A Year at New College

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | June 4, 2025 | Bruce Gilley

[karpov]

It takes me about eight minutes to walk across the campus of the New College of Florida, where I just concluded a year as a visiting professor. There are rare sightings of students, a grand total of 800, who dart in and out from under the palm trees like white ibises. The clock bell on the astroturf in front of the library can be heard from the waterfront all the way to the student dorms. The all-faculty email list for the 100 or so scholars emits messages such as: “Is anyone having trouble with the Internet?”

Despite its minuscule size, the Sarasota college attracted 17 separate articles or op-eds in the New York Times in 2023 and hundreds more in the mainstream American media as a whole. That journalistic attention has not abated, perhaps because New College is now seen as the anti-Harvard. The Guardian newspaper serves up a steady diet about the right-wing horrors unfolding here. Every few weeks, another media storm arises: a heated debate in Tallahassee over the college’s budget or an over-medicated administrator exposing himself off-campus. The latest indignation is the college’s scotched plans to reclaim the architecturally integrated Ringling Museum in its midst, as well as a University of South Florida campus to the north, clear evidence of a search for lebensraum.

Long-form essays of astonishing detail continue to appear. The Chronicle of Higher Education weighed in with 8,000 words, or 10 words for every student, in April. Politico is about to serve up a novella, as well. Meanwhile, the very busy American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has been churning out a steady stream of op-eds, censures, and interviews about what they call an “intellectual reign of terror” at New College. All hands on deck, as they say.

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TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: brucegilley; college; newcollege; omitneedlesswords

[sonova]

What the ?hit?

[Buttons12]

Criminally bad writing, long on word play, short on substance. Took forever to get to the point, or even hint at what exactly is wrong with New College.
My mom considered attending in the 1960’s, went there to check it out and deemed it a bit too avant-garde for her liking. (They billed themselves as “non-traditional,” which I understand was highly appealing then.)

[Huskrrrr]

I taught briefly at New College in San San Francisco. They lost their accreditation after mis-managing their funds. I never got paid.

[Huskrrrr]

Having difficulty typing today.