Lifetime Achievement

Dr. Frederick S. Humphries
President 
Florida A&M University

By Garland L. Thompson

Florida Trend magazine described Frederick S. Humphries' accomplishments at Florida A&M University this way: "Since arriving at FAMU in 1985 after almost 11 sometimes controversial years heading Tennessee State University in Nashville, Humphries has defined his tenure with aggressive, relentless salesmanship. Some successful programs -- the business school, for example -- were underway before Humphries was named president. But when Humphries took over, enrollment, morale and facilities were declining, and he is credited with the academic equivalent of a corporate turnaround: Enrollment has doubled [today it tops 11,000], and average SAT scores have risen from less than 700 to 1,036. Morale is high, and the school has added $135 million in new buildings and improvements in the past decade."

That was in 1997. President Humphries, a 1957 FAMU alumnus who had to leave to get his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh, was pursuing new milestones. Under his leadership, FAMU's College of Engineering, run jointly with Florida State University, went from a standing start, in 1982, to more than 2,000 students. That is six of every 10 Black engineering students in Florida, and the 1998-99 class' 129 bachelor's degrees made FAMU America's second-highest producer of Black engineers.

How did he do it? By providing the best education money can buy, hustling to raise corporate dollars to pay for it, and fighting the political fights required to get his programs through the Florida legislature. With the structure in place, Humphries travelled across the country to sell top Black students on coming to help turn the university around, instilled a new spirit of learning on campus, and recruited corporate partners to provide the scholarships, internships, and career paths to make it worth the students' while.

Black Issues in Higher Education's October 26, 2000 edition put FAMU's total of 58 National Achievement Scholars second only to Howard University, and it produces more Black baccalaureates than any other U.S. school. 
No wonder Fortune magazine keeps going back to FAMU. No wonder Time magazine named FAMU the College of the Year, in 1998. With doctoral programs in all of FAMU's engineering disciplines and with 28 master's programs across the university, Dr. Humphries is an educator who has engineered a new approach to excellence.

Garland L. Thompson is assistant managing editor of The Philadelphia Tribune and a member of the Black Engineer of the Year Awards Selection Panel. He can be reached at GThompson@ccgmag.com.