Page 7 - Florida Sentinel 11-14-17

HBCU
Spelman, Morehouse Hunger Strike Ends With Success; 14,000 Meals A Year Will Be Provided
Spelman College juniors Lillian Thomas (left) and Mary-Pat Hector initiated the hunger strike that brought attention to stu- dents on campus who could not afford food.
Federal Judge Orders Maryland To Fund Its HBCUs
A student-led hunger strike designed to draw attention to a lack of food access has ended with new accommodations being made by two of the na- tion’s leading historically black colleges.
The protest, which launched on Nov. 2, solicited executives from Morehouse College and Spelman College to broker agreements with food service provider Aramark to donate unclaimed meal plans to students without food access.
Mary-Pat Hector tweeted:
‘Proud to announce the hunger strike has ended! The Spelman/Morehouse admin met with our NAN chapters, Morhouse SGA and Spelman NAACP.What came from that meeting was both institutions committing to 14,000 meals each year for students who face food insecurity on cam- pus. This means all you have to do is request a meal card from the Dean or Rep and you can have up to three meals a day. Vouchers are available.’
FAMU Trustee Board Closer To Naming Larry Robinson President Of The University
Last week a federal judge ruled in favor of Maryland’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in a decades long legal battle over disparities in higher education in the state.
Judge Catherine C. Blake ordered Maryland to address its historic lack of in- vestment in the state’s HBCUs. In her injunction, Blake barred Maryland from “main- taining vestiges of the prior ... system of segregation in the form of unnecessary program duplication in the public
higher education system.”
But Blake turned down a request from the plaintiffs (a coalition of alumni from Mary- land’s HBCUs) for the state to pour more money into its
Black schools to compensate for decades of funding dispari- ties, citing improvements in state appropriations.
The court’s ruling does re- quire Maryland to create “new, unique and high demand pro- grams” at each of the state’s four HBCUs (Morgan State University, Copping State Uni- versity, Bowie State University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore).
The coalition has been fight- ing Maryland in court since 2006, trying to remedy these disparities.
FAMU's Board of Trustees passed a critical hurdle in naming Larry Robinson president last Thursday when the Board of Governors ap- proved its request to bypass conducting a national search.
The Board took the vote after about five minutes of discus- sion.
Trustees are in the process of completing their evaluations of Robinson’s performance for 2016-17. Robinson also will be providing his self-evalu-
Larry Robinson has been the interim president since last September.
ation.
The board’s next scheduled
meeting is Nov. 30.
The board also voted with-
out discussion to approve ex- tending Robinson’s contract as interim president through next September.
Mr. Robinson has been serving as interim since last September. It marks the third time in his 20-year-career at FAMU when he has been called upon to lead the university in an interim capacity.
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