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, the board unanimously agreed that FAMU should be brought to the table for the partnership. It also asked the city of Tallahassee to delay a public hearing scheduled about the proposal.
Trustees Chair Deveron Gibbons called the proposed partnership, which would give FSU control of the hospital's land and assets, a monumental change for health care in the region.
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Florida A&M's board 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.
It also calls for integration of FAMU students alongside FSU and Tallahassee State College cohorts in joint clinical and educational programs.
Gibbons said invovling the historically Black college would help its students and the larger Tallahassee community.
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"If we serve in the same state university system, which touts itself to be No. 1 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," Gibbons said.
FAMU 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.
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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 on Oct. 22.
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