On Apr. 11 at approximately 9 a.m., a work crew sprayed the Confederate Jasmine vine on the overpass connecting the residential and academic sides of campus, with an at-the-time unidentified chemical in an incident lasting about 15 to 20 minutes. Students quickly took notice and…
The 2021-2022 academic year at New College has been characterized by the return of a variety of New College traditions and fixtures of student life, including Walls, Center of the Universe Parties (COUPs), Grad Cruise, Ringling Underground and, eventually, hopefully, the Four Winds Cafe. While…
On Apr. 22, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, rising Republican star (and Catalyst regular) fired the first opening salvo in what might become an extended legal battle between his administration and the Walt Disney Corporation by dissolving the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), essentially a county…
Since 1999, more than 500,000 people have died from opioid overdoses in the U.S.—the victims of America’s opioid epidemic. In the 2010s, state and local governments filed thousands of lawsuits against companies that make and distribute the drugs seeking to hold them accountable. A handful…
This coming Mother’s Day, May 8, marks Café Baci’s final day of serving customers after 31 years of hosting countless families in the Sarasota area. Roberto Mei is the chef and founder of Café Baci, but this was not his first restaurant to gather communities…
Over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, New College has seen dozens of administrative positions left vacant as employees seek opportunities elsewhere. But this trend isn’t exclusive to college grounds; Manatee County schools have a massive deficit in labor, with over 100 positions in dire…
The Sarasota Film Festival is a fairly young event, only coming to fruition in its current form as recently as Jan. 1999. The only wide-scale film festival in the city beforehand was the Sarasota French Film Festival, which only ran for seven years until its…
Content warning: discussion of breaking and entering, violence against a college student, murder Miya Marcano, a 19-year old sophomore at Valencia College in Orlando, FL, was last seen alive on Sept. 24, 2021 at the Arden Villas Apartments in Orlando—where she lived and worked—and was…
On Mar. 8, the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” passed the Florida Senate, sending it on its way to the governor’s desk. Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill, and if he does, it will go into effect on July 1. The bill “would…
Students who use the back corners of the first floor of the Jane Bancroft Cook Library to study have likely noticed that the shelves of bound periodicals, which make up the majority of that left side of the first floor, have been slowly becoming vacant…
