Ron DeSantis Desperate For Wingnut Students, Faculty To Come To Nice Little College He Wrecked

[Nevilledog]

https://www.wonkette.com/ron-desantis-desperate-for-wingnut-students-faculty-to-come-to-nice-little-college-he-wrecked

Ron DeSantis and his personally appointed wrecking crew of rightwing ideologues are looking for some students and faculty to come help them turn New College of Florida into a bastion of rightwing higher education, a "Hillsdale of the South," as DeSantis aides have put it.

Unfortunately for the DeSantis crew, led by professional Culture War grifter Christopher Rufo, New College already came with a faculty and student body who don't at all fit the mold of Gov. Orban's ideal institution. The place has historically been delightfully idiosyncratic, with students encouraged to design their own degree programs, and instead of grades, an end-of-course conversation with the prof about what students learned. Think Washington's The Evergreen College, but with palm trees instead of geoduck clams and rain.

So in February, the Florida Lege directed $15 million to help the new New College recruit a more suitable crop of students and faculty. The budget amendment said the funds were to be used, at the Board of Trustees' discretion, "for hiring faculty, offering student scholarships, and covering additional operational costs necessary to transition into a world-class classical liberal arts educational institution." We assume that would also help purchase every new student their very own AR-15 lapel pin.

To help attract the Right kind of students, New College is getting help from rightwing groups like the "Florida Family Policy Council" and its mailing list. That group's president, John Stemberger — a longtime Bible-Banger — sent an email to "friends with college-age students" plugging the scholarships, with the topic line "Students should consider New College in Sarasota quickly being touted as the Hillsdale College of the southeast," which is a run-on sentence.

*snip*

[TheBlackAdder]

1. Raged RW males with a college system that would protect them from assaults. STB a Sausage Festival.

.

Women who go there, or visit the campus and housing better be on guard.

There will be Boofos riding trains far and wide.

.

[Easterncedar]

2. Thanks. Poor New College

How to save anything from this wrecking crew is a question. Though folks are going down fighting

[iscooterliberally]

3. Wait, what? "rightwing higher education"???

[ProudMNDemocrat]

5. An OXYMORON for sure.

[gratuitous]

7. It's more rigorous than you might think

Sure, the answer in every science class is "God did it," but some of the other classes might require some critical thinking, like history: Was Donald Trump a great president or the greatest president of all time. Prepare to defend your answer, which is highly dependent on Gov. DeSantis' poll numbers that day.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Something very wrong about using taxpayer dollars to create their own army of

brownshirts.

[OAITW r.2.0]

6. A "classical liberal arts education". Not likely.

A liberal arts education teaches you a little bit about a lot of things. A conservative arts education will teach you a lot about nothing.

[Kid Berwyn]

8. Gosh, Hillsdale of the Southeast.

[Sky Jewels]

9. I picture a college of gun-humping angry incels and very few young women.

[Botany]

10. "New College in Sarasota quickly being touted as the Hillsdale College of the southeast."

Hillsdale College's associates and students

Fine people: Erik Prince, Fox News' Timpf, Ginni Thomas, Koch Brother's "club for growth,"
anti LGBT people, it stopped taking federal money so it didn't have to admit blacks, and Pat
Sajak.

[ShazzieB]

11. Wait, what?!?

The budget amendment said the funds were to be used, at the Board of Trustees' discretion, "for hiring faculty, offering student scholarships, and covering additional operational costs necessary to transition into a world-class classical liberal arts educational institution."

Transition into a world-class classical liberal arts educational institution?

No, I'm sorry, that should read "flush a world-class educational institution down the freaking toilet"!

I know it's been said, many times, many ways, but

[NowISeetheLight]

12. I Guess

I guess these degree programs and classes aren’t popular then?

Fascism 101
Revisionist History202
White Supremecy 201
BS in White Nationalism
MBA in Anti-Jewish Studies

[JanMichael]

13. This is so fucking sad. It took a long time to make New College so great.

They wreck it in one semester.

It is advanced educational theft and pillaging.

[Stinky The Clown]

14. Making notice: I am stealing "Gov Orban"

[LetMyPeopleVote]

15. Survey: 1 In 8 Florida Incoming Freshmen Plan To Flee DeSantis's Education Policies

DeathSantis' policies are causing a good number of college students to either leave or look at leaving Florida to go to colleges/universities that are not RW nut houses.

Link to tweet

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2023/03/31/survey-1-in-8-florida-incoming-freshmen-plan-to-flee-desantiss-education-policies/?sh=6bb6a87642df

A survey released today finds that among Florida’s incoming college freshmen, dissatisfaction with Governor Ron DeSantis’s education policies runs deep—in some cases, deep enough to make them look for college opportunities in another state.

In March, Intelligent.com surveyed over 1,000 Florida students, including 783 still in high school and 364 current undergrads.

Among the survey’s findings:

91% of prospective college students disagree with the governor’s policies.

1 in 8 graduating high school students won’t attend college in Florida due to education policy in the state.

1 in 20 current college students in the state plan to transfer because of those policies.