In this week’s budget proposal, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seems to have tipped his hand regarding the desired end game for New College of Florida. In budget proposals released Thursday, DeSantis directs FSU to begin turning the Ringling and Mable Museum of Art and associated properties over to New College. If the measure passes, it is expected to be followed by an attempt to fold USF-Sarasota/Manatee into the school, which has become a pet project in his War on Woke.
“Florida State University shall work with the New College of Florida in transferring all duties, responsibilities, and state financial obligations for the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, including but not limited to, the art museum, the Ca’ d’Zan, and the Ringling Museum of the Circus, to the New College of Florida,” DeSantis’ wrote in a one-page FY 25-25 conforming bill. The property also includes the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actors training and the Asolo Rep’s theaters, which are not mentioned but would presumably also become part of New College.
Earlier this week, Manatee County Commissioner Tal Siddique (R-Dist. 3) unsuccessfully proposed swapping the county-owned Powel Crosley Estate for some conservation property New College owns in Manatee County. The proposal seemed to make little sense at the time. However, given how quickly the consolidation plans seem to be moving, it might not be long before the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus is also under the New College umbrella.
Under the direction of Siddique’s predecessor, Kevin Van Ostenbridge, the previous Manatee County Commission managed to successfully gift land to New College that had been promised to USF for the much-needed expansion of its dormitories.
Don’t forget that Bradenton lawyer Bill Galvano, former President of the Florida Senate, is New College’s General Counsel. Galvano was also the go-between for local political powerbrokers seeking to influence DeSantis’ appointments for vacancies in Manatee County, including former Dist. 5 Manatee County Commissioner Ray Turner and former Manatee Supervisor of Elections James Satcher. He clearly has the governor’s ear and isn’t a bad person to appease if someone has designs on climbing the political ladder.
Ironically, Galvano was an important figure in preventing a proposed consolidation of New College into the University of Florida in 2020 when he was still representing Manatee County in the Florida Senate. Since then, however, New College has gone from a perennial punching bag for right-wingers to the crown jewel in their stick-it-to-the-left agenda, as DeSantis and allies expressed a vision to turn it into the "Hillsdale of the South." Hillsdale College is a private, conservative Christian school in Michigan.
In January of 2023, DeSantis used vacancies to overhaul the New College Board of Trustees, appointing right-wing conservatives who fired the university president and replaced him with DeSantis lackey Dick Corcoran—a former Speaker of the Florida House and Education Secretary. Corcoran was initially appointed as interim president in a deal that immediately drew criticism when he was given a contract worth nearly double his predecessor's compensation despite having no experience in higher education.
Corcoran’s status was then made permanent with an even sweeter deal that could see him snag as much as $7.5 million over five years, which experts say is grossly out of line with other presidents in the state university system, given both his lack of qualifications and the school’s relatively low enrollment (FSU, for example, has almost 50,000 more students than New College).
Since then, New College—once prized as a deliberately small liberal arts school known for producing Fields Medal-winning mathematicians—has been reimagined as a larger school that would have sports teams and other programming that had never been part of the school’s mission and lower academic standards for admissions. Since the takeover, the school has seen its state funding soar and has been criticized for operating at a per-student cost many times that of other schools in the state system ($91,000 per student compared to a system average of $10,000).
The proposed growth of New College begged the obvious question as to how a school that is essentially hemmed in on all sides would manage to accommodate the additional facilities that would be required. Political machinations between the new board and the SRQ Airport Authority board nearly saw the latter squander sure-to-be-needed space to grow via a hamfisted land sale proposal that was ultimately scuttled by the FAA after a local activist doggedly fought against its approval. The school also tore up a nature preserve to facilitate new sports facilities and looks to be eyeing SRQ again in its quest to build a baseball stadium.
In the consolidation of New College, the Ringling properties, and USF-SM—which Florida Senator Joe Gruters confirmed to the Observer this week is, in fact, being discussed—we may have gotten the answer as to how the school intends to grow.
Theoretically, there may be some advantages to turning three such institutions into one larger university. However, the expensive remaking of New College thus far does not bode well for that possibility. What’s more, the state has plenty of large-scale universities. For decades, it has had, but one small, elite liberal arts honors college and we have been fortunate enough to have it housed within our community. Nothing that is likely to spawn from its politically motivated destruction would be worth what we seem destined to lose.
Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. Mitch is also the author of three novels and a short story collection available here.
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johnschussler
Governor DeSantis chose to expand a college that did not have sufficient land to expand upon. Politicians don't admit to making mistakes and reverse course. Instead they double down, throw money at it and use their political appointees. First, they tried to buy SRQ Airport land, but the FAA rejected it. They got the Manatee County Commission to give them land last year, but Manatee County rejected giving them more land this year. Now they are going after FSU's Ringling Museum and USF-SM for their land and financial resources. Political overreach like this comes with one party state government, like Russia and China. We need to change how we elect our representatives, please consider Open Primary Elections and Ranked Choice Voting.
Sunday, February 9 Report this
johnschussler
...and protect the right to Citizen Ballot Initiatives in state government.
Sunday, February 9 Report this
Lizarnold
Under no circumstances should the taxpayer owned Crowley mansion and is historic 60 acre bayfront property be given to the New College. It is a gem and belongs to the citizens of Manatee. It would be very sad to see offices, dorms, and or classrooms litter the drop dead beautiful grounds. This property is a once in a lifetime property that should remain as the treasure it currently is. I am shocked that anyone would want to trade any part or all of it away!
Sunday, February 9 Report this
Charles
— "Seagate" is the name of the Crosley home on the bay. The name is derived from the entire subdivision Crosley purchased in order to build a fishcamp for his wife, Gwendolyn that they would use as a retreat and he would pursue his fishing from what at the time was a renown sport in Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. The house is grand, steel frame and essentially fireproof — the property includes a unique yacht basin and the coast was dredged to accommodate his boats and to provide space for his seaplane. The house was built on the bay front of the pine flatwoods forest that covered the subdivision. His engineering along the drive (Seagate Drive) to the house garnered the historic designation of the entire property along with the house and garages. Even through Manatee County mistakenly gave away a majority of the subdivision and allowed destruction of the forest, the elected officials wisely again, have declined to give away the significant jewel of the house, its immediate grounds, and the easement along the historic drive to the house, let's hope they continue to keep this jewel under the ownership of the people of the county. Let them know your support to keep this property, surely they are under great pressure to surrender it to folks who already have destroyed historic buildings and features of the college campus without any concern for the desires of the community. They expressed a desire to cut a road right through the historic setting for the house in order to provide unnecessary access to a northern parcel that, sadly, was given to them last year that contains a massive rookery for wading birds we enjoy along the bay and rightly should be preserved in its undeveloped state. Make your voices heard to the county commissioners — it could be the last chance to preserve this.
Sunday, February 9 Report this