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Published 7/17/08

Year One:
Fourth in a series

Courtney Henderson
Outlook Staff Writer

It has been a year since Dr. James H. Ammons came to Florida A&M University and took over as president.

Six degree programs at FAMU that were in trouble have now all been reaccredited under Ammons’ administration.

“We had Dr. Ammons’ full support,” said Dr. Henry Lewis, dean of the College of Pharmacy.

The program degrees are a pharmacy degree, a bachelor of science in biological and agricultural systems engineering, a bachelor of science in social work, a master’s in social work, a bachelor of science in journalism and a bachelor of science in public relations.

In July 2007, each of these programs were either on probation or under conditional accreditation.

College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
The College of Pharmacy has had its accreditation renewed through June 2010. It was on probation because of the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education’s 21 concerns over curriculum, teaching facilities and faculty staffing levels.

“I feel that the dark cloud has been lifted from the university,” Lewis said. “It was critical for faculty that we be removed from probation.”

Lewis said because accreditation is a requirement for licensure, reaccreditation was extremely important. “I challenged my faculty to meet all of the 30 new standards in record time and we did it successfully. We also had Dr. Ammons’ full support.”

The return of almost $2 million in previously cut faculty positions was one critical step Ammons contributed toward getting reaccredited, Lewis said. “This step provided the accrediting body with confidence that the university supports the pharmacy program.”

The college is the nation’s largest producer of black pharmacy degrees. Lewis said the 2007 pharmacy class had a 100 percent pass rate on professional licensure exams, as did the 2008 public health class.

College of Engineering Sciences, Technology and Agriculture
FAMU’s College of Engineering Sciences, Technology and Agriculture received reaccreditation for its bachelor of science in biological and agricultural systems engineering.

This was a major milestone said Dr. Oghenekome Onokpise, associate dean of CESTA. He said it means that the college’s degree will be well-respected and their students can easily become gainfully employed after finishing the program.

“(Ammons’) hard work has been tremendously wonderful for our program in just these past 12 months since his arrival,” Onokpise said.

For a school that had an interim dean for almost five years, Ammons came in and found a permanent dean, Dr. Makola Abdullah.“There is no doubt that president Ammons’ presence here has made a difference for the university,” Onokpise said .

Abdullah, who has a Ph.D. in civil engineering, was on faculty in the FAMU College of Engineering from 1996 to 2005. Prior to becoming the dean, he served as the associate vice president for research.

College of Arts and Sciences
In the College of Arts and Sciences the Department of Social Work was granted a full eight-year accreditation to the Bachelor of Social Work and Master of Social Work programs.

“It’s a wonderful thing to be sanctioned by an accrediting body,” said Dr. Brenda Jarmon, chairwoman of FAMU’s Department of Social Work. “Though it was an arduous task we are quite proud.”

She said accreditation could not have been achieved without the support of Ammons, the Deans Office, faculty, staff and students.

“It was a combined effort for us to achieve this notoriety and we appreciate the university’s commitment to us achieving this.”

The eight-year cycle of accreditation from the Council on Social Work Education Commission on Accreditation is until 2014.

School of Journalism and Mass Communications
The Accrediting Council on Journalism and Mass Communication voted unanimously to “strongly recommend” reaccreditation for the Division of Journalism.

“I think this is significant because there are hundreds and hundreds of journalism and mass communication programs around the country but only about 112 around the nation that are fully accredited,” said Dorothy Bland, director of the division of journalism. “And we are one of them.”

The division was the first journalism program at a historically black university to be accredited by the ACEJMC. 

Courtney Henderson may be contacted at  chenderson@capitaloutlook.com

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