Hostile Takeover | The Dramatic Reshaping of New College of Florida

Summary

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Campus Files: “Hostile Takeover | The Dramatic Reshaping of New College of Florida”

Podcast: Campus Files: Scandals, Secrets & Crimes at American Universities
Host: Ian Mont (with contributions from Margot Gray)
Date: April 29, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dissects the recent transformation—labeled a “hostile takeover”—of New College of Florida, a renowned progressive liberal arts institution, by Florida’s conservative government under Governor Ron DeSantis. Through interviews with former and current faculty (using pseudonyms and voice changes), analysis of administrative decisions, and recounting pivotal board meetings, the episode critiques the rapid and controversial steps taken to reimagine the college along conservative ideological lines. The show explores the fallout from these changes, drawing connections to broader national trends of politicizing education, and raises questions about whether New College, as it was known, will survive.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Original Spirit and Structure of New College

• Founding Principles: New College was designed in the 1960s as a highly experimental and student-directed alternative to traditional academia.
• Unique Academic Model: Instead of grades, students negotiated “contracts” with faculty that outlined their semester’s learning goals and benchmarks.
  • Quote (Sam, former faculty):
    “Students thought about their coursework not as separate courses, but as part of a contract negotiated with their faculty.” (04:42)
• Student Body: The college drew “non-conforming” students, often those disenchanted with rigid educational structures, resulting in an outwardly progressive reputation—but with more internal diversity than public perception suggested.
  • Quote (Alex, current faculty):
    “Definitely students were liberal, but I also had students who were religious… and conservative. So it was just not as it's been portrayed.” (07:33)
• Operational Struggles: Chronic underfunding led to infrastructure issues and made student recruitment and retention tough.
  • Quote:
    “…our dorms were moldy, but we didn’t have money to fix buildings and those buildings belonged to the state. So at any point they could have stepped in to help us. And we tried for years to get money… and they declined.” (24:47)

2. Signs of Recovery and Progressive Leadership

• New President Brings Momentum: In 2021, President Patricia Okker’s personal outreach and support for the college’s mission turned things around, increasing enrollment and optimism.
  • Quote (Alex):
    “She’s behind the mission… really competent… and she’s having success. So it was like, finally, that’s great.” (08:40)

3. The Takeover: Political Appointments and Rapid Overhaul

• DeSantis’ Appointments (Jan 2023): Governor DeSantis moved to reshape New College by appointing six new conservative trustees, including activist Christopher Rufo (a national figure in the anti-“woke” movement).
  • Quote (Alex):
    “A friend… messaged me with the announcement about Chris Rufo being appointed to the board and said, ‘this is bad.’” (11:00)
• Immediate Fallout: The first major act of the new board was firing President Okker, despite her successes.
  • Notable Moment (Board Meeting):
    Patricia Okker: “…our students are not indoctrinated here at New College. They are taught. They read Marx and they argue with Marx… This is what we do here.” (14:32)
    Board member: “There needs to be a deep culture change on campus, and it should have happened a long time ago.” (16:15)

[Key Segment: The Okker Firing]

• Timestamp: 13:34 – 17:45
• Memorable Quote:
  “Today's a sad day. Know that you are truly loved here, not just for what you do, but for who you are. The light that is within you, don't hide it under a bush. Let it shine.” – Patricia Okker (17:03)
• Student Response:
  “I've never felt such collective hopelessness among my fellow classmates.” (17:45)

4. New Regime: Changes and Controversies

• New President and Culture Shift: Richard Corcoran (former Florida Education Commissioner) installed as president, paid well above his predecessor, quickly moved to overhaul the administration and academics.
  • Quote (Sam):
    “He was installed as interim… because he’s buddies with the board. Now he’s being compensated over a million dollars a year… for a school of 700 students.” (18:11)
• Abolishing DEI and Gender Studies: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion office closed; Gender Studies program cut.
• Book Disposal Incident: Viral outrage erupted over 10,000 books—many from gender/diversity collections—being trashed, drawing comparisons to Nazi book burnings.
  • Quote (Sam):
    “…the Nazi youth raided [Hirschfeld’s] institute and took… the library out… and burned it.” (20:09)
  • Quote (Sam):
    “…certain other trustees on X celebrating, ‘We canceled gender studies. Now we’re taking out the trash.’ So which is it really?” (20:41)

5. Administrative Power and Faculty Exodus

• End of Shared Governance: New laws gave the president power to override faculty in hiring, which Corcoran used to handpick half of the current faculty in one year.
  • Quote (Alex):
    “He would insert his preferred candidate… brought in by the president… and I’m not sure those faculty really understood that until they got here.” (21:37)
• Suppression of Dissenting Disciplines: The closure of Gender Studies is seen as ideological censorship.
  • Quote (Sam):
    “We want students to be exposed to all these different fields, but not the ones that we don’t agree with… They’ve really lost the plot in terms of free and open inquiry.” (22:53)

6. The Athletics “Success Story”—Or a Mirage?

• Dramatic Sports Expansion: From no official sports teams to 20 in just a few years—but funded by temporary, non-recurring state money, while core needs (libraries, dorms) go unaddressed.
  • Quote (Alex):
    “There was no funding…beforehand, so you cannot just create like 20… sports teams out of nothing for no money.” (26:43)
• Enrollment Strategy: The rush to build athletics is a way to quickly boost student numbers; in 2024, half of incoming students were athletes, with an outsized number of baseball recruits—despite no facilities.
  • Quote (Alex):
    “It’s about getting bodies in chairs for them to crow about how they’ve grown enrollment… About 55 to 60% of our students are student athletes now.” (27:53)
  • Quote (Sam):
    “If you peel back the Astroturf, you’ll find that there’s really not been a lot of success.” (29:16)

7. Flashy Announcements, Fragile Outcomes

• Pattern of Stunts: Many headline-grabbing initiatives, like statues or online programs, fizzle or prove hollow.
  • Quote (Alex):
    “It’s all hyperbolic language, beautiful exteriors, press releases, and big publicity stunts… a fantasy that he’s trying to convince people is true, even though he knows it’s not.” (30:33)

8. Long-Term Viability and the Role of Politics

• End of Political Shield: With DeSantis soon out of the governor’s mansion, state interest and political cover for Corcoran may disappear—and with it, the resources to prop up New College’s new model.
  • Quote (Alex):
    “Corcoran knows that himself. They’re not going to pay for that. So then what happens?” (31:05)
• Takeover as Endgame: The episode questions whether the intent all along was to destroy rather than remake New College.
  • Quote (Ian Mont):
    “DeSantis and Corcoran are perfectly comfortable with the possibility of killing off New College. The takeover has garnered far more attention than a closure ever would.” (31:40)
• Bleak but Defiant Future:
  • Quote (Alex):
    “If the governor was so threatened by 700 students with blue hair that he had to destroy that college… I guess that was successful.” (31:59)
  • Quote (Sam):
    “New College is not dead yet. There are still glimmers… people still doing their jobs… I hope they can persist as long as they can. But things just seem a little bit bleak right now.” (32:49)

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Timestamps for Crucial Segments

• 00:00 – 03:50: Ads, podcast intro (skipped)
• 03:50 – 08:58: The distinctive design and early struggles of New College
• 08:58 – 11:34: President Okker’s early success and DeSantis announces new trustees
• 11:34 – 17:45: Board takeover, firing President Okker, emotional farewell
• 17:45 – 20:41: Appointment of Richard Corcoran, sweeping cultural/policy changes, and viral book-dumping scandal
• 20:41 – 22:53: Administrative control of hiring, faculty attrition, end of shared governance
• 22:53 – 27:08: Athletic program’s explosive—and precarious—growth
• 27:08 – 32:49: The financial logic (or lack thereof) of these changes, likely future, and existential questions

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

On New College’s mission and its undoing:

• Patricia Okker:
  "They are taught. They read Marx and they argue with Marx. When our students take world religions, they do not become Buddhists in February and turn into Christians in March… This is what we do here." (14:32)

On the ideological intent of the takeover:

• Sam (faculty):
  “We want students to be exposed to all these different fields, but not the ones that we don’t agree with… They’ve really lost the plot in terms of free and open inquiry.” (22:53)

On the emotional cost of the changes:

• Faculty/Student:
  “I've never felt such collective hopelessness among my fellow classmates.” (17:45)

On the legacy—and possible collapse—of the experiment:

• Alex:
  “If the governor was so threatened by 700 students with blue hair that he had to destroy that college… I guess that was successful.” (31:59)
• Sam:
  “New College is not dead yet. There are still glimmers… I hope they can persist as long as they can. But things just seem a little bit bleak right now.” (32:49)

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Conclusion

This episode paints a vivid, layered portrait of New College of Florida’s dramatic political transformation—a process that has upended traditions, riven the campus with controversy, gutted faculty and programs, and left the school’s future hanging in the balance. Through first-hand voices and careful reporting, “Hostile Takeover” asks whether New College is being rebuilt or simply dismantled in the pursuit of ideological victory—and what that portends for higher education nationwide.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Host (possibly Ian Mont or Margot Gray)]

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[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

In 2024, Ron DeSantis announced his campaign for president.

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

Our border is a disaster. Crime infests our cities, the federal government

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

makes it harder for families to make

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

ends meet, and the president flounders.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

To build credentials for his campaign, DeSantis launch an aggressive effort to reshape one of Florida's public colleges. He targeted New College, a small school of only about 700 students right on the waters of Florida's western coast.

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

It's another bold move and I'm cheering it on. Florida's Governor DeSantis has launched the takeover.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

I call it a hostile takeover of

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

a college known for its ultra progressive policies. He has appointed six new members to

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

the board of the new college in Sarasota. For the last two years, a remade board of trustees, a new president and a reworked administration has openly attempted to reshape the school in the image of a conservative Christian university. It's part of a broader conservative so called war on woke and headlines across the state and national media have proclaimed the takeover to be an ideological success and as a valuable test run for similar takeovers across the country.

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

This is the story of A small

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

public college in Florida that's become the

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

opening move in a conservative counter revolution. What we are talking about at New Colleges, we have the bones for a great liberal arts college. We have the opportunity to bring in the great thinkers. We have the great arguments, have the great discussions.

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

And the byproduct will be students who graduate, who go out there and make a dent in the universe.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

But as I spoke with folks connected to New College, I learned the reality is much more complicated than it seems.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

I don't know that they even thought past the destroy part because as we've seen, it is not hard to destroy a college and it is very hard to build something new.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

It's a story of dishonest political pretense and deliberate misdirection. It's about what happens to a school when it becomes a pawn in a political fight. I'm Ian Mont. This week on Campus Files, hostile takeover. The dramatic reshaping of New College of Florida.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

I didn't really understand how unique of a college New College was until I really was there myself and immersed in the academic program.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

This is Sam, a former long term faculty member at New College. Sam asked to speak under a pseudonym for fear of retribution from current New College administrators. Sam's voice has also been disguised. Back when Sam first encountered New College years before the dramatic takeover, it immediately stood out among its peers.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

There's lots of things about New College that are really unique.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

New College was founded in the 60s. Its first president worked with faculty to create an academic program that was fundamentally different from the traditional college experience, where one takes courses and receives grades and with the good enough grade, you get credit for the course. New College created a whole different framework.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

Students thought about their coursework each semester not as sort of separate courses or activities they were taking, but as part of a contract that they would negotiate with their faculty member.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

It took me a moment to wrap my head around what Sam is describing. Basically, as a student at New College, you and your faculty advisor talk extensively about your interests. This could be anything. Maybe you're really interested in algae and the Gulf of Mexico, but also fascinated by turn of the century American poetry. After establishing these focuses, you and your faculty advisor negotiate a contract containing a set of requirements for your semester.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

They would negotiate with their professor. Okay, I'm going to take these three courses plus a tutorial that I'm going to design design with a faculty member on a special academic interest of mine. Of my four activities, I would like to satisfactorily complete three of them. And then I have satisfactorily completed my contract.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

It's that simple. There are no grades, no pre structured degree requirements or anything of that sort. And you are explicitly allowed to fail or unsat, short for unsatisfactorily complete a course so long as you satisfactorily complete what your contract requires.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

This whole context, the reason that New College was designed the way that it was, was to encourage risk taking in academics. So that intrinsic motivation to learn for the sake of learning and to connect was happening just at this amazing level that I haven't really seen at many other places.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

It was unique and for a long time was incredibly successful. In the 2010-2011 academic year, new College had the highest percentage of students receiving the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship of any school in the entire us. But it also came with trade offs. The same things that made New College unique and successful also made it hard to attract students. New College's expectations around teaching and learning were strange and unfamiliar for a lot of people. Students had to recalibrate to being so in charge of their own education, which made retention a bit challenging. But for the right student, there was nothing else like it.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

The school did attract more non conforming students and non conforming in a lot of different ways.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

This is Alex. Alex is a current faculty member at New College and also spoke with us on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Alex's voice has also been disguised.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

These typically were the nerds in their high school class. Even if they didn't like school, which we did, have some students like this, the traditional school system was not for them. It squelched their passion for learning. But then when they got to New College, they could rediscover that joy.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

But a school full of non conforming students can stand out in other ways compared to its peers. And over the years that drew the attention of some politicians who described New College as a prime example of so called woke gone mad.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

Definitely students were liberal, but I also had students who were religious and also students who were conservative. So it was just not as it's been portrayed.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

It didn't help that New College had also been dealt a bad hand from the state because of consistent underfunding. Requests for funding were often denied or reduced. And this led to issues on campus like a leaky library ceiling or water damage in dorm buildings. And that in turn made retaining students even harder, which only gave politicians more of an excuse to deny funding and say the school was failing. But things began to turn around in 2021 when new college hired a new president Patricia Ocher.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

She came in, she met with different programs. She had results right away, like she was talking to potential students on the phone, trying to not just sell them on the college, but, like, talk to them about what they were doing, what they're interested in. And so our enrollment grew her first fall after her first full year, our

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

enrollment was up for the first time in a while. It seemed like New College was on an upswing.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

I didn't feel like we were under the microscope and I felt really good about, okay, they've hired someone incredibly competent. She loves this college. She's behind the mission. She's not trying to change the foundational principles, and she's having success. So it was like, finally, that's like, great.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

But in January 2023, this forward momentum was brought to a screeching halt when Ron Desant appointed a slew of hardline, conservative trustees and made clear that he intended to fundamentally remake New College.

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

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[Narrator/Host (possibly Ian Mont or Margot Gray)]

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[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

There's never been a better time to get outside and experience the benefits of nature, discover nearby trails and explore the outdoors with alltrails. Download the free app today and find your outside. So a friend of mine works in Tallahassee and is more sort of plugged into the political world than I was. And he messaged me with the announcement about Chris Ruffo being appointed to the board, and he said, this is bad.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

That's Alex describing the morning of January 6, 2023, when Ron DeSantis appointed six new trustees to the new College Board. DeSantis was able to do this because New College is a public Florida school.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

He's, you know, not someone that's gonna just send me a message for no reason. So for him to actually message and say, this is bad. I don't know who Rufo was. Like, I missed that life when I didn't have to know who any of these people were. So that's when I started paying attention.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Chris Rufo is actually a pretty impactful figure. If you haven't heard of him. He's the one that manufactured the craze around so called critical race theory in schools, which led to book bans and laws prohibiting certain topics from the classroom.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

Critical race theory is everywhere. It's rapidly becoming the new orthodoxy in America's public institutions, and yet most Americans

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

have no idea where it comes from and what kind of society it envisions. The stakes of this fight are incredibly high. It's not an exaggeration to say that a governing regime based on critical race theory would mean the end of freedom

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

and equality in America.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Traditional. He's also pushed the baseless and dangerous notion that LGBTQ people compulsively groom children to be transgender. And now Rufo was a new college trustee.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

The shit hit the fan, like, right away, and they intentionally did things very, very quickly.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

One of the first targets for the reshaped board was President Patricia Oaker. The remade board was set to meet for the first time only a few weeks after DeSantis made his appointments.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

There were a couple of weeks in between when the trustees were seated and when they had their first meeting. And those were just really awful weeks because we knew what was coming, even though you hope it's not going to come.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

President Oakor had only been in office for a short time by that point, and in that time, she had made real progress in improving things on campus. Pretty much everyone sensed she would be the first on the chopping block.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

I think everybody can hear me if I speak up.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

And so I'm calling the meeting to order, and we'll have roll call Trustee Anderson here.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

For a minute, I thought maybe they're not going to do this. She's doing so well. She's showing all these accomplishments. Maybe they won't fire her, but they did, and that was devastating. It's hard for me to watch that moment from that meeting without getting relief, dearie. Still three years later.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

So I'd like to make a motion that we terminate President Oker based on the terms reflected in the board packet.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Discussion. As part of the discussion, President Oaker is given a chance to speak for some context. The reshaped board is looking for a president who is willing to argue openly that New College is effectively brainwashing students, which President Oaker is understandably unwilling to do.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

President Oker, please.

[Patricia Oker (Former President of New College)]

I do not believe that students are being indoctrinated at New College. I understand there's difference of opinion about that, but I will not be persuasive on this point because I know it to be different. I believe that great change is necessary at this college. Great change on both some academics and a lot on facilities and some other issues. Great change. I'm not opposed to thinking about change. But our students are not indoctrinated here at New College. They are taught. They read Marx and they argue with Marx. When our students take world religions, they do not become Buddhists in February and turn into Christians in March. We read texts. We engage with them, and we can read and be critical about them, ask questions. This is what we do here at this college.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

Trustee Barlan, I'll just say that among the deep changes that Pat mentioned, I

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

would add that the campus needs a deep culture change. You've sat up here, you've called us racists, sexists, bigots. We are now in a position of

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

some position of authority in the college,

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

and the accusations are telling us that something is wrong here.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

This is not the way for you

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

to address people who actually have good

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

intentions for the education of the young in America.

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

You can disagree, but the attacks, the

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

vilification, the insults show there needs to be a deep culture change on campus,

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

and it should have happened a long time ago.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

We have a motion and a second. I'm going to call for a roll call vote. After some extended and contentious debate, the motion is finally brought to a vote. It passes, and President Oker's contract is terminated.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

The motion carries. President Oker.

[Patricia Oker (Former President of New College)]

To the people of New College, it's been my honor and privilege to serve as your president for the last 19 months. Today's a sad day.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

She's given one final opportunity to speak to the New College community, which she uses to tell a story about a song she often heard in church as a kid and how that song reminded her of New College, a home for brilliant misfits.

[Patricia Oker (Former President of New College)]

I was blessed to be raised by parents with a deep faith in God. Between Sunday school, two services on Sunday, catechism on Wednesday and choir, my siblings, my parents and my grandparents and I spent a lot of time in church. Of those experiences, my favorite time by far was singing the song this Little light of Mine. Know that you are truly loved here, not just for what you do, but for who you are. The light that is within you, don't hide it under a bush. Let it shine.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

The New College of Florida One student telling me he's never felt such collective hopelessness among his fellow classmates. Gunrunning fashion students and alums of the

[Narrator/Host (possibly Ian Mont or Margot Gray)]

New College of Florida shouting their frustrations

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

as board members leaf to through a back door. It comes on the heels of a controversial vote to oust the school's president.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Soon after firing ochre, the board appointed Richard Corcoran as New College's president.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

Here's Sam he was installed as interim pretty much because he's buddies with some of the people on the board. Now he's being compensated over a million dollars, you know, a year to lead a school of 700 students.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Richard Corcoran is only paid about $700,000 annually, but that is still twice the pay of his predecessor, President Oakor. He also received a $200,000 bonus in 2024 after replacing the president. Next came a whole slew of announcements about how New College was to be reshaped in an anti woke image. Since Corcoran's arrival, change on campus has been fast furious and consistently contentious. Despite student protests, the board eliminated the school's diversity, equity and inclusion office. Corcoran introduced a new online partnership with Joe Raggins, a conservative businessman who operates the nation's largest for profit charter school company. He also unveiled a brand new gen ed course on Homer's the Odyssey, which was made mandatory for all incoming freshmen. The gender studies program was also abruptly shuttered and one day students were shocked to find a dumpster full of more than 10,000 books sitting behind the campus library. When videos were posted online, they quickly went viral.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Ian Mont or Margot Gray)]

Hundreds of books left out for the trash. This is an image that sent outrage through the new College campus and beyond.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Here's Sam.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

I think one of the reasons that the book dump went viral was its parallels or connections to past experiences in our human history of burning books or destroying books. And one of those was in Nazi Germany.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

The connection to Nazi Germany became stronger when students learned that a large portion of the 10,000 destroyed books belonged to a student owned gender and diversity collection. Sam highlighted the parallels between this case and the Nazis treatment of researcher Magnus Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld studied sex and gender and was an early advocate for the rights of queer people.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

In 1933, the Nazi youth raided his institute and took the entire contents of the library out into a public square and burned it. And so many of the classic pictures that people see of Nazi book burnings, of a big bonfire with books and people standing around it, are actually photos of that particular research institute's books and materials being burned.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

In an attempt to quell the outrage, President Corcoran issued a statement saying the destruction of these books was part of a routine process.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

Corcoran and the New College administration was trying to make the argument of nothing to see here. This is just regular book weeding. You're all so emotional, overreacting to this. But then certain other trustees on X celebrating, yeah, we canceled gender studies. Now we're taking out the trash. You know, eat it, everyone, we're winning. And so which is it really?

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

While many of the changes were visible, a lot was also happening behind the scenes. Right around the time Corcoran was hired, five faculty members were up for tenure. According to reporting, each had a strong case, but each was denied. Soon after, a whole slew of faculty resigned, were fired, or were forced out. In total, New College lost. A staggering 40% of its faculty replacements were eventually hired. But a recent Florida law gave college presidents significant control over faculty hiring, something which Corcoran took full advantage of.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

The president would come in at the 11th hour after the faculty had gone through that whole process and had narrowed it down to their final three. He would either reject some of those final three, and then he would insert his preferred candidate, and then the committee would make a recommendation. The president would hire whoever he wanted for an inflated salary. So now we have faculty who were not chosen by their colleagues, who were brought in by the president. And I'm not sure those faculty really understood that until they got here. Like, I genuinely think some of them think that they were hired based on merit and not based on cronyism.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Essentially, faculty typically lead the hiring process because they know their field intimately, and at New College especially, they know what their students are looking for. But in 2023 alone, Corcoran overrode faculty hiring decisions 43 times. New College today has around 90 faculty members, meaning Corcoran, with no expertise outside of Florida politics, handpicked half of New College's entire faculty body in one year alone. The control over hiring, paired with other decisions like the closure of the gender studies program, paints a pretty clear picture. Here's Sam describing the philosophy of current

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

leadership we want students to be exposed to the marketplace of ideas. We want students to be exposed to all these different fields, but not the ones that we don't agree with, right? And so by closing down the gender studies program, the New College Board of Trustees is censoring, you know, or trying to censor the ability for that content to be taught. That seems like they've really lost the plot, I think in terms of free and open inquiry on campus,

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

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[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

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[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Then set the scene with Hampton Bay String lights that bring it all together. Shop Spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot, now through May 6. Exclusions applies to homedebo.com Pricematch for details. Study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC and for a limited time, college students get the best of both. Get the Unreal College Deal everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game. Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn [e-mail] studentoffer while supplies last ends June 30th terms at aka mscollegepc. Alex is willing to acknowledge that New College was not a perfect place and that it had real problems that needed to be fixed. But at the same time, those problems were in many ways created by the same politicians who were now pointing to those problems as justification for a political overhaul.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

What they do is they identify something that is true, like a piece of data or statistic, and then they make up the reason for why it's true. So it is true that we were struggling with enrollment, although again under the new president that had made a immediate U turn and was going in a really positive direction. We did struggle with retention, but it wasn't for the reasons that they said. They said it was because of our toxic culture and not because of the rigor of the college. And it was true that our infrastructure was crumbling and that our dorms were moldy, but we didn't have money to fix buildings and those buildings belonged to the state. So at any point they could have stepped in to help us. And we tried for years to get money to fix this or put a roof on that, and they declined.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Richard Corcoran was actually the education commissioner for the state of Florida before taking the presidency at New College, meaning he was in charge of education funding.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

So the fact that they came in and complained about how the infrastructure in the buildings were moldy and leaky, like those things were true, but it wasn't because we hadn't tried to fix it.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Some of the changes on campus appear on first glance to be successful. Take athletics for example. Your New College of Florida mighty panions are now members of the NAI and SUN Conference. As we head closer, this is a trailer for Elevate, a series of videos about New College's brand new sports programs. The series it's advertising never came out, but the athletics program at New College has grown rapidly in the last couple years. It's actually a bit hard to put into words quite how rapidly it's grown. Before the takeover, New College had no athletic programs at all. There were some club sports, but no athletics at the time of writing. Less than three years after the takeover, New College has at least 20 athletic teams. Now, athletics can be hugely profitable for flagship schools, so it's natural to look at this as a positive change.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

Here's Alex There was no funding for it beforehand, so you cannot just create like 20. I think it's 20 now. Sports teams out of nothing for no money.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

New College is still very much a cash strapped school. Building out a sports program is incredibly expensive, especially when there are no existing sports facilities and when student athletes are often recruited on scholarships, even though the

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

students are on supposed merit scholarships. Whenever any team travels, they've got hotels that have to get paid for Airbnbs, food. This is an incredible amount of money. And you're like, where is this coming from? Right, because they gave the college money, but a lot of that money was one time it wasn't recurring. And then at the same time, faculty can't get money for things that they need.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Knowing this, the natural question is why invest so heavily in sports when dorm buildings are still unlivable and the library roof still leaks? Well, the answer is actually pretty simple. One of the best ways for Corcoran to show he's been successful is to increase enrollment and a lot of prospective Students want to do sports in college.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

It's about getting bodies in chairs for them to crow about how they've grown enrollment, even though they've grown enrollment by throwing a bunch of money at the sports program and building it overnight. There are about 55 to 60% of our students are student athletes now.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

I can't emphasize enough how extreme new colleges pivot to sports is. The sheer amount of sports recruiting far outstrips basically any other school. In 2024, about half of the incoming student population were student athletes. Almost a quarter of the entire incoming class were baseball players. The University of Florida has 60 times the student body of New College. And in 2024, their baseball team had 50 players. New College in that same year recruited 73 freshman baseball players in spite of having no baseball facilities. And many of these students were recruited on scholarships.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

So by getting into this athletics game, which has such high costs, when the legislature stops funding these huge scholarships, like students aren't going to come pay to play on a JB team. So this whole thing, the shell will fall apart. So I think it puts us in a really precarious financial position. It puts us in a position to just lose an incredible number of students overnight if they take away the financial benefit.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Here's Sam.

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

There's a lot of grift in mismanagement that has gone into this whole project, but then a lot of really shoddy decision making that's gone into trying to prove that it has succeeded. So the current administration is trying to prove that, yes, yes, this has been a massive success. But if you peel back those first layers, if you PE back the Astroturf, you'll find that there's really not been a lot of success.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

The pivot to sports is just one example of many. Over the last few years, Corcoran announces something flashy and headline grabbing that at first glance may seem exciting, but in most cases the change either fails to materialize or in the case of athletics, may have major consequences.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

He is kind of like an old school carnival barker. Step right up. He uses the most hyperbolic language. Biggest class in the history of the college. We're doing things that it's very trumpy in too. Like no one has seen the things that we are about to do.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

The online program I talked about earlier, that was a partnership with Joe Ricketts that was announced but fell apart. A statue of Charlie Kirk was announced paired with an AI generated image. But no funding or plans have been shared. In the months since, the campus has been repainted and the grass replaced. With Astroturf and. But students are still living in hotels off campus.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

It's all hyperbolic language, beautiful exteriors, press releases, and big publicity stunts that are all. And it's rhetorical, right? Like giving this carnival parker a chance to create a fantasy that he's trying to convince people is true, even though he knows it's not true.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

New College continues to truck along with increased support from the state. But that situation will probably change in January of 2027. Governor Ron DeSantis has reached his term limits and can't be reelected to another

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

term because this is his project and because DeSantis is the only person that Corcoran has to care about once he is out of office. There is not a lot of political will to support this project. And when I say this project, I mean this amount of money, Corcoran being in charge. You know, he's the known entity within the legislature, and he's not liked. That's pretty universally known. Corcoran knows that himself. They're not going to pay for that. And so then what happens?

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

The whole time I've been reporting on this story, I can't help but feel that DeSantis and Corcoran are perfectly comfortable with the possibility of killing off New College. The takeover has garnered far more attention than a closure likely ever would. It seems like this project was only ever about getting rid of the old New College and getting a bunch of press in the process.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

If the governor was so threatened by 700 students with blue hair that he had to destroy that college so that those 700 students did not have access to the quality education they were getting, I guess that was successful. The question always is, is it intentional or is it incompetence?

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Do you think New College will survive?

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

Since its second year of the takeover, I have thought there's no way this college survives. And not because of wokeness or whatever. It's because of just poor management and no consequences for anyone making bad management decisions.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

I asked Sam a similar question about the future of New College near the end of our interview. Do you think New College will still be around in five years?

[Sam (Former Faculty Member, pseudonym)]

It's not. I feel like it's not. New College is not dead yet. There are still glimmers, you know, of the old New College there, if you know where to look, and people still doing their jobs well and trying to serve the students well. And I hope that they can persist as long as they can. Optimistically, maybe 10 years from now, if the leadership of the state turns over, like, maybe it can return to where it was with even better facilities. And things just seems a little bit bleak right now. But we can always hope for something better in the future.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

If you've got a story idea, we would love to hear about it. Send us an [e-mail] and if you're loving this podcast, be sure to click Click Follow on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. While you're there, leave us a review and a five star rating. Campus Files is an Odyssey original podcast hosted by Margo Gray and Ian Mont. Our executive producers are Leah Rees Dennis and Lloyd Lockridge. Campus Files is produced by Ian Mont and Margot Gray. Sound design and engineering by Andy Jaskowicz and Zach Clark. Legal support by Laura Bernberg and Melissa Jean. Original music by Davey Sumner. Special thanks to Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchison, Rose, Sean Cherry, Kurt Courtney and Lauren Vieira.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

Hey Mama. Thanks for making all my favorite recipes.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Hi Ma.

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

Thanks for your unfiltered advice.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

Hi Matt. Thanks for always being by the phone.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Hey Mom. Happy Mother's Day.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

When you ship UPS Air at the UPS store, your items arrive on time or your money back guaranteed at no extra cost. Exclusively at the UPS store US retail locations. Visit the upsstore.com airshipping for full details. Terms and conditions apply. Send your Mother's Day gifts at the UPS store and we'll get your gratitude there on time.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

So here is what I want to encourage.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Ian Mont or Margot Gray)]

Understand?

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

Yes.

[Narrator/Host (possibly Ian Mont or Margot Gray)]

What made you so interested in all this? Ancestral lines and ancestral influences.

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

So I've been interested in it for so long that I can't remember when it started. But all I can tell you, like in childhood. Childhood.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

Did you do the DNA test?

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

I've not done that. I wasn't all that interested in the statistical breakdown of my DNA. I'm more interested in the stories. The stories of your ancestors and the circumstances that moved them around the planet. Every family has its stories. Your grandparents met on a blind date, or your great grandmother passed through Ellis Island. But every once in a while, you'll hear something a little more unusual.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

I have a really vague memory of somebody saying, did you know your great uncle killed somebody?

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

I've heard my whole life that she invented the margarita, he gets a patent

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

one month before the Wright brothers.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

Oh, my God.

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

Some of these stories are hard to believe. Others are hard to imagine. And as these tall tales get passed down through the generations, they become something more than a family story. They become family lore. My name is Lloyd Lockridge, and in this podcast, I'M going to have people on to tell stories about their families, and then we're going to investigate those stories and find out how much of it is true.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

To go into the archive and find what you think is, like, not just the secret of your family's life, but the explanatory secret of your family's life.

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

Wow. You know, maybe this old family story that I overheard in my grandmother's kitchen is true. This is Family Lore, a new series from Odyssey Podcasts.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

You're always wondering why your dad is a certain way.

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

Well, here's one answer I love when

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

I hear somebody says I have a boring family history.

[Faculty/Staff/Student at New College (anonymous)]

They didn't do anything.

[Ian Mont (Host/Reporter)]

I say it's because you don't know anything about your history.

[Conservative Board Member or Supporter]

Please follow and listen to Family Lore on any of your podcast apps.