You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
Larry Robinson, who served as president of Florida A&M University for seven years, resigned Friday.
“With tremendous gratitude for the privilege of leading our beloved Florida A&M University as Interim President in 2016 and President beginning in 2017, and with much optimism for its future, I am writing to inform you of my decision to step down from my position,” Robinson said in his resignation letter, according to The Tallahassee Democrat. “I will entrust the determination of the precise date to the Board’s preferences while fulfilling any obligations of my existing contract.”
Robinson’s resignation comes two months after he accepted a $237 million donation to Florida A&M from an obscure entrepreneur, Gregory Gerami, at the university’s spring commencement ceremony. Within days of the announcement, however, Robinson put the gift on pause after scrutiny from board members and others about the legitimacy of the deal.
Shawnta Friday-Stroud, the now-resigned vice president for university advancement and executive director of the Florida A&M Foundation, later admitted that the university did not do a proper third-party valuation of the gift, which came in the form of privately held stock; it’s unclear what the actual value of the donation was.
The botched donation, which is under investigation, wasn’t the university's only blunder during Robinson’s tenure. Last month, the vice chair of the Florida Board of Governors threatened to eliminate Florida A&M’s law, nursing, pharmacy and physical therapy programs due to low licensure exam pass rates, The Tallahassee Democrat reported.
In 2022, 26 football players were declared ineligible to play in the opening game of the season; they blamed inadequate academic advising, and called for more accountability from the administration.
Under Robinson’s leadership, FAMU also held the top spot in the U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of HBCUs for five consecutive years; last year, it was named one of the top 100 national public universities.
But such successes weren’t enough to overcome the fallout from the donation snafu, Al Lawson Jr., a former congressman from the Tallahassee area with ties to Florida A&M, told The Tallahassee Democrat Friday.
“I think it was the backlash, really, from that,” Lawson said. “Sometimes you can’t overcome some things, and that might be something you can’t overcome.”
Robinson will take a year-long sabbatical before returning as a distinguished professor in the School of the Environment.
Kristin Harper, chair of the Board of Trustees, said in an email to the board Friday that she will soon call a special meeting to determine the next steps for appointing Robinson's replacement.
