What changes do you think they will make? You don’t seriously think they will turn a public university into a Christian school? It’s not possible.
It’s Hillsdale traditional liberal arts curriculum that they want to mirror.
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I’m not sure what wrong with these topics of senior theses? Some of them sound very original and most of them sound quite interesting.
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Employment possibilities?
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But they are entirely appropriate to the majors. Art history majors often want to work in museums/galleries - how would these theses be bad for that career? Or they want to go to grad school, as do many Classics majors. Most grad school applications require writing samples and these look like they would serve that purpose very well - they are original topics that require original research and, if well written, would likely very much enhance a grad school application.
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You would think a classics major would choose Thucydides over Herodotus or Sophocles over Euripides to try to maximize their employability. Or Roman prostitution instead of Greek prostitution, for that matter. But then again, trust fund babies can study whatever they want.
My daughter is getting a masters in history. She would have preferred art history but her university doesn’t offer that. She did not need a thesis for her undergrad degree in history.
Her thesis is on Tibetan art as displayed in the western world. I do not have high hopes for her having a career in Tibetan art. She doesn’t have much teaching experience and she’s not interested in getting a PhD. She’d be lucky to get a job in a museum with an MA, and I don’t think those getting a BA in art history with a thesis in an obscure topic have a better chance than she does.
I can see why the NSF doesn’t want to graduate its 200 seniors every year with no hope of jobs. They can’t all go to grad school, especially expecting someone else to pay for it. My daughter was lucky and her program is funded for her (full tuition and a stipend for teaching), but not for this year’s entering students. I would have fought against her going to grad school if she’d had to go into more debt, if student loans (for undergrad) weren’t on hold, and if it wasn’t Covid Times (she was substitute teaching when covid shut everything down and she had no unemployment or another job).
NSF is a public school. IMO it does have a duty to spend taxpayer funds wisely and help launch the students of Florida to also become taxpayers. Endless cycle.
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But this sounds more like an argument against offering art history as a major at all, than the specific manifestations of the art history major at NCF. That is a different discussion entirely - although one that many universities are currently having, as they scale down various humanities majors and collapse or completely disband various departments considered less “important” (i.e. lower demand and lower employability). It’s not something I personally agree with, but it is happening across the country and is not unique to NCF.
Returning, however, to the specific NCF situation - OK, if they are going to offer an art history major, are there more employable thesis topics than the ones chosen by their students? I doubt it. If you’re an art history major, then your thesis will be on art history and an original topic will actually go a lot farther for you than one that just rehashes what 1000 other students have already written about again and again. Original topics help get you into grad school. Original topics can potentially be published and can even win awards. Original topics based on original research will help you land a job in your field. (But, yes, the art history field as it were is quite small and limiting - again, however, that’s another conversation about the viability of even having that as an option for a major.)
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No it was not. I was unaware that they were the only school with weekly parties… or that all students at NCF had to partake of the parties. Is it needed to graduate there?
FWIW, I have no problem with FL deciding NCF isn’t working (supply and demand). Many smaller colleges will close and as I said before somewhere in this thread, a couple of students I know who tried it in the past didn’t care for it and went elsewhere. Few where I work head to southern schools at all, much less NCF, so I don’t have a large sample size.
Perhaps a Hillsdale type of college will work better there. I’m sure Hillsdale (or it’s FL counterpart) will have no drugs or parties*, after all!
*Though kids who go to even strict religious colleges have told me there are drugs and parties around - kids just have to hide it vs being out in the open. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Where there isn’t, it doesn’t matter if it’s right in front of them.
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Below is the link to NCF’s “Fact Book”, which contains a lot of data about the school. Everything from common CDS information, to budgets, headcounts, etc.
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Well, whatever they are doing now at NCF is clearly not working. With enrollment of 632, it is smaller than many public high schools. It would seem wise to just close it, but maybe a re-brand is worth a try.
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Just have to say that most are not trust fund babies.
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The Board will have a series of meetings today. Protestors plan to attend, so it will be interesting to see how NCF handles it all.
New College of Florida announces a public meeting to which all persons are invited. In accordance with the Sunshine Law, the public is invited to listen and observe the following meeting.
Faculty & Staff are invited to an informal conversation with Trustees Rufo and Speir Wednesday, January 25, 2023.
Faculty & Staff Conversation: 10:00 -11:00 a.m.
Students Conversation: 1:30 – 2:30 p.m.
Not necessarily. The point of an undergraduate thesis is to ask an original question (not to retread well-studied ground) and use the methodologies of the discipline to explore that question. The research question should build on existing (usually recent) scholarship but take a new angle. Grad schools and employers will want to see evidence of fresh, original research. As someone who advises a lot of senior capstone projects, these all seem reasonable and appropriate to me.
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A good summary of the meeting. Note that the metrics Rufo mentions are likely from the State Performance Funding ScoreCard (where NCF does horribly, impacting it’s funding) and standard CDS info and NCF’s own documents (showing enrollment by year, etc.).
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The president was replaced today.
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Academics and young people will almost always have a leftward tilt. But let’s create environments where all voices can be heard and welcomed.
And if and when DEI initiatives actually do the opposite of their intent – then let’s look at those specific policies and reform them.
But yes, you don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Even if there are some questionable policies under the DEI umbrella, DEI does a LOT of good. Promoting diversity and inclusion, combating racism – these are good things.
But the very phrase “DEI” is the new boogeyman of the right. Up there with “antifa” and “communism.”
All efforts to teach about the history of racism are “CRT”… all efforts to promote diversity are “DEI”… part of some anti-American conspiracy to undermine the “real Americans.”
My high school daughter (who is Asian, we are an inter-racial family), recently spoke at a school board meeting about the importance of continuing funding for the school’s DEI officer. She spoke eloquently, did not villainize anyone. Only spoke to her own experience with microaggressions. After my wife posted a video of the speech on facebook, we received a nasty note from a right-wing acquaintance, accusing my daughter of being a racist, saying he could never respect my daughter again, that we were horrible parents for letting her support DEI initiatives…
There is anger, some are stoking that anger for political gain, turning the very phrase “DEI” on its head.
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Why does Florida fund a college with so few students to begin with? Is this a good use of public funds for a couple of hundred kids?
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Hardly.
The State of Florida would be within its legal rights to just shut the place down. If they cared to, they could attempt to justify this to the public by noting its failure to attract the kind of students it set out to attract, gain any traction in the marketplace, increase enrollment, or start to achieve any sort of ROI on the outsized resources the State gives the place per student. The State also has the right, should it choose to do so, to make NCF into any type of learning environment it wants, subject to First Amendment concerns. They can cut DEI programs. They can kill African-American Studies and replace it with a new department of WASP Studies. They can purge the school of departments they find traditionally employ more liberal professors and researchers. The market and voting public can react how they want, and people can criticize the direction the school takes as a joke should they choose to.
But what’s actually happening here is nothing more than Ron DeSantis using NCF as a culture war plaything. He’ll likely shut it down or merge it into the UF system. But when he does, he won’t claim that it’s because it’s been a poor use of the State’s money (his legitimate prerogative and a not crazy conclusion to the NCF story arc). Instead, he’ll blame it on “wokeness” and use it as coin for his political ambition. Or, he’ll keep it open, kick out the “woke” people and claim victory for the same purposes. It’s a nice canvas for his presidential aspirations. He can’t lose on that front, even if a substantial portion of current students leave and they find no market for their new model and the whole thing collapses. He’ll be gone by then, anyway.
In the meantime, though, he’s seeded the place with people with zero academic background. Primary among them is Chris Rufo, a propogandist with no relevant experience. He’s the person most responsible for the proliferation of idiots running around yelling about “CRT” without the faintest idea what it even means. Just yesterday he was whining about kids “feeling bad” if they learn about white privilege. They also put a right wing grifter, who’d previously been rejected by FSU due to his utter lack of credentials in academia, in place as the new president. This is in no way “taking academics back to academics.” It’s replacing serious people with apparatchiks.
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Does any other state run a public college for 600 students? What a waste.
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