That's a shame, because we need those dollars."
However, the school's alumni association and faculty senate backed the change.
"He did take responsibility for a lot of things," said professor William Tucker, president of FAMU's Chapter of the United Faculty of Florida. "Sooner or later, you can't continue to say, 'sorry I made a mistake.'"
"Too much water had gone under the bridge for the situation to be salvageable," Tucker said.
A 2003 review found that the school's construction budget was off by more than $3 million, that it did not bill the federal government for $3 million spent from a grant program and that about $1.5 million in surplus money was used to pay contractors who had never been paid. Two ex-workers were charged last year with diverting more than $21,000 from financial aid checks to themselves.
Gainous ordered a review of the school's finances after the accounting problems were disclosed and in December he announced the school had recovered $3 million in missing construction dollars.
The problems date back at least 20 years. Students then were attending classes without paying tuition and had unacceptable delinquency rates on repaying federal loans, a state auditor general report disclosed in 1983.
The school, founded in 1887, has 13,000 students, about a third of the size of neighboring Florida State University, which sits less than a mile away.
Before coming to FAMU, Gainous worked for 14 years as chancellor of Alabama's two-year college system, restructuring that state's community and junior colleges, which included merging more than 20 schools.
Before going to Alabama, he worked as administrator at St. Petersburg Junior College and with state education departments in Florida and Kansas.
