Competitive sports are in, gender-neutral bathrooms are out after Florida vowed to turn New College, a public school, into a bastion of conservatism.
The Mighty Banyans of New College playing a game in their inaugural season. When Gov. Ron DeSantis began to reshape New College, its new leaders introduced an intercollegiate athletics department. Michael Adno for The New York Times
By Patricia Mazzei Reporting from Sarasota, Fla. Sept. 22, 2023Updated 2:39 p.m. ET
As the fall semester began at New College of Florida, a small public school known as proudly unconventional until Gov. Ron DeSantis set about overhauling it this year, new students were easy to spot.
Many were recruited athletes, clad in T-shirts branded with the school’s new mascot, a muscled, flexing banyan tree. They stood out from returning students, many of whom roamed the campus in bare feet or with vividly dyed hair.
“Will these people be OK with us being weird as we are?” said Emma Curtis, a 21-year-old fourth-year student, voicing a concern shared by others.
The influx of athletes is just one of the sweeping changes that have come to New College since Mr. DeSantis and his allies vowed in January to transform the liberal arts institution .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/us/ron-desantis-new-college-florida.html , known as Florida’s “public honors college,” into a bastion of conservatism. More than a third of last year’s faculty members — about three dozen — are gone. So are about 125 students who chose not to return.
In a school that last year had about 700 students total, the freshman class of 338 is the largest ever; it also has a higher proportion of Black, Hispanic and male students than previous ones did, according to the administration. More than 200 students have been moved from on-campus dorms to off-campus hotels to make room for the recruited athletes and other new students.
The board of trustees, controlled by DeSantis allies, and the interim president, Richard Corcoran, dismiss the critics as a disgruntled few and cast the overhaul as a success. State lawmakers sent about $50 million to the school this year, a big jump from recent years. New students were offered newly designated scholarships and laptops. Moldy dorms were shut down. And the school created an athletic department, with plans to field six teams.
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“What was really missing more than anything else at New College was leadership,” Mr. Corcoran, a former Florida House speaker and state education commissioner, said in an interview. “We’ve been able to do something that wasn’t accomplished in 63 years at the college, and that was grow enrollment. We did it at a time of complete upheaval and negative publicity.”
Much of Mr. DeSantis’s criticism of New College before the overhaul centered on what he characterized as “woke indoctrination” on college campuses. One of the new leadership’s first acts was eliminating the college’s diversity office; soon after, the diversity chief and the academic librarian .. https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/26040/33974, both members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, were fired.
The board of trustees’s faculty representative quit after five professors were denied tenure because of what Mr. Corcoran called a move toward “a more traditional liberal arts institution.” Some new administrators hired into top posts did not have a background in academia, but rather connections to Republican state politics.
“The board wasn’t looking for reasonable change at a reasonable pace,” said Matthew Lepinski, the computer science professor who resigned from the board and then from the school. “They were interested in making change so fast that they didn’t care what they broke.”
Gone are gender-neutral bathrooms, hallway art that in some cases featured nudity and student murals that had been completed in February and were expected to remain for several years. Student orientation leaders had to remove Black Lives Matter and Pride pins from their polo shirts. A student government election this week pitted a returning student against a new student backed by a newly formed campus chapter of the conservative organization Turning Point USA.
Insert: The medical center connected to the hospital i had my knee done in holds many of the specialists who operate in the hospital. It has a gender neutral bathroom. Most larger public buildings, as libraries, do. I haven't read of any problem incidents in any of them.
“That person went on to be accepted,” Mr. Duprez said.
Administrators say they had little time to recruit the large incoming class that they wanted. Many top athletes had already committed to other schools, and critics say New College recruited students heavily from Christian schools. Mr. DeSantis has said he wants New College to model itself after Hillsdale College .. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/us/hillsdale-college-charter-schools.html , a private Christian institution in Michigan.
Mariano Jimenez Jr., the athletic director and baseball coach, who used to work at a private Christian high school, said the school brought in academic counselors to keep athletes on track, as other schools routinely do: “We’re going to show that these athletes are going to be held to a high standard.”
Several athletes declined to speak to a reporter. The college declined a request to make athletes available for interviews.
Images inside: Atticus Dickson, a 19-year-old religious studies student. Michael Adno for The New York Times Emma Curtis, a 21-year-old art and psychology student. Michael Adno for The New York Times
One who did agree to a brief interview, Tyrone Smith, a 20-year-old basketball player, said he transferred from the University of South Florida in part because of New College’s academics. “The professors know your name,” he said.
Friction over the athletes’ arrival grew after many of them were assigned to apartment-style dorms, displacing more senior students. Other dorms were deemed unsafe because of mold, which Mr. Corcoran said should have been addressed by earlier administrations. Many students ended up in three nearby hotels.
Atticus Dickson, a 19-year-old religious studies student assigned to live at a Hyatt Place, described the inconvenience of having to catch a shuttle or hitch a ride just to get to class: “My job is on campus, and I stay on campus late.”
There have been other sources of uncertainty. Annie Dong, a 21-year-old art and psychology student in her fourth year, said the culture no longer felt as positive and welcoming.
“The community has changed,” she said. “There is also anxiety just being on campus.”
Parents and students reported classes being canceled shortly before the start of the semester, a claim Mr. Corcoran denied despite the faculty upheaval. Visiting faculty have been hired for this school year.
“I was doing an internship at an organic chemistry lab,” said Olivia Pare, a 20-year-old biology student entering her third year, who transferred. “The professor I was doing that with was denied tenure, and that was the last straw for me.”
One of them, Libby Harrity, 20, withdrew from New College as part of a deal for misdemeanor battery charges against her to be dropped. Christopher Rufo .. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/24/us/politics/christopher-rufo-crt-lgbtq-florida.html , a trustee appointed by Mr. DeSantis, had accused her of spitting at him during a campus protest in May. (Ms. Harrity denied his version of events.)
Ms. Harrity — who got a tattoo of New College’s quirky former mascot, a pair of empty brackets denoting a math concept known as the null set — said that she is grateful for Hampshire’s tuition match, though her housing and travel home will be more expensive.
“I’m hurt,” she said of her departure from New College. “They have come in and taken everything that made it good and charming and removed as much of it as possible.”
Ms. Curtis, an art and psychology student, stayed at New College, though she is considering dropping her psychology concentration. The dorm she expected to live in was closed, leaving her to scramble for alternative on-campus housing. She was one of six students whose murals — hers depicted sandhill cranes — were painted over .. https://www.msnbc.com/alex-wagner-tonight/watch/new-college-students-describe-the-meanings-of-murals-wiped-out-by-new-admin-s-beautifying-191863365508 . She let her pink hair dye fade and her mullet grow out before returning to school — for fear, she said, that administrators and new students would judge her. She is trying to get through her art coursework and graduate as soon as possible.
Patricia Mazzei is the Miami bureau chief, covering Florida and Puerto Rico. She writes about breaking news, politics, disasters and the quirks of life in South Florida. She joined The Times in 2017 after a decade at The Miami Herald. More about Patricia Mazzei
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — There’s controversy at New College of Florida in Sarasota. The school’s DeSantis-picked board of trustees want $2 million to set up a “Freedom institute.”
8 On Your Side looks at why the proposal is getting pushback.
The board members say the Freedom institute is a way to combat cancel culture. But critics of the governor call it a big waste of taxpayer money.
In January, there were protests at New College after Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed six new conservative members to the Board of Trustees.
Now, the DeSantis-picked board wants lawmakers to approve $2 million in funding.
According to a memo, they’ll hire eight people to set up the Freedom Institute, which will offer courses and hold events across Florida to promote tolerance of opposing views.
It’s a problem, according to Trustee Chris Rufo, who spoke with 8 On Your Side soon after his appointment.
“People of all racial backgrounds, people of different sexual orientations, my promise is that you’re going to be treated with equal dignity. Your individual rights will be protected,” Rufo said.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat, doesn’t support the idea.
“It’s fiscally irresponsible and it feeds into the culture wars,” said Eskamani.
Eskamani says it’s nothing more than a waste of tax dollars, as is, in her view, the potential salary and benefits, for the school’s incoming president.
Trustees just approved a total compensation range up to $1.5 million.
“Salaries should reflect the size of the institution,” said Eskamani. “I do think that Richard Corcoran, as someone who has done favors for the governor, will maintain his position as president.”
The school’s interim president is former House Speaker Richard Corcoran. Later this summer, we’ll find out if he stays on the job. If he does, according to the NCF memo, he could get $500,000 more than USF’s president, whose total compensation is about $1,057,969 when USF has 50 times more students.
Here’s the salary of some other presidents:
UF Ben Sasse Total Compensation: $1,361,051
FSU Richard McCullough Total Compensation: $811,459
FPOLY Dr. Randy Avent Total Compensation: $657,521
Lawmakers will approve or deny NCF’s funds request for the Freedom Institute during the 2024 legislative session.
Have a tip or comment? Email Mahsa at MSaeidi@WFLA.com
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