Florida A&M University has received a stern warning from the State University System (SUS) Board of Governors regarding the performance of its law and nursing programs per a report by the Florida Phoenix. Alan Levine, vice chair of the SUS Board, expressed his readiness to vote for removing the law school from FAMU if bar-passage rates do not show significant improvement soon.

“I’m prepared to vote to take these programs away if we can’t do it the right way,” Levine stated. “This is a disservice to those students and to the taxpayers who are paying for this, and the result they are getting is they can’t pass their boards to go practice what they went to school for.”

The warning comes in the wake of alarming statistics from the Florida Bar exam. Last year, fewer than half of FAMU College of Law students passed the exam on their first attempt. The university had set a goal of an 80% first-time pass rate for the 2023 class, but only achieved 41%, reflecting a 12% decrease from the previous year.

The underperformance is not limited to the law school. FAMU’s pharmacy, nursing, and physical therapy programs also fell short of their goals. Nursing students were 8% below the approved goal of a 90% pass rate, pharmacy students were 22% below the goal of 92%, and physical therapy students were 13% below the target of 92%.

These performance statistics were reviewed during a Board of Governors meeting, which included an assessment of state university accountability plans. These plans encompass data on post-graduation employment status, demographics of graduates, and enrollment planning. Of the 12 state universities, FAMU was one of two highlighted for lower performance.

Dr. Larry Robinson, president of Florida A&M, acknowledged the shortcomings but emphasized the university’s efforts to improve.
“We submitted fairly intensive or comprehensive improvement plans for the four programs in 2023,” Robinson said. “What we see is increases in all of them, but we’re still not at the level that would change this from red to yellow or green.”

Robinson explained that the university has collaborated with other institutions to adopt best practices for better outcomes on the bar exam. FAMU faculty have focused on addressing the needs of at-risk students and adjusting the curriculum to better prepare them for the exam.

“We have begun to review the curriculum to ensure that it correlates more closely with what students might experience or be questioned about on the bar examination itself,” Robinson noted. The university also enrolls all at-risk students in bar exam prep courses and tracks graduates’ careers to ensure ongoing support.

Levine, while expressing his support for FAMU, stressed the importance of meeting the established pass rate thresholds. “I’m a huge fan of the work that’s been done at FAMU, you know that,” Levine said. “And I’ve been a huge advocate for giving everybody the opportunity to correct these things. But not hitting our threshold for pass rates is completely unacceptable — it’s table stakes; this is a must-do.”

Amid the warning, Robinson remains optimistic about the future, emphasizing the university’s commitment to improvement. “I think making the stronger correlation between the curriculum and the exams themselves and making the test prep a mandatory part of the student experience is going to make a significant difference,” he said.

For now, all eyes are on FAMU as it works to rise to the challenge and secure the future of its law, pharmacy, nursing, and physical therapy programs.