Florida GOP lawmakers this week supported the drastic changes Gov. Ron DeSantis is seeking to transform New College of Florida into a conservative-leaning school by agreeing to send more than $34 million to the school and backing a slate of controversial trustees who are now leading it.
The money is meant to provide scholarships for enticing potential students, help with building repairs and bolster school operations…
The pot includes a specific $25 million carve-out, $10 million more than DeSantis requested, of which $5 million must be put aside for student scholarships. This comes in addition to a $15 million special budget allocation lawmakers approved earlier this year that New College is already using to offer $10,000 scholarships for prospective students.
New College also scored a further $9.3 million in a different funding pocket for remodeling two buildings.
Seems the students who attend there are quite intelligent and go-getters, not quite so willing to be dismissed.
From the link:
New College of Florida students, with help from alumni, this week are hosting a private graduation ceremony separate from the school’s official commencement in the face of a campus takeover at the hands of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The students, who have fundraised $100,000 for the event, want to hold a ceremony “on our terms” after school officials tapped Scott Atlas, a top adviser to former President Donald Trump during the Covid-19 pandemic, to speak at their commencement. On Tuesday, they announced that Maya Wiley, an attorney and former MSNBC commentator who is president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, will be the keynote speaker during the alternative graduation.
“We’re now guaranteed a graduation surrounded by the New College community members that truly want to celebrate who we are, rather than those attempting to change our culture,” Madison Markham, a graduating senior and one of the students planning the event, said in a statement.
Prospective students means prospective students. New College was a failing institution about to be either closed down or merged at a time when other Florida universities are in high demand.
Well, presumably, students who are interested in a Great Books (*)+Hillsdale-light curriculum and agree with the changes.
They’d become self-selected, just as they were before but in the opposite direction.
(*as defined narrowly because lots of classics discussed in Great Books programs include texts that would run afoul of the new laws regarding DEI, “CRT”, and LGBT issues. It kind of limits Greek texts, religious texts, texts from the Enlightenment, 19th century political&economic thought, and any authors involved in civil rights issues: Voltaire’s satires of the Christian religion, entries from the Encyclopedia, Mary Wollstonecraft, MLK, MalcolmX, Marx&Engels, various revolutionary writings…)
My DS24 has been specifically asked about his political beliefs at two invited campus events. These were at highly ranked, mainstream schools. It seems fairly normal for colleges to screen for that before the student has even formally applied.
We don’t know yet whether the new version of the college will be more successful than the previous one. However, it’s clear it did a 180° turnaround - in terms of culture, it’s a bit as if Fordham decided to merge with Yeshiva and adopted its curriculum… (or, actually, Notre Dame rather than Fordham).
It was quite self selective already, applicants will just self select differently.
Hampshire (a private equivalent with similar problems) offered the current students a spot.
I personally don’t think there’s huge appetite among high school students for a “classical” education. St John’s has 775 students on BOTH campuses combined.
However there wasn’t enough appetite for a tutorial&research-based curriculum with a non-graded/high stakes/thorough written evaluation system that resembles that of Oxbridge without having either the prestige or the selectivity, making it beyond many freshmen (those who DID graduate did extremely, extremely well.)
The fact the new budget gives the college millions shows that the reasons for switching the curriculum are entirely political and not financial.
I would like to remind posters that the main CC forums are not for political discussions. There is a forum specifically for the discussion of politics.
I saw that article…it looked like they were unhappy with the admins choice of graduation speaker. I wasn’t familiar with that particular individual. I am aware of a similar frustration at a different college in my area, but the students used a petition rather than an alternate fundraising platform. I don’t believe they arranged a separate function as New School did.
These clashes between the agenda of specific donors/funding sources/speakers and student/faculty preferences are not limited to this one public college. I wish them the best in navigating this situation.