Florida A&M University's interim president Timothy Beard on Tuesday accepted the resignation of athletic director Tiffani-Dawn Sykes, as part of a house clearing process Beard initiated.
Beard asked for the resignation of FAMU's entire senior leadership team, with the intent to reassess who will stay, and who will leave.
“It’s part of the overall process of evaluating the leadership team,” Beard told the Tallahassee Democrat in an interview Tuesday after his one-on-one meetings with the approximately 20 team members. “One way that we do that is to request for the submission of resignations, but that does not mean I’m going to accept all the resignations in terms of the team members leaving the institution.”
By the end of the day, along with Sykes' resignation, Beard had also accepted the resignations of communications director Keith Miles, director of Governmental Relations, Danielle McBeth, and vice president of Legal Affairs Denise Wallace.
Beard notified the leadership team members on Monday via email.
“The process is highly used in corporate America and in higher education to assess leadership teams,” Beard said. “It shouldn’t be taken out of context, but sometimes, it is.”
The directive comes after an investigative report published last week found that a Texas hemp farmer's fraudulent $237 million gift to FAMU deceived administrators.
Beard said the process of evaluating the entire team is ongoing.
