Current students were invited to submit open, unsigned letters to Dr. Patricia Okker, for initial “delivery” via publication in the Catalyst. The full text of each submission appears below. Dear former president Okker,I am sorry to hear about your termination. I sincerely hope that you…
Within Sarasota, there is a hidden gem which has been pushed to the sidelines throughout the town’s history: the celebrated African American community, Newtown. However, in recent years, the community has begun shifting into the spotlight as one of Sarasota’s most vibrant, artistic and historic…
Over the past few weeks, a dizzying flurry of announcements have come from Gov. Ron DeSantis’s office concerning Florida’s high school curriculum. Most recently, the governor has taken aim at the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) African American studies curriculum, lambasting it as woke indoctrination.…
The Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) has been fighting controversy in recent weeks after discussing the possibility of requiring student athletes to answer questions about their menstrual history on the state-wide pre-participation physical evaluation form. The form has included questions about menstrual history since…
OpenAI, the renowned artificial intelligence research laboratory, has made groundbreaking progress in the field of natural language processing with its state-of-the-art language model, ChatGPT. As one of the largest language models in the world, ChatGPT has been able to generate coherent and realistic text in…
In Fall 2022, the recently-established New College basketball team provided a place for students to learn the basics of the sport and jump on the courts for a pick-up game or two. While the team’s primary purpose is to be a source of Novocollegian sportsmanship…
After a deeply disruptive Jan. 31 meeting, the New College Board of Trustees (BOT) was not expected to meet again until the end of February. However, on Feb. 6, it was posted on the New College website that a Special BOT Meeting would be held…
Selby Botanical Gardens has brought Louis C. Tiffany’s “Pursuit of Beauty in Nature” to the Downtown Sarasota Campus in an exhibition featuring a variety of pieces from Tiffany Studios, including pieces that use Favrile glass. On display until June 25, every piece features designs that…
Since the Jan. 6 announcement of six new conservative-aligned Board of Trustee (BOT) members appointed at New College of Florida, Representative Anna Eskamani (District 47- Democrat) has spoken out frequently and firmly in opposition to the decision. Taking to social media platforms like Twitter and…
On Jan. 31, the New College of Florida’s Board of Trustees (BOT) fired former President Patricia Okker and proposed replacing her with an interim, Republican politician and education administrator Richard Corcoran, effective Feb. 27. Corcoran’s base salary will sit at $699,000, approved when his proposed…
