The board strips the association of their seat and forms a mission-aligned replacement.
By Nic Steinig
Original Air Date: July 29, 2026
Host: The New College Foundation, which is supposed to raise funds from alumni, voted today to dissolve its alumni association. Nic Steinig reports.
Nic Steinig: The New College Alumni Association has been separated from the New College Foundation, the organization responsible for collecting and overseeing charitable donations to the institution.
Today, the foundation board members voted to strike any mention of the New College Alumni Association from its bylaws and removed the alumni association’s sole representative from the board. The only dissenting vote was New College Alumni Association Chair Chris Van Dyk. That leaves the Alumni Association in an ambiguous position—it’s no longer structurally integrated with the institution, and its next steps as an organization based around New College are unclear.
In its place, the New College foundation board has formed a mission-aligned replacement, referred to as the Alumni Engagement Committee. It currently has five members, all foundation board members who were assigned the role at today’s meeting.
According to proposal documents obtained by WSLR, the new organization is mandated to “exclusively support and enhance the mission of New College of Florida as determined by the New College of Florida Board of Trustees.”
This comes in the wake of Governor DeSantis’s “hostile takeover” of the college in 2023, a political project which set out to overhaul the college to fit a conservative vision for higher education. At that time, former GOP Speaker of the House Richard Corcoran was appointed president, and Sydney Gruters, the wife of then Florida state senator Joe Gruters, was appointed Executive Director of the Foundation.
New College alumni group photo
Since this political shift, the school’s administration has taken a more direct role in influencing the foundation’s activities. Several critics on the foundation board have been purged, either by pressure or forced termination, with some dismissed members having raised concerns over the funneling of donor-restricted dollars to pay out Corcoran’s $1.3 million pay. In 2024, the Board of Trustees went further, granting President Corcoran the authority to dismiss foundation board members without cause.
WSLR spoke with New College Alumni Association Chair Chris Van Dyk. He believes that the alumni association was targeted not because it failed to cooperate with the administration and achieve its mission but because its voice was outside of the administration’s control.
Chris Van Dyk: They do not want to engage with critical voices. It’s a $55 million operation, and to say that we’re only there to wive pom-poms is an insult to everybody who serves on the foundation board. You’re there to steward the resources. There are those of us who would argue that the expenditure of foundation funds in support of the bloated salary of President Corcoran is not sound as a fiduciary. Our discourse at those meetings is civil, so I take umbrage—I get upset at the characterization of alumni. The key thing we opposed today was the loss of our independence.
NS: New College Vice President of Communications told Suncoast Searchlight that the change will enable “meaningful alumni participation, lifelong learning, student engagement, philanthropy, and community building.”
Foundation Board member James McDonald echoed this sentiment at the board meeting.
James McDonald: This is not at all an abandonment of alumni but a chance to try to embrace and engage more alumni in the activities, do more programming and make the situation better.
NS: According to Van Dyk, none of these proposed activities for the newly created Alumni Engagement Committee are outside of the duties his organization already performs.
CVD: That has been the mission of the New College Alumni Association since I was first invited to join in its founding in 1977. That has been its goal. That has been what we have done all along. Any statement that we have operated contrary to that is a misstatement.
NS: Foundation Board Member Adam Kendall articulated the reasoning behind the decision at the meeting. According to Kendall, having an alumni association in opposition to the college’s mission was simply too obstructive.
Adam Kendall: I spent five years on the Alumni Association shortly after the affiliation agreement was put together, and it was a wonderful five years. I learned so much more about New College. I just feel like where we’re at now—and I’ve spent a lot of time with alums, and I’ve spent a lot of time with our legal counsel and interim director Rancourt and President Corcoran—and where we’re really at now is becoming an issue of legal concern to the foundation itself. We’re not supporting the direction of the college going forward from an alumni point of view. I just don’t feel that we can have an Alumni Association that is fighting everything we’re trying to accomplish at the college level.
NS: Van Dyk indicated that, despite what the college’s legal counsel has signaled, the 2002 affiliation agreement held contractual elements that the foundation can’t easily dismiss.
He told WSLR that nearly $300,000 of assets were transferred to the foundation from the Alumni Association as part of their merger agreement. These assets were then managed by the foundation, which distributed small allotments from the fund annually for academic endowments, similar to a retirement fund.
He claims that, if the affiliation agreement is infringed, then the Alumni Association could be entitled to compensation for those surrendered funds. He further claimed that, even without those funds, the foundation’s actions shirk its contractual obligations and that the New College Alumni Association will consult with legal counsel to review its options.
The foundation board stated that they intend to add more non-board members to the Alumni Engagement Committee. WSLR reached out to New College representatives to confirm whether the foundation is aware of holding $300,000 in assets as the Alumni Association describes, but they were not able to respond before publication.
Reporting for WSLR News, Nic Steinig.
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