New College of Florida
Encyclopedia
New College of Florida is a public liberal arts college
located in Sarasota, Florida. It was founded originally as a private institution and is now an autonomous honors college of the State University System of Florida
.
served as the first president from 1961 to 1965.
Envisioned as a new attempt at liberal arts education in the southeast, the core values of the freedom of inquiry and the responsibility of individual students for their own education were to be implemented through a unique academic program. Open to students of all races, genders, and religious affiliations, New College opened its doors in 1964 to a premier class of 101 students.
Faculty members included the historian and philosopher, Arnold J. Toynbee
, who was lured out of retirement to join the charter faculty.
By 1972, New College's ranks had swelled to more than 500 students and it had become known for its teaching-focused faculty, its unique courses and curricula, and its fiercely independent and hard-working students. As the 1970s progressed, although New College's academic program continued to mature, inflation threatened to undermine the economic viability of the institution. By 1975, the college was $3.9 million in debt and on the brink of insolvency, and the University of South Florida
(USF
) expressed interest in buying the land and facilities of the near-bankrupt college to establish a branch campus for the Sarasota and Bradenton area.
In an unusual agreement, the New College Board of Trustees agreed to hand over the school's campus and other assets to the state, at the time valued at $8.5 million, in exchange for the state paying off its debts and agreeing to continue to operate the school as a separate unit within the University of South Florida
, (USF). The agreement stated that New College was to receive the same funding, per-student, as other programs at USF
. The New College Board of Trustees became the New College Foundation, and was required to raise money privately to supplement the state funds to reach the total necessary to run New College, at the time about a third of New College's $2-million-a-year operating budget. Under the agreement, New College was re-christened the "New College of the University of South Florida." USF
started a Sarasota branch program that shared the bay front campus, and the schools began an uneasy relationship that would last for the next twenty-five years, with New College and the University of South Florida
through its Sarasota campus
sharing the campus.
As part of a major reorganization of Florida's public education system in 2001, New College severed its ties with USF
, became the eleventh independent school in the Florida State University System
, and adopted its current name, New College of Florida. As part of its establishment as an independent university, the University of South Florida was directed to relocate its facilities away from the New College campus, which it did on August 28, 2006, when it opened a new campus for USF Sarasota-Manatee
.
Today, as Florida's independent honors college, New College retains its original distinctive academic program, while enjoying the benefits and accessibility that being a public university affords. Along with a group of other selective and innovative public liberal arts institutions, it is a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges
.
New College is governed by a 12-member Board of Trustees, who serve staggered four-year terms. Of the 12 members, three must be residents of Sarasota County
and two must be residents of Manatee County
.
New College's 144 acre (0.58274784 km²) bay front campus is located in west Sarasota, Florida
, approximately fifty miles to the south of Tampa
. Situated between Sarasota Bay
and the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport
, the college lies within a public educational, cultural, and historic district that includes the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
and the Asolo Theatre
. The primary campus is located on the former Edith and Charles Ringling
estate. The campus also includes portions of The Uplands, a residential neighborhood that is bounded by the historic bay front campus to the south, Tamiami Trail
to the east, Sarasota Bay
to the west, most of which used to be a portion of the estate, and the Seagate property to the north.
The campus's most remarkable structures are its three Florida 1920s boom time
, grand-scale residences, the former home of Edith and Charles Ringling
(today called College Hall), the former home of Hester Ringling Landcaster Sanford
(today called Cook Hall), and the former home of Ellen and Ralph Caples (today called Caples Hall). The well-appointed structures date from the early to mid-1920s, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places
, and are similar in style to the adjacent John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
and their residence, Cà d'Zan
. Today, these gracious homes are used as classrooms, meeting rooms, and offices and their expansive properties provide sites for the modern developments on the bay front campus.
The campus is also home to several examples of high modernist architecture designed by I.M. Pei. These buildings include a complex of student residences known as "Pei", a cafeteria, and a student center. The other dormitories are Dort, Goldstein, and Palmer B. Five new dormitory buildings have been opened in the 2007–2008 school year, with the most recent opened in October 2007. They currently are referred to as V, W, X, Y, and Z. For most of the buildings naming donors have not been set in stone completely, but the largest building, "Z" has been named by the Pritzker family. They have donated several times to the college, including a library reading room and the Marine Sciences building; "X" recently was named in honor of Ulla R. Searing.
In 2005, a long range campus master plan was developed through public workshops held by the design teams from the Folsom Group of Sarasota, Moule and Polyzoides of Pasadena, California, Harper Aiken Partners of St. Petersburg, Florida, Biohabitats Inc. of Canton, Georgia, and Hall Planning and Engineering of Tallahassee, Florida. Extensive participation by the students, faculty, administration, residents of the community, and staff members of local governmental agencies was a major feature of the workshops. The husband and wife architectural firm includes Liz Moule and Stefanos Polyzoides, co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism, and their design, resulting from those master plan workshops, for the campus center to the north of the library is expected to be completed in the fall of 2010.
The academic structure described above is implemented through classes and research projects in a diverse array of subjects in the humanities, social sciences, and the natural sciences. With fewer than 800 students, an average class size of eighteen and a student to faculty ratio of 10 to 1, the academic environment is small and intimate and known for its intellectual intensity.
External rankings
at New College are a relatively new phenomenon, because during the school's twenty-five-year affiliation with the University of South Florida
and prior to gaining independent accreditation in 2004, New College was ineligible to be included in most ranking surveys.
In 2007, New College tied for first place in the US News and World Report rankings of the twenty-two public liberal arts college
s in the United States, up from third place in 2006. New College was ranked eighty-sixth out of all public and private liberal arts colleges, up two places since 2006.
The 2007 edition of The Princeton Review
named New College the best value in public higher education, up from sixth place in 2006. New College was also ranked 2nd in the August 2006 edition of High Times magazine's article "Top 10 Counterculture Colleges." Additionally, the 2006 edition of the Fiske Guide to Colleges named New College one of the nation's forty-five "Best Buys" in higher education
, marking the third time that New College has been included among the guide’s elite list of “Best Buys” since 2004. New College of Florida is listed in Loren Pope
's Colleges That Change Lives
.
In 2009, Forbes
rated it 61st of America's Best Colleges
.
New College also is known for its record number of Fulbright fellows. According to a list compiled in November 2005 by the Chronicle of Higher Education, New College ranked twenty-first out of the thirty top Fulbright producing bachelor's institutions, and ranked third when adjusted for per capita percentage, closely behind Pitzer College
and Claremont McKenna
. New College has produced thirty-one Fulbright fellows during the past thirteen years, and thirty-five since the school's inception.
In addition to New College's successes within the Fulbright program, New College students and faculty consistently have earned a number of other prestigious accolades, including Rhodes Scholarship, British Marshall Scholarship, Harry S. Truman Scholarships, Morris K. Udall Scholarships, National Science Foundation
Graduate Research Fellowships, Carnegie Junior Fellowships, Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Scholarship, Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, and Gates Cambridge Scholarships.
New College consistently is ranked among the top five for "Gay Friendliest Universities" according to the Princeton Review. In 2008, New College was ranked "number two" in the country.
One such example is an innovative art conservation research study conducted by physicist
s Mariana Sendova, Valentin Zhelyaskov, and recent alumnus Matthew Ramsey at New College, and the chief conservator at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Michelle Scalera, marked the inauguration of formal collaborations between the long-time neighboring institutions on Bay Shore Road. With Dr. Sendova's major scientific research grant from the Department of Education to establish an on-campus High-Resolution Raman Spectrography laboratory for the non-destructive analysis of rare objets d'art, this unprecedented partnership between a world-class art museum and a nationally renowned public liberal arts honors college is a landmark testament to New College's commitment to complementary research.
Starting in 2007, and currently ongoing, New College has been working with Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute
. LRRI and NCF have established a joint bio-informatics partnership to provide faculty and their students research opportunities in the emerging fields of systems biology, bio-informatics and computational biology.
The NCSA Constitution states that the purpose of Towne Meetings is "to inform the student body of the actions of the NCSA, to gather opinions and ideas from the students on matters of concern to the College community, to propose and enact informed legislation, and to confirm Presidential appointments to NCSA positions as necessary." Students are welcome to make announcements and address the community with important issues at this forum, and they may call for motions on the issues they present. Typical Towne Meetings consist of 60 to 200 students, with 50 being quorum.
The NCSA constitution also is known for articulating the whimsical nature of the student body. For example, article eleven states that:
The NCSA cabinet consists of a president or two co-presidents, executive vice president, vice president of student affairs, vice president of public affairs, vice president of academic affairs, vice president of green affairs, foundation and alumnae/i representative, and archivist.
, but large clusters of alums gravitate to San Francisco, Manhattan
, Washington, D.C.
, Tampa
, Atlanta, and Boston
as well as remaining in Sarasota.
Among the most prominent New College graduates are president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York William Dudley; U.S. Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart
; professor of law and director for Cumberland School of Law's Center for Biotechnology, Law, and Ethics
David M. Smolin
; mathematician and Fields Medalist
William Thurston
; drug policy activist and MAPS Founder Rick Doblin
; internet personality Merlin Mann
; cinematographer Ryan White
; and singer-songwriter Jaymay
.
Liberal arts college
A liberal arts college is one with a primary emphasis on undergraduate study in the liberal arts and sciences.Students in the liberal arts generally major in a particular discipline while receiving exposure to a wide range of academic subjects, including sciences as well as the traditional...
located in Sarasota, Florida. It was founded originally as a private institution and is now an autonomous honors college of the State University System of Florida
State University System of Florida
The State University System of Florida is a system of eleven public universities in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2011, over 320,000 students were enrolled in Florida's state universities...
.
History
Originally conceived during the late 1950s, New College was founded in 1960 as a private college by local civic leaders for academically talented students. Financial assistance was provided by the Board of Homeland Missions of the Congregational Christian Church. George F. BaughmanGeorge F. Baughman
George F. Baughman was the first president of New College of Florida, a vice president of the University of Florida as well as of New York University and a rear admiral in the United States Naval Reserve.-Early life and education:...
served as the first president from 1961 to 1965.
Envisioned as a new attempt at liberal arts education in the southeast, the core values of the freedom of inquiry and the responsibility of individual students for their own education were to be implemented through a unique academic program. Open to students of all races, genders, and religious affiliations, New College opened its doors in 1964 to a premier class of 101 students.
Faculty members included the historian and philosopher, Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold Joseph Toynbee CH was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934–1961, was a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global...
, who was lured out of retirement to join the charter faculty.
By 1972, New College's ranks had swelled to more than 500 students and it had become known for its teaching-focused faculty, its unique courses and curricula, and its fiercely independent and hard-working students. As the 1970s progressed, although New College's academic program continued to mature, inflation threatened to undermine the economic viability of the institution. By 1975, the college was $3.9 million in debt and on the brink of insolvency, and the University of South Florida
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
(USF
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
) expressed interest in buying the land and facilities of the near-bankrupt college to establish a branch campus for the Sarasota and Bradenton area.
In an unusual agreement, the New College Board of Trustees agreed to hand over the school's campus and other assets to the state, at the time valued at $8.5 million, in exchange for the state paying off its debts and agreeing to continue to operate the school as a separate unit within the University of South Florida
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
, (USF). The agreement stated that New College was to receive the same funding, per-student, as other programs at USF
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
. The New College Board of Trustees became the New College Foundation, and was required to raise money privately to supplement the state funds to reach the total necessary to run New College, at the time about a third of New College's $2-million-a-year operating budget. Under the agreement, New College was re-christened the "New College of the University of South Florida." USF
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
started a Sarasota branch program that shared the bay front campus, and the schools began an uneasy relationship that would last for the next twenty-five years, with New College and the University of South Florida
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
through its Sarasota campus
University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee
The University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee, also known as USF Sarasota-Manatee, was established in 1975 as a regional campus of the University of South Florida of Tampa, Florida. Initially the university jointly occupied the campus of New College until a new and separate campus was built in...
sharing the campus.
As part of a major reorganization of Florida's public education system in 2001, New College severed its ties with USF
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
, became the eleventh independent school in the Florida State University System
State University System of Florida
The State University System of Florida is a system of eleven public universities in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2011, over 320,000 students were enrolled in Florida's state universities...
, and adopted its current name, New College of Florida. As part of its establishment as an independent university, the University of South Florida was directed to relocate its facilities away from the New College campus, which it did on August 28, 2006, when it opened a new campus for USF Sarasota-Manatee
University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee
The University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee, also known as USF Sarasota-Manatee, was established in 1975 as a regional campus of the University of South Florida of Tampa, Florida. Initially the university jointly occupied the campus of New College until a new and separate campus was built in...
.
Today, as Florida's independent honors college, New College retains its original distinctive academic program, while enjoying the benefits and accessibility that being a public university affords. Along with a group of other selective and innovative public liberal arts institutions, it is a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges
Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges
The Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges or COPLAC is a consortium of 26 public colleges and universities in 24 states and one Canadian province...
.
New College is governed by a 12-member Board of Trustees, who serve staggered four-year terms. Of the 12 members, three must be residents of Sarasota County
Sarasota County, Florida
Sarasota County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. The U.S. Census Bureau 2008 estimate for the county was 372,057. Its county seat is Sarasota, Florida....
and two must be residents of Manatee County
Manatee County, Florida
Manatee County is a county in the state of Florida. According to the 2010 census by the U.S. Census Bureau there are 322,833 people living in Manatee Country.Manatee County is part of the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota Metropolitan Statistical Area...
.
Campus
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, approximately fifty miles to the south of Tampa
Tâmpa
Tâmpa may refer to several villages in Romania:* Tâmpa, a village in Băcia Commune, Hunedoara County* Tâmpa, a village in Miercurea Nirajului, Mureş County* Tâmpa, a mountain in Braşov city...
. Situated between Sarasota Bay
Sarasota Bay
Sarasota Bay is an estuary located off the west coast of Florida in the United States.The bay and its surrounding area appeared on the earliest maps of the area, being named Zarazote on one dating from the early 18th century...
and the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport
Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport
Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport is an airport located between Bradenton and Sarasota, Florida. The airport is shared by both Manatee County and Sarasota County . Most airlines refer to the airport on destination maps and flight status displays as just "Sarasota", as that is the more...
, the college lies within a public educational, cultural, and historic district that includes the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art is the state art museum of Florida, located in Sarasota, Florida. It was established in 1927 as the legacy of Mable and John Ringling for the people of Florida...
and the Asolo Theatre
Asolo Repertory Theatre
The Asolo Repertory Theatre or Asolo Rep is a professional theater in Sarasota, Florida. It is the largest Equity theatre in Florida, and the largest Repertory theatre in the Southeastern United States. Asolo Rep is a resident regional theatre company which also invites in guest artists...
. The primary campus is located on the former Edith and Charles Ringling
Charles Ringling
Charles Edward Ringling was one of the Ringling brothers, who owned the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He was in charge of production and greatly admired by the employees, who called him "Mr...
estate. The campus also includes portions of The Uplands, a residential neighborhood that is bounded by the historic bay front campus to the south, Tamiami Trail
Tamiami Trail
The Tamiami Trail is the southernmost of U.S. Highway 41 from State Road 60 in Tampa to U.S. Route 1 in Miami. The road also has the hidden designation of State Road 90....
to the east, Sarasota Bay
Sarasota Bay
Sarasota Bay is an estuary located off the west coast of Florida in the United States.The bay and its surrounding area appeared on the earliest maps of the area, being named Zarazote on one dating from the early 18th century...
to the west, most of which used to be a portion of the estate, and the Seagate property to the north.
The campus's most remarkable structures are its three Florida 1920s boom time
Florida land boom of the 1920s
The Florida land boom of the 1920s was Florida's first real estate bubble, which burst in 1925, leaving behind entire new cities and the remains of failed development projects such as Aladdin City in south Miami-Dade County and Isola di Lolando in north Biscayne Bay...
, grand-scale residences, the former home of Edith and Charles Ringling
Charles Ringling
Charles Edward Ringling was one of the Ringling brothers, who owned the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He was in charge of production and greatly admired by the employees, who called him "Mr...
(today called College Hall), the former home of Hester Ringling Landcaster Sanford
Charles Ringling
Charles Edward Ringling was one of the Ringling brothers, who owned the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He was in charge of production and greatly admired by the employees, who called him "Mr...
(today called Cook Hall), and the former home of Ellen and Ralph Caples (today called Caples Hall). The well-appointed structures date from the early to mid-1920s, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
, and are similar in style to the adjacent John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art is the state art museum of Florida, located in Sarasota, Florida. It was established in 1927 as the legacy of Mable and John Ringling for the people of Florida...
and their residence, Cà d'Zan
John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art is the state art museum of Florida, located in Sarasota, Florida. It was established in 1927 as the legacy of Mable and John Ringling for the people of Florida...
. Today, these gracious homes are used as classrooms, meeting rooms, and offices and their expansive properties provide sites for the modern developments on the bay front campus.
The campus is also home to several examples of high modernist architecture designed by I.M. Pei. These buildings include a complex of student residences known as "Pei", a cafeteria, and a student center. The other dormitories are Dort, Goldstein, and Palmer B. Five new dormitory buildings have been opened in the 2007–2008 school year, with the most recent opened in October 2007. They currently are referred to as V, W, X, Y, and Z. For most of the buildings naming donors have not been set in stone completely, but the largest building, "Z" has been named by the Pritzker family. They have donated several times to the college, including a library reading room and the Marine Sciences building; "X" recently was named in honor of Ulla R. Searing.
In 2005, a long range campus master plan was developed through public workshops held by the design teams from the Folsom Group of Sarasota, Moule and Polyzoides of Pasadena, California, Harper Aiken Partners of St. Petersburg, Florida, Biohabitats Inc. of Canton, Georgia, and Hall Planning and Engineering of Tallahassee, Florida. Extensive participation by the students, faculty, administration, residents of the community, and staff members of local governmental agencies was a major feature of the workshops. The husband and wife architectural firm includes Liz Moule and Stefanos Polyzoides, co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism, and their design, resulting from those master plan workshops, for the campus center to the north of the library is expected to be completed in the fall of 2010.
Program features
Four core principles form the base of New College's academic philosophy: (1) each student is responsible in the last analysis for his or her own education, (2) the best education demands a joint search for learning by exciting teachers and able students, (3) students' progress should be based on demonstrated competence and real mastery rather than on the accumulation of credits and grades, (4) students should have, from the outset, opportunities to explore in-depth, areas of interest to them. To the end of putting this philosophy into practice, New College uses a unique academic program that differs substantially from those of most other educational institutions in four key ways:- Narrative evaluationNarrative evaluationIn education, narrative evaluation is a form of performance measurement and feedback which can be used as an alternative or supplement to grading. Narrative evaluations generally consist of several paragraphs of written text about a student's individual performance and course work...
s: at the completion of each course, students receive an evaluation written by the instructor critiquing their performance and course work, along with a satisfactory, unsatisfactory, or incomplete designation. Letter grades and grade-point-averages are not used at New College. - Contract System: at the start of each semester, students negotiate a contract with their faculty adviser, specifying their courses of study and expectations for the semester. At the completion of the term, the academic adviser compares the student's performance with the requirements defined in the contract, and determines whether the student has "passed" the contract, or not. Among other requirements, completing seven contracts is a prerequisite to graduation by the college.
- Independent Study Projects: the month of January is reserved for independent projects at New College, a period when no traditional courses are held. Independent Study Projects run the gamut from short, in-depth, academic research projects to internships, lab work, and international exchanges. Students are required to complete three independent study projects prior to being graduated.
- Senior Thesis: each student is required to write an original and lengthy thesis in their discipline, and to defend it before a committee of at least three faculty members. Depending on the area of concentration of each student, a senior thesis may take the form of an original research paper, performing and documenting a scientific or social-scientific experiment or research study, or an original composition. This requirement usually is completed during the final two semesters of a student's fourth year.
The academic structure described above is implemented through classes and research projects in a diverse array of subjects in the humanities, social sciences, and the natural sciences. With fewer than 800 students, an average class size of eighteen and a student to faculty ratio of 10 to 1, the academic environment is small and intimate and known for its intellectual intensity.
Rankings
College and university rankings
College and university rankings are lists of institutions in higher education, ordered by combinations of factors. In addition to entire institutions, specific programs, departments, and schools are ranked...
at New College are a relatively new phenomenon, because during the school's twenty-five-year affiliation with the University of South Florida
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
and prior to gaining independent accreditation in 2004, New College was ineligible to be included in most ranking surveys.
In 2007, New College tied for first place in the US News and World Report rankings of the twenty-two public liberal arts college
Liberal arts college
A liberal arts college is one with a primary emphasis on undergraduate study in the liberal arts and sciences.Students in the liberal arts generally major in a particular discipline while receiving exposure to a wide range of academic subjects, including sciences as well as the traditional...
s in the United States, up from third place in 2006. New College was ranked eighty-sixth out of all public and private liberal arts colleges, up two places since 2006.
The 2007 edition of The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review is an American-based standardized test preparation and admissions consulting company. The Princeton Review operates in 41 states and 22 countries across the globe. It offers test preparation for standardized aptitude tests such as the SAT and advice regarding college...
named New College the best value in public higher education, up from sixth place in 2006. New College was also ranked 2nd in the August 2006 edition of High Times magazine's article "Top 10 Counterculture Colleges." Additionally, the 2006 edition of the Fiske Guide to Colleges named New College one of the nation's forty-five "Best Buys" in higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
, marking the third time that New College has been included among the guide’s elite list of “Best Buys” since 2004. New College of Florida is listed in Loren Pope
Loren Pope
Loren Brooks Pope was an American writer and independent college placement counselor.In 1965, Pope, a former newspaperman and education editor of The New York Times, founded the College Placement Bureau, one of the first independent college placement counseling services in the United States...
's Colleges That Change Lives
Colleges That Change Lives
Colleges That Change Lives is a college educational guide by Loren Pope. It was originally published in 1996, with a second edition in 2000, and a third edition in 2006...
.
In 2009, Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
rated it 61st of America's Best Colleges
Forbes Magazine's List of America's Best Colleges
In 2009 Forbes Magazine, along with The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, compiled a list of America's Best Colleges based on "the quality of the education they provide, the experience of the students and how much they achieve".- 2009 List :...
.
New College also is known for its record number of Fulbright fellows. According to a list compiled in November 2005 by the Chronicle of Higher Education, New College ranked twenty-first out of the thirty top Fulbright producing bachelor's institutions, and ranked third when adjusted for per capita percentage, closely behind Pitzer College
Pitzer College
Pitzer College is a private residential liberal arts college located in Claremont, California, a college town approximately east of downtown Los Angeles. Pitzer College is one of the Claremont Colleges....
and Claremont McKenna
Claremont McKenna College
Claremont McKenna College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college and a member of the Claremont Colleges located in Claremont, California. The campus is located east of Downtown Los Angeles...
. New College has produced thirty-one Fulbright fellows during the past thirteen years, and thirty-five since the school's inception.
In addition to New College's successes within the Fulbright program, New College students and faculty consistently have earned a number of other prestigious accolades, including Rhodes Scholarship, British Marshall Scholarship, Harry S. Truman Scholarships, Morris K. Udall Scholarships, National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
Graduate Research Fellowships, Carnegie Junior Fellowships, Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Scholarship, Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, and Gates Cambridge Scholarships.
New College consistently is ranked among the top five for "Gay Friendliest Universities" according to the Princeton Review. In 2008, New College was ranked "number two" in the country.
Research
A small liberal arts college bringing together specialists from a diverse array of fields, New College emphasizes research involving interdisciplinary collaboration and independent study.One such example is an innovative art conservation research study conducted by physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
s Mariana Sendova, Valentin Zhelyaskov, and recent alumnus Matthew Ramsey at New College, and the chief conservator at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Michelle Scalera, marked the inauguration of formal collaborations between the long-time neighboring institutions on Bay Shore Road. With Dr. Sendova's major scientific research grant from the Department of Education to establish an on-campus High-Resolution Raman Spectrography laboratory for the non-destructive analysis of rare objets d'art, this unprecedented partnership between a world-class art museum and a nationally renowned public liberal arts honors college is a landmark testament to New College's commitment to complementary research.
Starting in 2007, and currently ongoing, New College has been working with Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute
Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute
LRRI is a private, not-for-profit biomedical research organization dedicated to improving public health through research on the prevention, treatment, and cure of respiratory disease. LRRI employs over 500 staff in New Mexico and in 2008 is spending more than $60 million in the fight against...
. LRRI and NCF have established a joint bio-informatics partnership to provide faculty and their students research opportunities in the emerging fields of systems biology, bio-informatics and computational biology.
New College Student Alliance
The New College Student Alliance (NCSA) is New College's student government organization. Many decisions relating to student and campus events, academic decisions and policies, the allocation of funds, and recently, the revision of the campus master plan, and the building of new dorm complexes are influenced by the opinions of the student body via the NSCA. "Towne Meetings", held monthly in Palm Court, are the main forum for public debate and are open to all students, faculty, and staff.The NCSA Constitution states that the purpose of Towne Meetings is "to inform the student body of the actions of the NCSA, to gather opinions and ideas from the students on matters of concern to the College community, to propose and enact informed legislation, and to confirm Presidential appointments to NCSA positions as necessary." Students are welcome to make announcements and address the community with important issues at this forum, and they may call for motions on the issues they present. Typical Towne Meetings consist of 60 to 200 students, with 50 being quorum.
The NCSA constitution also is known for articulating the whimsical nature of the student body. For example, article eleven states that:
11.1 The New College Student Alliance shall embrace the following symbols:
a) [ ] as Mascot
b) Palm Court as the Center of the Universe
c) Our Motto: 'There is more to running a starship than answering a bunch of damn fool questions"
d) Our Mission: "That the natural state of the human spirit is ecstatic wonder! That we should not settle for less!"
The NCSA cabinet consists of a president or two co-presidents, executive vice president, vice president of student affairs, vice president of public affairs, vice president of academic affairs, vice president of green affairs, foundation and alumnae/i representative, and archivist.
Alumni
New College graduates are relatively few (about 4,000), although everyone who has attended the college for any length of time, regardless of graduation status, is considered a New College alumnus/a. They are dated by the year they entered New College, not by graduation year. For example, a student entering New College in 1985 would be considered part of the "Class of 1985." A plurality of alumnae/i live in FloridaFlorida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, but large clusters of alums gravitate to San Francisco, Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, Tampa
Tâmpa
Tâmpa may refer to several villages in Romania:* Tâmpa, a village in Băcia Commune, Hunedoara County* Tâmpa, a village in Miercurea Nirajului, Mureş County* Tâmpa, a mountain in Braşov city...
, Atlanta, and Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
as well as remaining in Sarasota.
Among the most prominent New College graduates are president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York William Dudley; U.S. Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart
Lincoln Diaz-Balart
Lincoln Rafael Díaz-Balart was the U.S. Representative for from 1993 to 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party. He previously served in the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate...
; professor of law and director for Cumberland School of Law's Center for Biotechnology, Law, and Ethics
Cumberland School of Law's Center for Biotechnology, Law, and Ethics
The Center for Biotechnology, Law and Ethics is a bioethics, biotechnology, and biotechnology law research center of Cumberland School of Law located on the Samford University campus in Birmingham, Alabama...
David M. Smolin
David M. Smolin
David Mark Smolin is a professor of law at Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama where he is the Harwell G...
; mathematician and Fields Medalist
Fields Medal
The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...
William Thurston
William Thurston
William Paul Thurston is an American mathematician. He is a pioneer in the field of low-dimensional topology. In 1982, he was awarded the Fields Medal for his contributions to the study of 3-manifolds...
; drug policy activist and MAPS Founder Rick Doblin
Rick Doblin
Rick Doblin is the president and founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies .He co-founded Earth Metabolic Design Laboratories in 1984 to support psychedelic research and Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in 1986 with the goal of making MDMA an...
; internet personality Merlin Mann
Merlin Mann
Merlin Dean Mann III writes the blog . He received a B.A. from New College of Florida, and he currently resides in San Francisco, California with his wife, Madeline Mann, and their daughter, .-Writing:...
; cinematographer Ryan White
Ryan White
Ryan Wayne White was an American teenager from Kokomo, Indiana, who became a national poster child for HIV/AIDS in the United States, after being expelled from middle school because of his infection. A hemophiliac, he became infected with HIV from a contaminated blood treatment and, when diagnosed...
; and singer-songwriter Jaymay
Jaymay
Jamie Seerman is an American folk singer-songwriter from New York. She performs under the name Jaymay.-Biography:Jaymay was born on January 3, 1981, and was raised on Long Island...
.
External links
- New College of Florida official website
- New College Student Alliance student government
- New College Alumnae/i Association
- The New College Foundation