Leon Commissioner Bill Proctor to host community town hall on FAMU presidential search
A failed call for Florida A&M University's presidential search to be suspended is not stopping Leon County District 1 Commissioner Bill Proctor from pushing for the process to be redone.
Proctor says he will host a town hall on FAMU's presidential process , 6:30–8 p.m. May 7, at Bethel AME Church, 501 W. Orange Ave., as frustrations run high during the search for FAMU's 13th leader.
The public meeting comes after FAMU's unranked list of final candidates – Rondall Allen, Gerald Hector, Marva Johnson and Donald Palm – was announced, and it also comes ahead of the finalists' campus visits May 12–15.
"No one accepts that Marva is the fourth best candidate out of over 60 applicants," Proctor, who has been a FAMU instructor for years, told the Tallahassee Democrat Tuesday during a phone call. "It just places a pause on integrity and people's capacity to accept these results. We believe there was more substance there."
"They're going to have to open up the files and show us who in the world this woman beat out," Proctor added, referring to FAMU's 15-member presidential search committee . But only finalists in the presidential search can be made public; other applications and applicants' identities are not public records under Florida's Sunshine Laws.
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There has been wide speculation that FAMU board Vice Chair Deveron Gibbons insisted on adding Johnson – the group vice president of state government affairs for Charter Communications – to what was initially a list of three final candidates committee members interviewed and voted on during closed sessions.
Before the trustees met, Proctor wrote a letter to the FAMU board and the Florida Board of Governors to call for the search to be suspended, describing the process as a "farce" and a "Hanky Panky Express." He says he did not directly invite any of the university's board members to attend the town hall.
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"FAMU is choosing a president and not a pope. The secrecy and backroom politics are not appropriate," Proctor said in a May 6 release about the upcoming town hall.
Bethel AME Church's senior pastor Michael B. Price – a University of Central Florida alumnus who was appointed in November 2024 – also is concerned about Johnson being one of the university's finalists when considering her level of experience and whether she has an adequate understanding of what FAMU is.
"It is important for the community as well as the university to make sure and ensure the next president has the high standards required to be a university president," Price told the Democrat Tuesday.
The Wednesday evening town hall meeting will only be held in person in the fellowship hall of Bethel AME church, he added. It will not be livestreamed.
Tarah Jean is a reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat. She can be reached at tjean@tallahassee.com . Follow her on X: @tarahjean_ .
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Commissioner Bill Proctor to hold town hall on FAMU president search
