In the populist-right media ecosystem, however, the audience still believes that DEI run amok was among the biggest problems at New Collegeand that eliminating it was a major step toward turning the college around. Heres how it happened. New College was founded as a private institution in the 1960s. How is this freedom of thought? They all oppose whats happening at the college under DeSantis appointees, and don't want their money to support it, Lenger said. The same is true for womens studies departments and, more recently, gender and sexuality studies. Also in the news: Florida Gov. Dr. Scott Atlas, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, was met with a flurry of boos, jeers and chants as he delivered a keynote speech during the graduation ceremony for the New College of . Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified. Gov. Now, they are taking their mission to the courts, with a challenge to a new law that - among other things - limits discussion of certain topics at Florida's public colleges and universities. Thats why many New College faculty members, including professors who are broadly sympathetic to concerns about leftist excesses in higher education, were bewildered when DeSantis and Rufo began to characterize it as an institution where the academic program is ideologically captured by leftists and engaged in indoctrinating students. Theres a sudden housing shortage at New College, with housing contracts that had been finalized in April being canceled over the summer and juniors and seniors in particular being denied apartments they were supposed to live in. New College of Florida: From housing issues to student athletes - USA TODAY These are young adults who are not looking to fill up a semester with high school electives. Whether or not New College is similar enough to other institutions to offer lessons for reforming them, I expect its fate will be treated as a sign of whether conservative takeovers can work elsewhere. New College: Students gear up for fight with DeSantis after board picks Thats not right. The governor and his allies say the New College of Florida, known as a progressive school with a prominent LGBTQ+ community, is indoctrinating students with leftist ideology and should be remade into a more conservative institution. Tasks performed by others in the office included compliance with federal and state laws and requirements of accreditors, teaching financial literacy to students, and outreach to prospective students. We are here to defend the freedom of faculty members to teach what we have spent lifetimes studying and were hired to help students understand. Thats out of fewer than 700 students at New College prior to the DeSantis attacksand we dont know how many have left for other alternatives. Of those employees, just one worked mostly on DEI initiatives: Yoleidy Rosario-Hernandez, the DEI dean hired in 2022 and fired this month. -Board announces plans to name new interim President Richard Corcoran, a former Republican speaker of the Florida State House and DeSantis first Commissioner of Education. - The Atlantic Ideas Ron DeSantis Chose the Wrong College to Take Over The populist right has portrayed New College as a notorious. If a few behave like jerks, they resemble bullies on every social-media platform. "Kos" and "Daily Kos" are registered trademarks of Kos Media, LLC. Notable alum protests New College of Florida takeover. Debra Jenks, a DeSantis appointee who now chairs New College's Board of Trustees, said there also will be a push to collect more private donations. We must develop new programs to create solutions to the national challenge of young men turning away from a college education, while also continuing to work for gender equity, Okker said. But being on that list often just means you teach at least one course in a different discipline that youre willing to make eligible for gender-studies credit. I found no evidence, though, for his claim that bullying students exploit the DEI bureaucracy to isolate, shame, intimidate, and expel others. Interim President Richard Corcoran sent an email to alumni Friday, after this article published online, asking for their financial support. New College students take transfer deal from Massachusetts - MSN And if gender studies is eliminated? Much of the narrative around him has focused on who he isn't Donald Trump. So much is happening! Students at the New College of Florida, a small liberal arts college targeted by Gov. ), Gillman International Scholars, high earners (median salary >10 years post-graduation >$100,000) a Marshall Scholar, NSF Graduate Research Fellows, scholars (among public universities, we have the highest per-capita percentage of graduates who go on to receive doctoral degrees) Udall Undergraduate Scholars and much more.. "I feel both sad and angry about the recent events at New College," the donor wrote. But in Rufos telling, there is no contradiction between calling himself a champion of free speech and free inquiry and targeting departments he regards as ideologically captured for dissolution. Contrary to what you might expect, its not that Rufo decided the campus housing was too woke and shut it downits that the administration decided to prioritize its treasured new cadre of student-athletes over existing commitments to returning students. What the DeSantis administration is trying to do, in brief, is force a conservative Christian model of education onto our public college, attempting to choke out hard-won academic freedom. New College students begin exodus after conservative control You and him are targeting fields of study that are critical of capitalism, racism, imperialism, misogyny, etc. That, in my estimation, is why the problem endures, not because of any top-down support for the bullying. It will take this kind of work and community engagement to defend the gains made by movements of students and faculty who came before us. What about our freedom to continue learning these subjects without government suppression?, Rufos response, which we found demeaning and rude, reinforces that he is unsuited to working in higher education. It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Floridas classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South, James Uthmeier, DeSantiss chief of staff, told the Daily Caller, referencing a Christian liberal-arts college that is a darling of movement conservatives. DeSantis previouslypushed through legislation governinghow K-12 schools in Florida discuss race and gender identityand recently prohibited anAdvanced Placement course in African American studies. Ron DeSantis didn't think through his New College takeover - MSNBC Here is the anatomy of the takeover, so far, at New College: Jan. 6 Gov. DeSantis packing the New College board of trustees is a targeted effort to dismantle a 60-year-old experiment that, by all accounts, has produced a successful model ofeducation. Zac Anderson USA TODAY BRADENTON, Fla. - The board of trustees of New College of Florida fired its president on Tuesday, replacing her with a former Republican House speaker as Gov. I don't think anyone in the state of Florida wants the state government telling them what they can and can't talk about. But a donor who canceled a planned gift of $1.5 million sent the Herald-Tribune an anonymous statement through an intermediary mentioning Corcoran's compensation package as among the reasons for holding back the money. For DeSantis, the fight over New College is part of a broader quest to crush any hint of progressivism in public education, Michelle Goldberg argued in her New York Times column. Florida New College students organize alternative graduation after A group created to oppose the new conservative direction at New College of Florida is a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the state. I especially love hard questions where youre not exactly sure how to go about finding the answer, because that process is where we learn., Okker did disagree with the new trustees about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Of those who were willing to share the amount, she tallied more than $10 million from 11 donors as of Thursday. News had broken that Gov. But. As detailed in Furman C. Arthur's book about the history of New College,just a few years after its founding, three students traveled to Alabama in 1965 to join the Selma to Montgomery march. If it succeeds, others will follow; if it fails, confidence in DeSantis will take a hit. In this telling, it is too sui generis to yield a model for reform, but close to perfect, in a time of negative polarization, for a politically advantageous spectacle akin to punching hippies: baiting New College students, then filming the most radical, who ideally have blue hair, facial piercings, or gender-nonconforming dress, to mock them as they intemperately shriek Fascists!. Sign up for the Teen Vogue Take, The Roe Decision Is Making Students Rethink Their College Choices, What School Is Like for Florida LGBTQ Students Post-'Don't Say Gay', What Its Like to Be Sued As a Student Journalist, So Many People With Student Debt Never Graduated College, This Organization Is Fighting to Get Cops Out of Libraries, 2023 Cond Nast. New College of Florida: Amid conservative takeover, Florida liberal Another big concern for some donors is that Foundation money is being used to pay Corcoran's compensation package. Perhaps in this struggle we might also create new horizons for what we want and need on campus today. As an admirer of New Colleges faculty, students, and curricular approach, and as a critic of leftist excesses in higher education, I would love nothing more than for New College to emerge as a model for transforming institutions with too little viewpoint diversity into thriving colleges. I reject the idea that to support students you have to shield them from people who dont share their politics, she said. Larry Geimer, the finance chair for the Foundation board and a certified public accountant with Kerkering, Barberio & Co., said during a recent Foundation board meeting that 99% of Foundation funds are restricted and that it's "a very, very huge question" where the money will come from to pay Corcoran. Its not like, Oh, chorus is closed, let me just go take that art class, the mother of a student who is transferring to Hampshire College told Inside Higher Ed. Of course, many moderate and conservative teenagers today are tolerant of gay and trans people. Ben Montgomery 1/10/2023. Over time, differences may emerge among the trusteeswhole articles could be spent describing the distinct and interesting worldviews of Eddie Speir, who co-founded a Christian charter school, and Charles Kesler, a college professor and the editor of the Claremont Review of Booksbut so far the DeSantis appointees have voted together. Teen Vogue may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Donors are upset that New College is being reoriented by DeSantis, with the school serving as an experiment in conservative higher education reform. That isnt to say that DeSantis approved of what his appointee did or that there wasnt any support at the left-leaning New College for a bigger DEI bureaucracy. We encourage students, faculty, and staff to unite and learn the history of your institutions, the particulars of how beloved programs, offices, and departments were established on campus, and to imagine what else we might win if we take initiative to build more in the face of these blatant attempts to turn back the hands of time. And New Colleges failure to be more welcoming of nonprogressives limits the schools appeal. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Thiessen also found that the college had one online training course in DEI that it called mandatory (though 70 to 75 percent of the faculty failed to complete it without consequence) and that, recently, the college had started requiring applicants for faculty jobs to complete a diversity statement. A former trustee at New College of Florida says 13 major donors told her they are canceling more than $29 million in planned contributions since Gov. Alex Obraud, a 21-year-old anthropology student in his third year at New College in Florida, . I credit Rufo and all the trustees who voted with him on that matter. When Barazzone's classmates gathered for a 50-year reunion, they identified at least $2 million combined in planned contributions. (When I asked him for examples, Rufo revised his claim, charging instead that the DEI bureaucracy turned a blind eye to harassment and bullying of conservative, white, and Christian students.) But regardless, the campus climate is among the obstacles to recruiting and retaining more diverse students: Social stigma is hard anywhere, but especially intense on a tiny residential campus. The athletes got a disproportionate number of $10,000 merit scholarships, Walker reported, while contributing to the incoming class having lower GPAs and SAT and ACT scores than the previous years class. Corcoran will earn $699,000 in base salary. She came to the small state school on Sarasota Bay because it lets . After DeSantis takeover, donors started contacting Lenger to get more information about what was happening. Chaos reigns at New College of Florida as fall semester nears It seems clear that this small group intends to implement what Spier termed DeSantiss mandate over and against the wishes of the existing New College community. The opportunity to help students tailor a custom course of study and research, in accordance with their curiosity and passions, attracts professors who like classroom instruction, academic mentoring, independent studies, and frequent shifts in the material that they are discussing, lecturing on, and evaluating. I met a New College alumna who was a veteran, and she had a pretty rough experience, Okker told me. This new, primarily cis-male board of trustees forced thefirst woman president out and installed as our interim president Richard Corcoran, a friend of Spalding and a DeSantis ally, which exemplifies the overall attempt here to conjure an era of patriarchal rule. Support WUSF now by giving monthly, or make a one-time donation online. Okkers fans felt she was focused on making the institution more friendly to conservatives even before the new trustees arrived. To be a good trustee, hell have to master that impulse. Yarvin suggested that if DeSantis really wanted a Hillsdale of the South, he would go about it differently. He found a course on the ethics of news photography offered by the Poynter Institute and took it as an independent study with a professor who oversaw his progress, suggested additional reading, and engaged in one-on-one conversations. Published 10:06 PM PDT, March 29, 2023. As a reporter, my goal is to tell a story that moves you in some way. What we really need is a board of trustees that will support the continuation of vitally important programs, which this community has already agreed upon collectively. The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. I sympathize with her uncertainty. As our faculty wrote in an official statement, our students include a Federal Reserve Bank president, a Fields Medalist in mathematics Fulbright award winners (86 and counting! The emphasis was, What do you want to explore?. "People are very passionate about New College," he said. "I cant begin to know all the donors, but 11 donors have told me, they either have or quickly will change their estate plans," Lenger said in an email. Recall that Rufo advanced a narrative of radical leftists imposing a large DEI bureaucracy on New College to coerce and bully professors and students while undermining free speech and open inquiry. Its really not clear what the plan is for sports at New College: Women's basketball and men's soccer had only one athlete apiece, while women's soccer had six athletes enrolled, according to public records, the, DeSantis takeover has left Florida's New College in shambles as new year starts, Ways to get involved in the upcoming elections. In the short term, I expect that we will have some instability, turnover, and perhaps a short-term decline in the student population, but I hope to see enrollment numbers increasing over a two-to-three-year time horizon, after we have established a new marketing, recruiting, and admissions strategy., Adding to the confusion on campus, Rufo sometimes presents himself as a champion of academic freedom, viewpoint diversity, and freedom of speech, but other times talks of believing in an uncompromising new conservatism that includes eliminating whole fields of study. How can we reach out to more conservative high schools and not assume theyre not interested in sending us students just because they havent in the past? He also gets $104,850 annually in retirement benefits, an $84,000 annual housing allowance and $12,000 annual car allowance. Ron DeSantis for cultural transformation. So a student who came here who was really conservative, depending on what they said, might end up getting flamed out by somebody. New College resparked that light in me because it was not as much Do busy work; get good grades, she told me at a used bookstore a short drive from campus. The legal complaint is seeking a court order to block the law from being enforced. A group created to oppose the new conservative direction at New College of Florida is a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the state. Now what? New College of Florida begins process to abolish gender studies - USA TODAY We must make sure that our policies and processes create an environment where our LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff can thrive. Here, an example is useful to clarify how anti-woke dogma does and doesnt square with the facts on the ground. Ron DeSantis announced he'd appointed six hard-core conservatives to the board of trustees of New College . Education New College students, faculty are leaving after DeSantis takeover. In 2016, as liberal-arts colleges everywhere saw declining applications, New College, while struggling to recruit and retain enough students to stay financially healthy, set the goal of expanding its size from fewer than 700 undergraduates to roughly 1,200a number it has never achieved, despite ongoing pressure from the state. ", Jenks said recently that "there are other donors out there who will donate, who will help us,they need to see that we're making that progress. She wants to create an area of concentration that fuels her love of learning, but worries that the new trustees dont intend to conserve the features of academic life at New College that make it intellectually rigorous and unusually invigorating. DeSantis partisans, though, insist that the takeover is more than a PR stunt and fundraising gambit. Ron DeSantis campaign collapse. New College isnt it. Private donations must cover the rest. Goldberg added. Students, faculty demonstrate at New College amid conservative takeover Students at the New College of Florida, a small liberal arts college targeted by Gov. No more than two people will be allowed to be in a room at a time, so forget about study groups. The $29 million in canceled contributions would be big money for a small school with just 700 students and a relatively small donor base. Raising funds from conservative donors by leveraging the culture war in the style of Hillsdales president, Larry Arnn? Lenger served on the New College Foundation board for 35 years, helping to bring in donors, and has been a longtime donor herself. In some cases, the cancellations make it difficult or impossible for students to find the classes they need to complete their majors. Its DEI bureaucracy turns out to have been so tiny and oft-ignored that its eliminationwhich mostly meant firing one personconstituted a minor change, for better or worse. Goldberg got part of the answer from Rufo: The athletes are more heavily male than New Colleges recent student population, and he sees a more male student population as likely a more conservative one. Fearful that they will lose their job, fearful that something they might say or do could cost the college funding because of the way the SB 266 was structured. That money likely would have to come from conservative donors who support DeSantis and his plans for New College. There will be no food served at the hotel and no cooking is allowed in roomsstudents will have to go to campus for meals. "It is painful to watch the goodwill the Foundation Team created over decades dissipate over the last 2 months," Lenger wrote. Social life can be as tight-knit and comfortingor as gossipy, limiting, and stiflingas in a small town. In the years that followed, students at New College supported a group of Black high schoolers in the community as they fought the local school board's decision to close their school. The action came at the board's meeting Thursday on a 7-3 in . We must ensure that our neurodiverse community members and people with disabilities and people with mental illnesses know that they are valued for the essential contributions they make. Perhaps it is unnecessary, or counterproductive, to list identity groups in a bid to make everyone feel welcome; regardless, the next lines in Okkers inauguration speech show that she sought to welcome other groups too. Faculty continue to leave, leading to ongoing course cancellations. DeSantis proposes measures aimed at woke ideologies in education. Start now and really hustleby September, youll be teaching Virgil to homeschooled virgins on occupied Seminole land., Daniel Golden: Its making us more ignorant, Yarvin and others suggest that DeSantis targeted New College not because he saw potential for a model that he could next apply to a school like Florida State University, with its more than 30,000 undergraduates, huge faculty, and numerous graduates in the state legislature, but because New College was a small, flailing, defenseless target with a hippie reputation. Its pretty clear they wont be raising New Colleges national profile by bringing home trophies anytime soon. April 29, 2023 Damon Winter/The New York Times 2015 By Michelle Goldberg Opinion Columnist SARASOTA, Fla. When I first met Matthew Lepinski, the faculty chair of New College of Florida,. Among those who have signed the letter are retired neurosurgeon Dr. David Goldman, U.S. Army Major and flight surgeon Dr. Benjamin Stork, University of Oxford anthropology professor Eben Kirksey and former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement attorney Dorothy Heyl. New College of Florida hostile takeover shows the future of education at the college. Thats out of fewer than 700 students at New College prior to the DeSantis attacksand we dont know how many have left for other alternatives. More than half the worlds population sees AP journalism every day. Here's what to know. The Florida Board of Education approved the use of PragerU Kids videos to be shown in K-12 schools in late July, according to local news reports. New College of Florida takeover by Gov. Ron DeSantis risks donations Students and faculty have built an impressive alternative model of education that should be an inspiration for others, not one that is attacked and disparaged by the governor and the new board of trustees. The march, precipitated by the police killing of a 26-year-old Black man named Jimmie Lee Jackson, has special resonance in this moment. Floridas public colleges are overseen by a 17-member board of governors. It also prohibits theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.". If the field of gender studies as a whole suffers from a dearth of viewpoint diversity, then the ability to earn gender-studies credit in courses taught by professors who havent spent their academic lives in gender-studies departments, journals, or conferences would seem to function as a bulwark against ideological capture. Ron DeSantis 'Hostile takeover': the tiny Florida university targeted by Ron DeSantis Governor's latest shot in his war on woke is the shock appointment of rightwing trustees to progressive. New College's Foundation had $43.5 million in net assets in 2019 and received $2.4 million in total revenue that year, the most recent year that IRS records are available. All of that is part of the DeSantis plan, and its terrible on its own, but its left New College in chaos, showing the degree to which Republicans dont care about anything but pushing their ideological agenda. In 2001, it became an independent public college, and the state legislature designated it as Floridas official honors college. March 23 New College announces Provost Suzanne Sherman, who had publicly clashed with new trustees, has stepped down and will be replaced by an interim provost. Feb. 28 Second meeting of new trustees. All Rights Reserved. We have to prepare them for that. Ron DeSantis has targeted a tiny, public liberal arts college on the shores of Sarasota Bay, as a staging ground for his war on woke.. We're seeking justice because our students and faculty have been wronged. Jan. 31 -At first meeting with new trustees, the board votes to fire New College president Patricia Okker. Specifically, it says the law threatens the existence of courses on gender studies, queer studies and race, among others. The new board fired former President Patricia Okker and hired Corcoran, the governor's former education commissioner, at more than double Okker's salary.
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