The Florida A&M university’s board of trustees wants more time to negotiate joining a potential partnership between Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare and Florida State University.
During a special meeting Friday, FAMU’s board unanimously agreed that Florida A&M should be brought to the table in negotiations for the partnership. They also asked the City of Tallahassee to delay a public hearing scheduled about the proposal.
Chair Deveron Gibbons calls the proposed partnership, that would give FSU control of the hospital’s land and assets, a monumental change to healthcare in the region. He said FAMU being involved would help its students and the larger community.
“If we serve in the same state university system, which is touts itself to be number one in the world and in the country, then we need to figure out how to collaborate with each other to make sure that an economic engine can be realized for not only FSU, TSC, but also for FAMU,” he said.
FAMU’s board has drafted a list of requests to bring to the negotiating table, including wanting three seats on the governing board and clinical training placements for students in FAMU’s Nursing, Pharmacy, and Allied Health Sciences programs.
Trustee Michael White said he thinks the university should seek concrete terms in those negotiations.
“I do believe that the only way we can move forward as a as a board and also as an institution, we must have an a written document, a written agreement on what we're going to be receiving and also understanding what that partnership looks like,” he said.
It remains to be seen if the city will listen to the delay request, but there may be time for those negotiations anyway.
City Commissioner Curtis Richardson told WFSU that he does not anticipate commissioners taking any final votes during the next public hearing on the issue—which is currently set on October 22.