I Was There: New College of Florida, Manufactured Narratives, and the Politics of Decline, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. March 23, 2026

I Was There: New College of Florida, Manufactured Narratives, and the Politics of Decline

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

March 23, 2026

I was there last week, meeting with students and faculty who tell a much different story than the one offered by Trustee Lance Karp—a story that Brian Cody now vehemently critiques with data.

What I encountered on the ground was not a campus experiencing renewal or “momentum,” but one grappling with dislocation, loss, and profound uncertainty. Students spoke of instability in housing, disrupted academic pathways, and a palpable sense that the institution they chose—or once knew—was slipping away. Faculty described conditions of constraint, attrition, and a steady erosion of shared governance. These are not abstract concerns. They are lived realities.

Against this backdrop, Karp’s recent defense of New College reads less like an account of institutional health and more like an attempt to manufacture it.

Cody’s analysis cuts through this narrative with empirical clarity. Since Richard Corcoran’s takeover in 2023, New College has experienced measurable declines across key indicators: falling SAT scores, lower incoming GPAs, a dramatic drop in national rankings, and stagnating—or declining—enrollment among first-time-in-college students. At the same time, the institution is facing what can only be described as a self-created housing crisis, with roughly 40 percent of students relegated to hotels and off-campus accommodations despite millions in state funding allocated for housing. These are not the markers of a thriving honors college. They are signs of institutional distress.

And yet, rather than addressing these issues, current proposals seek to expand New College’s footprint by absorbing the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus—effectively transferring resources and infrastructure to an institution that, by all available evidence, is struggling to sustain itself. That this proposal is moving forward in the face of opposition from elected officials and regional stakeholders only underscores the extent to which political priorities—not educational outcomes—are driving decision-making.

What we are witnessing here is not simply mismanagement. It is something more systemic: the fake production of manufactured momentum under conditions of decline.

This is where the story connects to a broader national pattern. As we have seen in Texas and Florida alike, governance interventions in higher education are increasingly accompanied by narrative interventions—claims of success, renewal, or correction that are not borne out by the data, but are nonetheless mobilized to justify further restructuring. 

The result is a kind of “policy theater,” if you will, in which institutional deterioration is reframed as transformation, echoing Nathan Allen's allegation of President Corcoran's "performative accounting" (Valenzuela, 2026). Expressed differently, policy theater, of which performative accounting is a part, functions as a mechanism of concealment—masking decline with carefully curated narratives that justify continued political control.

And importantly, this dynamic does not operate in isolation. It coexists with—and is reinforced by—what I have called shadow censorship. When faculty are marginalized, governance structures weakened, and institutional futures tied to political agendas, the space for dissent narrows. The ability to publicly challenge these narratives diminishes. Silence, in such contexts, is not accidental—it is produced.

That is why Cody’s intervention matters. It restores something that is increasingly under threat: accountability grounded in evidence.

Because without that, we are left with narratives untethered from reality—narratives that can justify not only the dismantling of institutions, but their reconfiguration in ways that may be far more difficult to undo.

Reference

Valenzuela, A. (2026, March 20). Institutional matricide beneath the banyans: The unmaking of an alma mater, the New College of Florida, Educational Equity, Politics, and Policy in Texas. 

Brian Cody: New College Failures vs. Manufactured Momentum

Brian Cody

Critics question New College performance amid push affecting USF Sarasota-Manatee

Last week, in response to the premiere of a new documentary about New College of Florida, Trustee Lance Karp offered a defense of the college that lacked any actual evidence. The timing of his response also suggests the college is trying to revive energy around a bill that would shut down the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus and transfer its property and debt to New College. Let’s look at some actual facts.

Since Richard Corcoran took over in early 2023, New College has seen a:

— Drastic decline in SAT scores for the incoming class, dropping from an average of 1233 the year before Corcoran arrived, down to 1153 in Fall 2024.

— Sharp downturn in high school GPA for the entering class: before Corcoran, 55% of FTIC students had a 4.0 or higher; after Corcoran, only 41% had a 4.0 GPA or higher. This is a major problem, given that New College is“the legislatively designated Honors College of Florida,” yet it seems to be struggling to recruit honors students.

— Nosedive in the U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings, dropping 59 spots, so New College is no longer even in the top 100.

— Drop in FTIC (first time in college) students this year, reporting only 183 FTIC students in Fall 2025 compared to 188 the year before Corcoran arrived, a decrease likely due to the focus on recruiting out-of-state transfer athletes rather than academically excellent FTIC Florida students.

— Self-perpetuated housing crisis with 40% of the student body living in hotels and off-campus housing — despite receiving $20 million in taxpayer money for student housing. Karp, along with most of the New College trustees, has not voted to construct new permanent dorms at any time in the last three years. He has been content with approving payment for hotels and temporary housing rather than actually fixing the problem. This is a self-created housing crisis, and stealing dorms from USF Sarasota-Manatee doesn’t solve it.

Elected officials, including House Rep. James Buchanan and U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, as well as the Manatee County Chamber of Commerce, have all raised concerns about the bill, which would result in USF Sarasota-Manatee being shut down. New College is a school being run poorly, and its leadership should not be rewarded, especially not in ways that hurt USF and the Sarasota-Manatee region.

It is notable that Karp and the rest of the New College trustees have met half as often as their counterparts at USF (11 Board and Committee meetings at New College this academic year compared to 21 at USF). This absentee trusteeism means the Legislature needs to step in to keep the wheels from coming off at New College, not penalize USF and the entire Sarasota-Manatee region to reward New College’s self-created problems.

Brian Cody is an alum of New College of Florida, a former New College trustee (2004-2006), and a current Board member of the Novo Collegian Alliance.

Time for a Latino Political Party? by Terri Givens

This piece by Dr. Terri Givens from UT definitely offers something to chew on. 

Hispanics/Latinos are definitely not happy with President Obama or the Democratic (or Republican) party right now when it comes to immigration.

-Angela

Politics

Time for a Latino Political Party?

Frustrated Hispanic-American voters might strike out on their own. Then what?

By TERRI E. GIVENS

October 02, 2014

In the late 1800s, disgruntled farmers in the Midwest and South decided they could no longer support the Democratic or Republican Parties. Neither of the major parties was responsive to their concerns amid crop failures and falling prices during a recession, so the farmers decided to throw their weight behind an upstart, the Populist or People’s Party. White and black farmers joined together, even in the South, to support candidates who called for the federal government to provide credit and financial support during a time of low crop yields and economic downturn. They succeeded in electing governors, congressmen and hundreds of minor officials and legislators, primarily throughout the Midwest. The party was geographically concentrated, which allowed them to focus their efforts to elect congressional candidates.

The Populists lasted only a few years as an independent entity, but their success clearly got the attention of the mainstream parties. Most important, it had a lasting impact on policy, even beyond the issues pushed by the farmers. Many of the Populists’ demands became law by the 1920s—including the direct election of U. S. senators, the development of a progressive federal income tax and the availability of short-term credit in rural areas.

Latinos in the United States are now confronting a dilemma similar to the one faced by the farmers. A recent Gallup poll indicates that the number of Latinos ranking immigration as a top issue doubled since the first half of this year. Yet Latinos have been forced to endure bitter disappointment from a Democratic president who has broken many immigration promises, in no small measure because the Republican-led House of Representatives refuses to act on immigration reform in Congress. The president’s decision to defer deportation of newly arrived children—a decision announced just five months before the 2012 presidential election—increased enthusiasm for Obama among Latinos; 71 percent of the record 11.2 million Latinos who turned out to vote cast their ballot for Obama.
 
Many of them are now deeply disappointed. The president—who had campaigned in 2008 on a pledge to reform the immigration system—again promised to make the issue an early and top priority during his second term. Congress stymied those efforts, so Obama pledged to take executive action—only to delay it until after the midterms. No wonder a new Pew Research Center poll shows that a majority of Latino voters think the Democratic Party is doing a poor job on immigration, and a different recent survey indicates substantially dampened enthusiasm for Obama and the Democrats among Latino voters because of inaction on immigration reform. Even as the president tried to smooth over differences this week at an appearance before the Congressional Hispanic Caucus annual gala, some frustrated Latino activists are contemplating deliberately sitting out the midterm election to make Democrats pay a price at the polls.

Many of them are now deeply disappointed. The president—who had campaigned in 2008 on a pledge to reform the immigration system—again promised to make the issue an early and top priority during his second term. Congress stymied those efforts, so Obama pledged to take executive action—only to delay it until after the midterms. Now wonder a new Pew Research Center poll shows that a majority of Latino voters think the Democratic Party is doing a poor job on immigration, and a different recent survey indicates substantially dampened enthusiasm for Obama and the Democrats among Latino voters because of inaction on immigration reform. Because of their profound disappointment with the Democrats’ inaction, some frustrated Latino activists are even contemplating deliberately sitting out the midterm election to make Democrats pay a price at the polls.
But are these the only alternatives—stay home and sulk, or accept the better of two bad options? Could it be time for Latinos to follow the path forged by the disgruntled farmers? Or follow the model in Europe, where third parties are fairly common?

In Europe, minorities and special interests often form their own parties when they feel their issues are not being championed by larger parties. This is most easily done in countries with proportional representation, which allows more than one representative for each district and—unlike winner-take-all systems like most of the United States—allocate seats based on the percentage of votes garnered by each contender. In such a system, minor parties are often able to gain enough support to win seats in legislatures. Examples include Basque nationalists in Spain, as well as Green and far-right parties across Europe. In places like Britain that have majoritarian systems with single-member districts, geographically concentrated parties like the Scottish National Party are able to win seats in Parliament. Even here in the United States, the occasional small party or independent can win a seat, including in the U.S. Senate. (One example: Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent who caucuses with Democrats.)

As relative newcomers, immigrants often don’t have the money or other resources needed to start a new party. Far-right party leaders, on the other hand, tend to come from existing parties and have a built-in support network.

Indeed, in Europe’s multi-party system, it has been anti-immigrant far right parties that have taken hold. We have an analogue in the Tea Party in the United States. Yet the Tea Party is not truly a separate party—at least for now, it is a faction within the Republican Party that has managed to set the agenda on issues like immigration.

By and large, majoritarian electoral rules like ours produce two-party systems. There is no hope in the foreseeable future that those rules will change and that means that small parties, like the Populist Party, inevitably disappear or, like the Libertarian and Green Parties, remain on the fringes of a system dominated by the two major parties.

Still, there are some reasons—42 million of them, to start with—to think that a Latino party could be different. Various ethnic groups have historically wielded a great deal of influence within political parties, particularly at the local and state levels. The German-American Alliance, the Ancient Order of Hibernians (“the oldest and largest Irish Catholic organization in the United States”) and the Immigrant’s Protection League all mobilized against the restriction of immigration in the early 20th century. Latinos also have an important advantage which supports the idea of starting a separate party: They still tend to be geographically concentrated in such states as California, Florida and Texas which allows them to focus their efforts, like the Populist party did in the 1890s.

Another relevant historical example is the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). Fifty years ago Fannie Lou Hamer appealed to the conscience of the Democratic Party, asking for the Democratic National Committee’s credential committee to recognize their delegation in place of the all-white Democratic delegation from the state. The leadership came to a compromise and agreed to seat two members of the delegation, but the white delegation walked off and wouldn’t accept the compromise. Nevertheless, the example set by the MFDP would have a clear impact on the Democratic Party in the South going forward. Despite the prospect of losing white support in the South, the Democratic Party supported civil rights legislation and gained the support of a majority of black voters.

An ethnic party did arise in the United States in the late 1960s as the Chicano Movement organized and called for a third party to focus on self-determination for Mexican-Americans. The main focus of organizers was in Texas, where La Raza Unida party won seats on city councils, school boards, and even ran a candidate for governor in 1972 and 1978. However, the party’s support declined as party activism slowed in the late 1970s.

Hispanic Americans are in a better political position today than either the MFDP was five decades ago or even La Raza Unida was in the ‘70s. In terms of representation, there is the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the 113th Congress has a record number of Latino elected officials, with 35 representatives and three senators. Most of these representatives are Democrats, and the immigration issue has been a high priority, as evidenced by the scathing criticism recently lobbed at the president by Representatives Raul Grijalva (Ariz.) and Luis Gutierrez (Ill.). Organizations like the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and a variety of pro-immigration organizations have lobbied for immigration reform and deportation relief. How long will it be before such groups grow exasperated with the Democrats’ failure to move these issues forward?

A Latino party might even help solve the biggest obstacle to greater political clout—boosting turnout. At the time of the last midterm election, data from the Pew Research Center shows, Latinos chalked up a sharp increase in the number of eligible voters, while the number of actual voters is increasing more slowly. Also, as Pew notes, “even among eligible voters, Latino participation rates have lagged behind that of other groups in recent elections.” For example, 31.2 percent of Latino eligible voters said they voted in 2010, compared with nearly half of white eligible voters and 44 percent of black eligible voters. An independent Latino Party or a cohesive Latino bloc within an existing party that focused on the issues most important to Latinos could spur increased participation—and thus more political clout.

The smartest approach in the short run might be for Latinos to work within the existing party system, even as they continue to organize and swell their ranks within the electorate. In the long-term—especially if Democrats and Republicans continue to disappoint—they will need to assess their potential for working together as a voting bloc and whether this could lead to support for a party. Is this a long shot? Yes, but it’s better than sitting on the sidelines or waiting for others to act. How long will it be before Hispanic-Americans’ patience runs out?

Terri E. Givens is associate professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Legislating Equality: The Politics of Antidiscrimination Policy in Europe, with Rhonda Evans Case. Her website can be found at www.terrigivens.com and she is on twitter @TerriGivens.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/is-it-time-for-a-latino-political-party-111558.html#ixzz3FQfO7du4