It also overrides the concerns of its student and faculty trustees, adopting a new student code of conduct and core curriculum.
By Florence Fahringer
Original Air Date: November 29, 2024
Host: Richard Corcoran, the president of New College, removed two members from the board of the foundation that coughs up most of his compensation. Both have been critics of the course of the college’s current administration. Florence Fahringer has more to report from the New College board of trustees.
Florence Fahringer: At last week’s New College Board of Trustees meeting, the DeSantis-appointed trustees decided to empower Corcoran even further, giving him the ability to dismiss members of the New College Foundation at will. At the same meeting, the majority ignored the concerns of the board’s student and faculty trustees over changes to core curriculum and the student code of conduct.
The meeting opened, as always, with public comments. One public commenter, Jono Miller, had concerns about the agenda item which would empower Corcoran to remove NCF Foundation board members at his will.
Jono Miller: Overall, I think the board is delegating far too much decision making authority to the administration. Regulation 3-701, giving so much power to the President creates a significant conflict of interest, since the Foundation is responsible for so much of his salary.
FF: Chief Compliance Officer Alex Tzoumas then discussed his audit of the Foundation, which concluded that past administrations had run up a deficit, and recommended that Corcoran be empowered to remove the remaining board members who had been appointed to the board by past administrations.
Alex Tzoumas: The report ultimately shows that the administration prior to this one failed to achieve its unrestricted fundraising goals, adhere to its approved budget. Essentially, since the new administration has been here, things have done 100% turnaround. We’ve been able to cut foundation overhead by 50%. We’ve more than tripled unrestricted cash donations and the 2024 audited financials now show that rather than a $2.1 million deficit and unrestricted funds. We actually have a $1.8 million surplus.
The report shows us based on the audited financial statements that during the 6-year period under review, the foundation deficits totaled $9.6 million with negative cash flows from operating activities of $8.2 million. Administrative budget overages coupled with the inability to achieve unrestricted fundraising goals ultimately culminated in a fiscal year 2023 deficit and unrestricted funds of $2.1 million. So, the foundation was in pretty dire straits when this new administration arrived.
FF: Later on, the item was discussed directly. Faculty trustee Patrick McDonald voiced his concerns.
Patrick McDonald: All right. So, my chief concern with this involves long-term stability of the endowment. The regulation, if adopted, remains in force independent of who’s the president of New College. So the president, no matter who they are, will have the power to dismiss the board, and in so doing, bypass any meaningful oversight. And that I see as a real threat to the endowment, and I don’t see a benefit that outweighs that risk.
FF: In response, trustee Matthew Spalding, in dialogue with general counsel Bill Galvano, laid out his argument for approving the motion.
Matthew Spalding: We have chosen a president to whom we have delegated this responsibility. And am I correct that at any one time we could withdraw this or change this authority?
Bill Galvano: Yes.
MS: That we have temporarily given him to carry out what it says, “his judgment in the interest of the college,” which actually would mean on behalf of us. Is that correct?
BG: That is correct. If you decide that you want to change the guidelines and remove that authority, you can do that.
MS: So this seems to be pretty straightforward to me.
FF: Then, the item came to a vote, as narrated by chair Debra Jenks.
Debra Jenks: So, seeing no comments, then can we have a vote to approve regulation and then 3-7001 college board of direct support organization, all those in favor of the regulation update, say aye.
Trustees: Aye
DJ: I would say a show of hands might be easier … All right, and any opposed?
PM: Me.
DJ: Yes, the faculty trustee, and the student trustee. Okay, motion carries. Thank you.
Olivia Mikkelsen
FF: Another big change brought about by this meeting was the complete overhaul of the student code of conduct, replacing the language wholesale with that of FSU’s student code of conduct. Student trustee Olivia Mikkelsen, in conversation with Vice President of Legal Affairs David Brickhouse, complained that the process did not involve enough student input.
Olivia Mikkelsen: To be clear, there were no hearings with students, faculty, other staff members, or public meetings with students about the code of conduct and its changes.
David Brickhouse: It was discussed extensively with student affairs staff, with the professional staff that runs the conduct hearings. We had additional comments from faculty, staff, and students who participated in those processes, and so all of that was taken into account. And again, no changes were offered or suggested. But as the president said, we’re happy to entertain any of those conversations.
OM: Mhm. May I ask why this didn’t go before the committee on student affairs?
DB: We did not have a committee meeting prior to this board meeting, I believe is the only reason.
OM: Okay, I’m just wondering because there were pretty big items that should have had more time to be discussed.
FF: A week after all faculty members resigned from the general education committee, the Core Curriculum of the college was on the agenda. McDonald said faculty simply was not listened to throughout this process. Brickhouse also provided a response to McDonald’s complaints.
PM: I’ll give you that it’s very nicely packaged. But I’ve got some concerns. Here’s one: somehow, the document that you’re looking at has never been sent to the faculty. Now, that’s a problem. You received it over the weekend because it wasn’t done. So it couldn’t have been sent to the faculty.
Patrick McDonald
Now, we just approved a new CBA and in that CBA, section 5.5 covers the academic program and changes in the academic program, and what it says is that the faculties are supposed to vote on changes to the academic program, are supposed to be given an opportunity to vote before changes to the academic program remain. That never happened. The document didn’t exist until Sunday or so. So, I don’t know. I don’t understand why that didn’t happen.
I also don’t understand why the academic affairs committee didn’t see this. So it’s a major change to the academic program and we didn’t have a committee hearing on this. That seems very strange to me.
There are other serious problems with the content. It is true that faculty were asked to submit courses for inclusion in the Gen Ed curriculum. They did, and a small fraction of those courses made it into this. There’s been no explanation of how the residue became the residue. The process is totally opaque. People asked, “Why are my courses not part of this?” In fact, an art history professor prepared 7, sorry, 8 proposals, all of which were rejected summarily. She asked in writing why, and she’s gotten no response from the provost office or from the president. My understanding is that’s not actually an isolated incident.
Now, there are also problems with delivery. It turns out that if you limit offerings the way you’ve done, you’re undermining the ability of faculty to offer both the seminar type study, I mean a real Socratic experience — by the way, the irony of the Socratic experience programs, overwhelming — And then also offering at the same time, a complete set of courses for their independent disciplines, right? This is a problem. The calculation is actually straightforward to show you that this is going to be a problem given the students we project versus the resources we have.
The provost office has been made aware of the problem but again, there’s some silence. I don’t understand why this is happening. There are serious problems with it. I think it should be referred to committee. It’s my official kind of request, is that this actually be referred to committee to work out the problems. In particular, the problem with the collective bargaining agreement.
DB: Madam chair, if I may just respond and clarify regarding the collective bargaining agreement, trustee McDonald is correct. It does require that there’s consultation in the ability of the faculty to have a vote is part of the consideration. I would say that the administration met multiple times with multiple faculty members, went to the academic affairs committee, to the educational policy committee, and discussed this at length multiple times at faculty senate meetings, including last week with the final presentation where they had an opportunity to vote yes or no. They did express their concerns at that meeting and had an opportunity to take a vote. They chose not to. We do not control whether or what they vote on. We can only present the information that we have, and so all of that was afforded as part of the process that’s required under the collective bargaining agreement. Happy to answer any other questions, but I just wanted to clarify those points.
PM: This is remarkably misleading. The agenda for the meeting went out before we had the document. How could we actually say we’re going to have a vote without a document? This is crazy.
FF: Both the new student code of conduct and Core Curriculum were passed by an overwhelming majority of trustees, with Mikkelsen and McDonald dissenting.
Just a day after the board of trustees meeting, Corcoran took action with his newfound powers, removing the last remaining carry-overs from past administrations off of the Foundation board. Now all board members of the Foundation were appointed by himself or the post-takeover board of trustees.
This is Florence Fahringer, reporting for WSLR News.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.