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[hyperbolus]

Hi All,

I am considering applying for t-t job there and it seems like an interesting place, but I have only their own website to go on, so I am on the hunt for more information.

Any alums, ex- or current faculty or staff, or anybody with an opinion or thoughts on students, collegiality, community, Sarasota, the idea of a public honours college?

Anybody familiar with the curriculum, actual teaching load (ad says 2/2, but course catalogue implies much heavier), humanities resources, etc etc.?

Many thanks in advance!

[slaccer]

I'm a science alum from the early-mid 90's, so my information may be dated.

New College's academic system is unique.  Students write "contracts" with their faculty advisor.  In simplest form, they might say something like "take the listed 5 classes, pass four of them", although they're sometimes substantially different, and may include life goals, etc.  All courses are sat(isfactory)/unsat (like pass/fail), and result in a narrative evaluation (about 1 page) from the instructor of each course.   7 satisfactory contracts (i.e. 3.5 years) and a couple of january terms and a substantial senior thesis constitute the graduation requirements, although individual majors have lists of strongly recommended courses, which advisors tend to insist on.  But there's no "core" or "gen ed".

Individual tutorial courses are not unusual.  If you can talk a prof into doing it, you can do it, and have it on your transcript too.

Transcripts are just lists of "sat" courses, which sounds odd, but I got into the top graduate schools in my field with them (and perfect GRE scores), so apparently they're not all bad.

When I was there, science faculty were generally teaching 2 courses -and- their included labs, and perhaps a couple of tutorials.  Science faculty have general issues with loads due to labs, but my recollection is that language faculty were teaching 2 courses (first and second year whatever), -plus- an advanced tutorial course (2-5 students) for majors in the language.  So it -might- technically be 2/2, but it probably looks and feels a lot more like 3/3, since you might well be running a seminar/tutorial for a small group of students.

Students were generally the cream of the Florida crop.  National Merit scholars could stay in state for free, and many of us ended up at New College.

(Remembering that my information is a decade out of date...) Students tended towards extremely liberal.  There were more gay students out of the closet than Republican students out of the closet.  I can't comment on the faculty, however.

There was a lot of pot, with LSD also popular.  Friday and Saturday nights, the party in the quad in the center of the dorms started around 9pm, included anyone on campus interested.  Lots of community, but much of it involving altered states.  This is not at all to say that all the students there were into drugs, just that the usage was pretty open.

Nudity wasn't uncommon.  The big controversy one year I was there was that the cops had started objecting to student skinny dipping in the campus rec center pool, something that had been going on for years.  (My first year, during orientation, many of our RA's were naked in the pool at an official campus event.)

New College is small.  Library resources may reflect that, -but- there is the University of South Florida an hour away in Tampa, where I trekked occasionally for research papers, etc, if I couldn't wait for interlibrary loan.

[hyperbolus]

Thank you Slaccer. It does sound like an interesting place. Hopefully others will chime in as well...

[studentaffairsgal]

As someone who was born and raised in Sarasota (and lived less than a mile away from New College for a few of those years), I can speak on the culture of the city and the reputation of the NC students.

First, the city of Sarasota:
What used to be a retirement magnet, is moving towards a younger crowd. There is a lot to do there in terms of food, entertainment, the arts, outdoors, and, of course, the amazing beaches!

Also, many other attractions are close by: Tampa (an hour north), has professional sports teams, world class shopping, Busch Gardens and museums; Orlando (2.5 hours, give or take) has Disney; Ft. Meyers (hour or so south) has Thomas Edison historical places and beaches.

Town/gown perspective:
Most residents of Sarasota consider NC students to be "genius barefoot hippies." NC students don't have much of a presence outside their part of town. The notion is they never go to class, study obscure topics and have individual IQ's that rival cumulative scores of entire classes of 5th graders.

slaccer is right about the drug use. When I was in high school, you always got your drugs from a New College student. They also threw the best parties. That could also be because of the extremely liberal attitudes (per slaccer, again).

Now that I'm older and removed from Sarasota, it's easy for me to brag about how great it is there. I hope you find it a good fit for you and enjoy the area!

Hope this helps!

[slaccer]

Oh, yes, I forgot the barefoot thing, since we couldn't do it in sciences.  Before I switched majors, I kept my shoes in my car, since that was the only time I'd really use them.

[dr_seuss]

My husband was a VAP at New College a couple of years back, and we're friends with its president.  We lived in Sarasota for a year.  My views are in line with those expressed already by previous posters.  My husband taught a 2/2 load, and he came to enjoy and appreciate his students (though at times he was annoyed because it seemed the students were convinced of their own greatness, having been repeatedly told how brilliant and special they were; some deserved this praise and others clearly did not).  He spent a great deal of time on the narrative evaluations at the end of the semester, and even as a VAP he was asked to do one-on-one tutorials and to be on thesis committees.  We heard lots of stories about naked swimming in the pool, and especially about drug use (including a course entitled "Curries of the World," taught by a NC professor, which entailed getting baked at the prof's house and then eating curry).  I found the architecture of the campus to be depressing, a lot like a run-down community college, but that may not bother other folks as much.  We found Sarasota to be a lovely place to live.  The beaches are fantastic, and there's good food and shopping to be had.  It's reasonably close to Tampa's airport (an hour away), so travel is not too difficult.  I do know that real estate prices in recent years have made it difficult for faculty to buy houses in the area.  There's a huge rental market, though, and many apartment complexes have amenities typical for Florida but perhaps unusual in other places:  multiple pools, free use of gym equipment and fax/copier/office supplies, cocktail hours, etc. 

[writer]

I taught at New College as a VAP. Some things other people are not telling you-- It is condo hell (they are like vultures over the landscape), a small cottage in what they would call the ghetto (if you do not want to live in second rate condo hell) runs for 400 hundred thousand. The only black people you see will be working on the new condos going up. I never had ONE person of color in a class. There are young people, but only the ones that attend the college. Most of your  life will consist of tourists and and really rich, entitled old people who will run you down with their cars. Three people were killed on bikes by cars in a three month span while I was there. The ydo have great dog beaches. And the students are bright, but so lazy you want to kill yourself or them. They have  light research requirements.