Delaware State University News July 6, 2016 New Delaware State University provost bows out before starting Delaware State University's new provost<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/education/2016/05/25/dsu-names-new-provost/84912142/> has decided not to take the job just over a month after his selection was announced. DSU spokesman Carlos Holmes said the administration was informed over the weekend that James Ammons, the former president of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, would not be taking the position. "He didn't share any details except to say it was personal," Holmes said. Calls to Ammons' office Wednesday were not immediately returned. Ammons was scheduled to start July 18. The Tallahassee Democrat on Tuesday reported that Ammons and his wife, Judith, were supposed to have a send-off at their church, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Tallahassee, on Sunday. When he was called forward at the 7:45 a.m. service, Ammons said that they had decided to stay in Tallahassee, where he holds a tenured position as a professor of political science, the Democrat reported. Holmes said DSU will conduct a national search to find a replacement, but it is unclear when that search will put another candidate in place. Holmes said a copy of Ammons' contract was not immediately available Wednesday. Ammons was chosen by a search committee at DSU to lead its academic agenda following a shake-up at Delaware's only historically black university. Earlier this year, DSU cut 23 of its low-enrollment programs<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/education/2016/03/14/dsu-cuts-23-academic-programs/81708234/>, which angered some faculty members who had spent their careers developing specialties that were deemed "low productivity, low priority or unnecessarily redundant" by the university. The provost at the time, Alton Thompson, left the university shortly after the announcement. Thompson held the position for nearly six years. When DSU announced its selection of Ammons as his replacement, it touted his track record in academia that included the development of 22 new degree programs and the increase in the enrollment at Florida A&M's College of Law. Ammons was the president of Florida A&M when the school's band was rocked by the hazing death<http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/31/ex-famu-band-member-convicted-hazing-death/18263121/> of drum major Robert Champion, 26, who died after passing through an onslaught of band mates' fists, drumsticks and mallets on the bus after a football game in November of 2011. The following year, as pressure from Champion's death grew and his family filed a lawsuit against the school, Ammons resigned from his position as president of the university<http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-07-11/features/os-famu-ammons-resigns-20120711_1_hazing-death-robert-champion-famu-s-ammons>. Contact Saranac Hale Spencer at (302) 324-2909, sspencer@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @SSpencerTNJ. SANDRA M. PHOENIX Executive Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 404-978-2118 (office) 404-702-5854 (cell) 404-577-5158 (fax) Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/hbculibraryalliance1/ Check out "PULSE!" The HBCU Library Alliance's News Source! - https://hbculibraryalliance.wordpress.com/ 7th Biennial Membership Meeting: Register here http://hbculibraries.org/html/2016meeting-form.html for the October 10,11 Membership Meeting in Atlanta. [Sized Coming Soon]NEW DIGS!!!! The HBCU Library Alliance is relocating to the Atlanta University Center Woodruff Library. Transition process is near completion. Stay tuned!!! Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library 111 James P. Brawley Drive SW Atlanta, GA 30314-4207 www.auctr.edu Honor the ancestors, honor the children.