Posted on 02/07/2024 3:49:05 AM PST by karpov
Fueled by political ambition and a distaste for the new left-wing ideological agendas that have taken root on many college campuses, activists and politicians have sought to alter the landscape of higher education in Florida. In many respects, they have succeeded.
These reformers have focused much attention on New College of Florida, a public liberal-arts college in Sarasota that had a well-deserved reputation as a breeding ground of progressivism. The school’s extremism sparked the ire of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who often says that “Florida is where woke goes to die.” According to DeSantis’s chief of staff, James Uthmeier, “It [was] our hope that New College of Florida [would] become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South.”
In January 2023, DeSantis shook up New College’s board of trustees. Five seats on the board are held by citizen members appointed by the Florida Board of Governors (BOG), while the state’s governor appoints six citizen members. The remaining two members are the chair of the faculty and the president of the student body. DeSantis removed six trustees and replaced them with conservatives. He also pushed out New College’s president, Patricia Okker, and replaced her with Richard Corcoran, a Republican who had served as speaker of the Florida House of Representatives (2016-2018) and as the state’s education commissioner (2019-2022). The new board dismissed the college’s head librarian, abolished its diversity programs, and denied tenure to five professors who had been recommended for approval.
These decisions caused considerable alarm among faculty and students at New College. Many faculty resigned as a result. Amy Reid, a member of the school’s board of trustees, has said that almost 40 percent of the faculty resigned.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
40% of the faculty resigned?!
What a great start! There IS hope!
What an excellent article. Well composed and balanced,
author Michael H. Creswell!
Thanks for posting.
Thanks Governor DeSantis for tackling this monumental problem. If we can get more schools/states to follow suit, American citizens will benefit greatly - faculty, students and their employers and families.
Healing can happen.
Faculty Flee New College of Florida
Reading between the lines, I'm wondering if the real reason the faculty is bugging out has zero to do with principle and everything to do with the college about to go bust.
Okaaaaay...
New College Foundation enlists Ballard Partners for federal legislation push
Boy, now I'd really want a look at their books.
Both sets.
Higher ED teaching jobs will soon be unicorn training jobs.
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