With anticipation levels for Tuesday’s Board of Trustees meeting rising to a fevered pitch by the university community, the cancellation of the event on account of the potential arrival of Hurricane Ivan comes across as practical yet premature.
Rumors of throngs of alumni descending upon FAMU’s campus for the meeting in order to encourage the resignation of President Fred Gainous had been circulating for weeks. To this group and others, the move may come across as cowardly or even strategic.
Canceling the meeting out of concern for the safety of members of the University community was respectable. However, the move was made too soon.
Current forecasts have no set path for Ivan and only a possibility of it hitting the Florida panhandle. These same reports have the hurricane hitting the area late Wednesday or early Thursday. This is one or two days after the scheduled Board of Trustees meeting.
If the meeting was to be cancelled, the decision should have been made when there was a clearer picture about the hurricane’s path.
Outcries over the early cancellation and a lack of rescheduling will be heard and are justified. The officials must learn that when it comes to safety there is cautious and then there is overly cautious.
Tuesday’s meeting cancellation was overly cautious and the repercussions of these actions may be felt for weeks or months to come.
Scheduling of memorial
observance a travesty
Lousy planning seems to be a theme with university event scheduling. And it has now rippled its way down to our Student Government Association by making its waves seen in their decision to hold a Sept. 11 vigil on Sept. 12.
While the rest of the country spent Saturday honorably commemorating the attacks on the World Trade Center, crickets sounded around FAMU’s Eternal Flame.
Postponing such a momentous occasion due to a possible lack of attendance in light of the weekend’s activities is irrational.
The malls are not going anywhere, cookouts at a friend’s apartment will randomly pop up again and there will always be a 2 for 1 drink special before eleven at any given club. If students miss the ceremony because of another social event, they weren’t really interested in attending in the first place.
Those who sacrifice the decadent frills of their weekend are the people who you really want in attendance. The size of a crowd is trivial when compared to the meaning of an observance.
Such an oversight by the leaders of our student government is unexplainable.This is an injustice to those whose lives were lost. And this is a greater injustice to students who sought to participate in a ceremony honoring victims of that fateful day.
University lacks motivation in
dissemination of ‘good news’
As Ivan inches his way to the Florida panhandle, hope is said to be on the way – in the form of the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson.
However, on a campus blanketed by campaign and homecoming concert posters, there’s no sign of Jackson’s visit.
That is, unless you read the calendar page of The Famuan today.
At this time, our beloved university is facing seriously bad press every other day. With all of the turmoil streaming from the failed athletic division move to a petition calling for a “change in leadership” that is rapidly gaining signatures, fake or authentic, we should be more than willing to let the world know about the good things the University is doing.
But we are not.
Instead, we are settling to announce the arrival of one the greatest leaders of our time with one line in a community calendar.
We must do better.
For the past two years, our campus has been lacking the caliber of guests that seem to flock across the railroad tracks to Florida State University.
Yet, in the past few weeks we’ve had Al Sharpton and now Jesse Jackson, and their presence has only garnered a mere whisper from the groups that arranged their arrival while you can’t walk from Tucker Hall to Coleman Library without seeing at least five fliers about a party.
We have to do better.
We know how to promote parties so we should have no problem promoting our selves and our achievements.
The university should start focusing on creating good news about FAMU instead of scrambling to recover after a dean quits or someone gets fired.