New College's toxic leadership is putting student futures at risk

“Will my degree become worthless?”

This was a palpable fear expressed by New College of Florida students who interned for my company over the summer. Every single student was afraid that the denigration of admission standards and academics, coupled with the far-right rebranding of New College, might make it more difficult for them to land jobs in desirable and competitive fields.

I couldn’t lie to them. If things continue on this course, it will make their degrees worthless.

I’m an interactive screenwriter and studio founder who partners with global corporations to build creative teams and develop the narratives for interactive media. I’ve had the honor of working on more than a dozen video games and leading one of the first interactive streaming series.

As someone who works and hires in a highly competitive industry that encompasses engineering, writing, design, art, programming, data science and artificial intelligence, let me be clear: if this reckless stewardship is allowed to continue, a degree from New College of Florida will be deemed politically toxic to graduate programs and hiring managers alike.

Why?

Because the science, technology and creative sectors value mastery and competence and reject the politics of hate.

Inept leaders hurt New College's rep

As an alum, it’s been excruciating to watch an incompetent new administration and power-drunk, far-right activists on the Board of Trustees crash this academically elite college into a brick wall just to "own the libs."

Since Gov. Ron DeSantis launched his hostile takeover of the state’s honors college in January, New College has seen a mass exodus of students and faculty, lowered its admissions standards, plummeted 24 spots in U.S. News and World Report’s 2024 rankings of national liberal arts colleges and had a complaint submitted against it – with the federal justice and education departments – alleging discrimination against LGBTQ, female and Muslim students.

Yet New College’s Interim President Richard Corcoran, a prominent former GOP lawmaker who led a state education department that is now under a federal grand jury investigation for bid-rigging, considers this "winning."

Corcoran doesn’t understand what attracts intellectually curious students or what they need to succeed. Perhaps that’s why he’s been so hot on lowering admission standards and requiring college freshmen to read Homer’s "The Odyssey," which is 9th grade reading (according to Florida’s English Language Arts standards).

When one of the more controversial trustees, Christopher Rufo, is not making inappropriate comments on Twitter/X, he claims to be a "conservative intellectual" – yet Rufo doesn’t seem to understand that a civil investigation by the Department of Education isn’t a criminal investigation. After a New College alumni group brought a complaint to the DOE, citing his hate speech and online bullying of LGBTQ students, faculty, parents and staff as contributing to a hostile workplace, Rufo histrionically declared he was willing to go to prison . . . over a civil complaint.

He just wants you to know that’s how passionate he is about violating your rights.

How can respectable employers take these clowns seriously?

Who wants to hire a hater?

Ninety-six percent of tech leaders support gay marriage and tech companies were among the first companies to embrace diversity and inclusion efforts to attract and keep talent. Corporations want to grow their consumer base to all corners of the market. The more customers you sell products to, the more money you make.

It’s not hard to understand.

Unless, that is, you're Corcoran and his administration at New College. They even allowed a member of Moms for Liberty – which has been designated as an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a watchdog civil rights organization – to sit on their presidential search committee.

If you earn a degree from a college or university associated with the far-right politics of hate and a distrust of science, that could be deemed a reasonable red flag to not move forward with your application. That may sound harsh, but there are hundreds of applications for just one internship or position. It’s too easy to say ‘no’ already.

Having an employee who is hateful and discriminatory towards their co-workers is not a good "culture fit" for corporate America anymore. And it can get you investigated and sued, just like New College of Florida's new administration.

So let’s get this straight:

The "new" New College’s pitch to Florida’s brightest young intellectuals is that:

• The college’s leadership doesn’t know the difference between a civil and criminal investigation.

• You could be harassed online by a trustee – and discriminated against – if you’re LGBTQ, female or non-Christian.

• Your degree could be considered a red flag to employers.

If this is what they’re selling as their version of “conservative arts education,” don’t expect the nation’s top students or their future employers to buy it.

Shanon Ingles completed her undergraduate education on a Florida Academic Scholarship at New College of Florida, where she majored in psychology. She completed her undergraduate research on Flashbulb Memories of 9/11 and edited the student newspaper The Catalyst. Ingles went on to attend the University of Texas at Austin on a Mitchener Fellowship for writing.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: New College's inept leadership puts value of degrees at risk