FAMU president reflects on 'phenomenal opportunity,' challenges of first 100 days

Florida A&M University President Marva Johnson's first 100 days on the "highest of seven hills" is in the books, and looking back on the experience so far, she believes a lot has been accomplished. 

"The thing I think marks the 100 days is, I got a lot done," Johnson told the Tallahassee Democrat during a Nov. 14 interview in FAMU's Al Lawson Center. "I learned a lot, I got to listen to a number of stakeholders, and I was able to immerse myself in the culture in a way that was inspirational for me." 

Johnson began her term as FAMU's new leader on Aug. 1 under a cloud of controversy following a contentious presidential search . After a listening tour and some high profile moves , Nov. 9 marked her 100th day in office. 

In the " 100-Day Framework " that Johnson set out for herself, she prioritized immersing herself in the university, assuring student success, elevating curriculums through innovation and economic development, supporting and growing world class faculty and staff, and investing in partnerships that advance stakeholder success. 

More: FAMU President Marva Johnson rolls out 100-day plan as she makes key appointments

Within the time span of a little over three months at the helm of the university, making key hires was one of the specific tasks on Johnson's to-do list in efforts of carrying out her action plan. 

"One of the most important things you can do at the onset of your administrative leadership is set the tone by having your mission bearers at your side, and those senior leaders are critical to our success," Johnson said. 

While highlighting some of her key hires, she put a spotlight on Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Kelvin Lawson , a former longtime trustee who strongly supported Johnson's presidential candidacy. She said he "has really been instrumental in making sure that I could hit the ground running." 

Johnson also acknowledged Vice President of Enterprise Partnerships & Innovation Marcus Burgess, Acting Interim Vice President of University Advancement Brandi Tatum-Federick, who she says "has been tremendous," and Donald Palm – one of the finalists favored by many FAMU stakeholders and the Tallahassee community during FAMU's presidential search – who serves as executive vice president for Health Sciences Enterprise and Research Innovation.

More recently, Johnson announced that former Vice President and Athletics Director Angela Suggs has been appointed to serve as special assistant to the president and advisor for Intercollegiate Athletics while Secretary of the Florida Lottery John Davis has been named FAMU's new AD, starting Jan. 5.

Key openings on Johnson's leadership team include the chief financial officer position, which was recently posted as the university searches for an individual to permanently fill the open role. The CFO opening comes after former CFO Rebecca Brown's performance was called into question due to FAMU's flawed financial and operational audit reports that are under scrutiny. Brown took a personal leave for about three months before resigning.

More: 'Failed pretty miserably': FAMU to update Florida Board of Governors on financial woes

"As much as we've already made some key hires and put some key leaders in place, I love that we still have potential to continue to grow our excellence and our leadership team," Johnson said. "I've been fortunate to have folks like CFO (Nichole) Murry help steer our course in the interim and guide us in a way that ensures that we're stabilizing the enterprise and positioning ourselves for success." 

Under Johnson's leadership so far, efforts also included giving the Marching 100 band an additional $805,000 in funding to support and improve its operations, awarding a 4% bonus for faculty and staff and unveiling a statue honoring the late FAMU president Frederick S. Humphries during homecoming.

The university marked Johnson's 100-day milestone with a fast-paced social media video filled with pictures of the president's engagements and achievements both on and off campus, along with a 100-second countdown. But many individuals posted messages in the comments asking where the data is to back up the accomplishments.

"Is there a written version to highlight benchmarks and achievements?" a FAMU alumna commented on Facebook. Another user on the social media platform said "what is the plan and how is she pacing against it is all we want to know." While many individuals still tie Johnson to Gov. Ron DeSantis and his conservative agenda, others say 100 days is not long enough to evaluate her overall performance.

As Johnson reflected on her first 100 days, she spoke to the Democrat about how it went and how she would evaluate her own performance: 

A Q&A with FAMU President Marva Johnson

Q: What's your message to Rattlers who still have concerns about your stewardship of FAMU?

A:For any Rattler that still has concern about my stewardship and leadership, I would remind them that I will leave my door open well beyond the 100 days. We started this 100-day framework with a focus on listening, immersing myself in the culture, taking actions swiftly where that opportunity was there, and really grounding our understanding so that we could define, plan and begin to execute our path forward. I would offer anyone who hasn't had the opportunity yet to share their vision with us and to talk directly with me about any concerns they may have that may help inform our focus and inform our path forward ... that the door remains open. I'm always happy to continue to try to find more ways to bring excellence to our students.

Q: How would you grade your performance during the first 100 days?

A:Like many leaders, I'm probably my worst critic. I'm going to be the hardest on myself. I would probably give myself a B+, mostly because I'm a tough grader, so you won't have any grade inflation over here. But also because my biggest challenge is I would like to move fast. We have so many things to get done, and every day that something that could be transformational isn't delivered for our students, it's a day that they miss in terms of their growth and having access to resources that will fuel their success. So, the biggest challenge I would offer for myself is to try to find ways to move faster. 

I will give myself an A for even having patience with myself and being able to moderate the impulse to act swiftly and to manage that against the need to truly act with excellence and caring and understanding. 

Q: What would you say were your top three accomplishments during the first 100 days?

A:Our leadership team was able to listen and immerse ourselves in the culture in a way that really gave us strong footing to see the path forward. The second priority that we were able to accomplish was stabilizing the enterprise, especially as it relates to our fiscal responsibilities and some of the financial concerns that had been raised in the audit findings from our earlier administration... Lastly, I would say that creating the health sciences enterprise ... and pushing to get to preeminence is one of the most transformational things that we did in the first 100 days, even though we may not see the outcome until three years from now. 

If you think about PhD production, right now we're producing about 35 PhDs (annually ), but we need to get to 70 in order to get to R1 status. Every day that goes by that I'm not focusing on strategies to attract more graduate candidates.

Q: How do you perceive the status of FAMU athletics?

A:As you know, athletics are the front door to most of our higher ed institutions. They truly ground our students' experience here on campus, so as I think about our athletics programs, I'm proud of all of our athletic leaders. I would love to see our athletics facilities reflect the excellence that our student athletes bring, and I know that we have some opportunity to invest there. 

As I think about what our athletics programs leaders can do to help accelerate our teams is really fundraising and building some additional incremental revenue so that we can better support our athletic coaches. Being able to invest more in our athletics programs is going to be essential to their continued success.

Q: What have you learned about the FAMU football season and the spirit of the Rattler community at Bragg Stadium?

A: The experience of participating in the football season here at FAMU has been motivational. As a child, I was a cheerleader at some point in my youth and my brothers all played football... so while I've had an opportunity to be engaged in collegiate athletics here in the state, to be inside the locker room with our football team when they lose and when they win has just been an experience that is truly inspiring. To be able to support our student athletes when they're our armor bearers on the field and to be there to feel their energy when they're hyped and ready to defend our brand has truly been an amazing experience. 

The first time I did the Rattler Charge on the field... there was so much excitement from it. Many people might think you're out there just saying a charge, but when you're responsible for delivering that charge on behalf of the Rattler nation, you know that it comes with great weight and great expectations, and you can feel the weight of the Rattler nation in your effort as you deliver something even as simple as a charge.

Q: What have you learned from the faculty and the student body that you've been able to address over the past 100 days?  

A: Two of the challenges that I've heard in the first 100 days that we can help with and have shown some progress on is differentiating our professional tracks in a way that helps our faculty focus better and give more proficient deliverables for our students. One of the things we're working with the provost on is differentiating between research professional tracks and instructional professional tracks to help shift some of the workload for our professors who we're really counting on to carry our research burden.

The second thing is that regardless of what study you look at, our faculty and staff are not compensated at the level that we really need to compensate them at in order to continue to attract world class excellence. We were able to do a 4% one-time bonus that we are negotiating now with the union on. But the truth is that we need a permanent solution so that as we look forward, I can commit to that level of support for our faculty and staff in terms of their compensation.

For students, we have had to focus on understanding. Some things may sound like urban legends but are truly impacting their ability to succeed. The first is managing through the financial aid process. While we've made significant improvements there, one of the things that we are committed to doing is re-imagining our admissions process from cradle to grave to better align each step in the process so that the financial aid portion and the scholarship-related support are aligned in a way that allow us to give families confidence earlier on that they can afford to make the commitment to FAMU.

This will give us an opportunity for families to make FAMU their first choice earlier in the process, and it will eliminate the surprises or hiccups on the back end. The other thing is we've created two new academic advising hubs because we want to make sure that our students' academic success is managed not at the end of the process when we're looking at a grade, but every day to make sure that by the time our investment in their academic success is evidence, we know it's the best we could've done for them. 

Tarah Jean is the higher education reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat, a member of the USA TODAY Network – Florida. She can be reached at  tjean@tallahassee.com . Follow her on X:  @tarahjean_ .

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FAMU President Johnson 'got a lot done' in first 100 days