Wealth Workshop

On Feb. 17, there was a Building Wealth Workshop entitled "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" hosted in Perry Paige. The workshop was open to students of all majors and specializations, with a large amount of students from the School of Business and Industry and the School of Journalism of Graphic Communication. They seemed to be the most inspired by the workshop, which was more than three hours long, and mostly PowerPoint presentation of common-sense information on budgeting and maintaining credit.
While the goals of the workshop were clear (teaching students important information in today's time of economic crisis), the presentation could not have been more dry. The PowerPoint slides were included in our goodie bags in a hard-copy version and a CD-ROM containing the presentations was also included. Providing all the information that was included in the presentation was thoughtful, but reading the slides verbatim was not the best strategy to use for keeping college students' attention.
After viewing the slide shows, the presenter asked students to break into four random, predetermined groups (based on the colors of dots on the name tags given at sign in). Each of the groups were given a scenario of common financial issues, and were asked to use solutions based on the information provided during the lectures. After coming up with the solutions, the students were instructed to come up with their own short presentations of their findings. Once again, the SBI students enjoyed using financial jargon and business lingo, and the student presentations also became dry and repetitive. (Each group seemed to repeat something the previous group had already said.)
While the goals of the workshop were clear, its length was too long (the workshop did not finish on schedule, as no on-campus program ever seems to), the information too general and watered-down, and the presentation was much-too-dry for college students.

University Address

FAMU President James H. Ammons gave his state of the university address Feb. 15. Ammons emphasized the rising need for funds for programs, but the ever-decreasing amount provided by the state of Florida. Five goals Ammons has for the university included:
1) to increase enrollment
2) to maintain quality of the university
3) improve current programs
4) increase scholarship funds
5) increase student retention and graduation

Ammons hopes to ensure that FAMU remains competitive within today's changing economy, and wants to spearhead FAMU into "a world-class institution of higher education."
"Now is the time to invest in higher education," said Ammons. "We are looking for an investment and not a bail out."
While the address did provide specifics about the current university revenue, much of the information is already assumed by students. As students take notice of the always-poor state of university housing, classrooms that are always dirty (as in FAMU GEC, old DRS, and B.L. Perry) and parking areas that are never sufficient for students or faculty, it is obvious that FAMU does not have nearly enough money to function. The solution seems simple: rely on alumni contributions and community donations, but such funding is typically restricted.
FAMU has a long way to go, but Ammons concluded the short speech with the usual inspirational motto "FAMU yesterday, FAMU today, and FAMU forever."