Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University has been awarded a seven-figure donation to help students graduate in four years. Recipients of these grants and scholarships sparked from this gift will be tracked from the time received until graduation.
According to a press release, FAMU, a Historically Black College and University located in Tallahassee, received a $1.2 million donation from philanthropists Frank and Laura Baker to assist learners compromised by low-income backgrounds and struggling to complete their programs in four years.
The gift, designed to alleviate various financial burdens for students by erasing their outstanding account balances with the university, established the Frank and Laura Baker Graduation Fund.
Frank Baker, the co-Founder and managing partner of Siris, a leading private equity firm with more than $7 billion in AUM focused on making value-oriented, control investments in technology companies, said he sees the gift as more than a donation, but also an investment into the future.
“In 2020, we established Siris’ Florida office, and as part of that, we believed it was important to invest in our new community,” he said. “Through our conversations with FAMU, we learned there are extremely capable students who aren’t able to graduate in four years solely due to limited financial resources.”
He added, “We also discovered that the four-year graduation rate is a key metric in determining the amount of funding FAMU receives from the State of Florida. This made our ‘investment’ decision pretty easy — FAMU students in the workforce sooner and potentially unlocking more State funding.”
Terms of the donation will require the FAMU Office of University Advancement, the Office of Student Success and Strategic Initiatives, along with Frank and Laura Baker, to review the cohort of recipients each year to assess how the graduation fund will continue to be distributed.
The first $300,000 of the donation will be used to clear university balances for spring and summer 2022 graduates, once grades are in and they are given a review.
That donation matched donations during the Day of Giving “1887 Strikes” campaign between April 21 and 22, 2022. The effort raised an additional $360,000.
Dr. Larry Robinson, the president of the school, called the gift “transformational.”
“This is a transformational gift that will encourage our students to finish in a timely manner and allow them to move forward less burdened by debt to the University,” he said.
“We thank Frank and Laura Baker for investing in our students. Their generosity will reap untold dividends for years to come.”
Shawnta Friday-Stroud, vice president for University Advancement and executive director of the FAMU Foundation, said, “The timing and magnitude of this gift cannot be overstated. It reinforces the importance of the task ahead and is a reminder that student success is at the core of our mission.”
Graduates from FAMU, the highest-ranked public HBCU, according to the 2022 U.S. News & World Report Ranking of Top National Public Universities, have made a substantial mark on the world.
These include names such as professional tennis player Althea Gibson; film and television producer Will Packer; publisher Keith Clinkscales, former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms; rapper Common; actress Anika Noni Rose and many others.
Before this recent donation, the Bakers, in 2020, supported students attending Spelman College in Atlanta with a gift that “covered the spring tuition balances of nearly 50 graduating seniors and established a scholarship fund to ensure that high achieving seniors have the financial resources to graduate.”
The following year, they double-backed and presented Spelman College with a gift that enabled the all-women’s institution to complete the Center for Innovation & the Arts infrastructure. As an act of recognition for their generosity, the school will name the Frank Baker and Laura Day Baker Theater Performance Room within the center.
