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Florida A&M University’s interim president wants to start the academic year with a clean slate of senior leaders amid fallout from a fraudulent $237 million donation.
Timothy Beard, who became interim president after Larry Robinson resigned last month, sent a letter to nearly 20 members of the university’s senior leadership team Monday, asking for their resignations, The Tallahassee Democrat reported.
“As you know, our university (FAMU) is at a critical juncture, where we must align our leadership, vision and strategies to meet the evolving challenges and opportunities ahead,” Beard said in the letter, which Tallahassee’s ABC affiliate, WTXL, published on its website. “After careful consideration and in consultation with the Board of Trustees, the past University President, and from my observations, I have concluded that a change in our senior leadership team is necessary to move forward more effectively.”
Shawnta Friday-Stroud, FAMU’s vice president for university advancement and executive director of the foundation, resigned in May, shortly after the donation fiasco.
Beard asked for the university’s remaining senior administrators to resign by Aug. 13. According to The Democrat, Tiffani-Dawn Sykes, FAMU’s athletic director, resigned Tuesday, though it’s not clear how many other members of the senior leadership team submitted their resignations by the deadline.
“Please know that this request may not be a reflection of your individual contributions or dedication to our institution,” Beard’s letter said. “Your hard work and commitment to the University over the years have been invaluable, and we deeply appreciate the many ways you have served our community. However, at this time, we believe that new leadership is essential for the University to achieve its long-term goals.”
Skepticism of the $237 million donation from Gregory Gerami, a little-known hemp farmer, erupted almost immediately after FAMU publicly announced the gift at its graduation ceremony in May, but only a small group of administrators, including Robinson and Friday-Stroud, knew about it beforehand.
That prompted the Board of Trustees to commission a third-party investigation into the donation, which not only confirmed the widespread suspicion that the purported value of Gerami’s $237 donation was “baseless,” but also concluded that Robinson’s leadership created a “an environment where those involved felt pressured not to ask questions, to assume that proper due diligence had been performed, and to avoid seeking outside advice,” according to the report.
Robinson reportedly told his staff “not to mess this up” and influenced those involved “to continue moving forward despite the existence of derogatory information about the donor.”
