New College professor denied emerita status.
The Bradenton Times
Staff Report
SARASOTA — New College Faculty Chair Amy Reid was recently recommended for faculty emerita status by New College Provost David Rohrbacher, who described the professor as “an outstanding teacher and scholar, and an innovator in curricular development.” The Division of Humanities voted 21-4 to confer emeritus status – only for the honor to be denied by New College President Richard Corcoran.
Amy Reid
Reid’s colleagues elected her chair of New College’s faculty after Matthew Lepinski abruptly resigned from both his faculty chair position and his professorship at the college during an April 2023 board of trustees meeting. Lepinski’s resignation was in response to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ stacking of the board with allies and his installation of his former Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran as New College President, which led to five professors who had already cleared the usual hurdles to achieve tenure not being approved by the board at Corcoran’s direction.
In her faculty chair role, Professor Reid served as an ex officio member of the New College Board of Trustees and became known for her independent stances. Corcoran’s basis for the unusual denial of emeritus status was that he had not found her adequately supportive of his agenda during New College’s transformation. Corcoran wrote that he recognized Professor Reid’s contributions to New College but disagreed that she should be honored with the title of emeritus.
“When I became president with a mandate for change from the Board of Trustees, there was
need for reasoned and respectful exchange between the faculty and administration,” Corcoran wrote in an email response to Rohrbacker. “Regrettably, Professor Reid was one of the leading voices of hyperbolic alarmism and needless obstruction. In her letter of resignation, Professor Reid wrote that ‘the New College where I once taught no longer exists.’ She need not be burdened by further association with it.”
Reid’s teaching and research career has spanned nearly three decades, and an Emeritus title is a common honor for such lengthy and distinguished service. Faculty who achieve the honorary title of Emeritus have access to the use of New College stationery and a divisional mailbox; a New College email account; status as a nonvoting member of the faculty; borrowing privileges at the Jane Cook Library; a New College I.D.; and free parking.
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