{"id":2836,"date":"2026-04-14T15:53:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/?p=2836"},"modified":"2026-04-14T15:53:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:53:15","slug":"new-college-in-florida-rolling-out-welcome-mat-to-jewish-students-including-those-seeking-refuge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/en\/new-college-in-florida-rolling-out-welcome-mat-to-jewish-students-including-those-seeking-refuge\/","title":{"rendered":"New College in Florida rolling out welcome mat to Jewish students, including those seeking refuge"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Shortly after the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, New College of Florida, a public liberal arts school in the Gulf Coast city of Sarasota, began encouraging Jewish students to come seek refuge from antisemitism on other campuses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose facing intolerance or physical danger at Harvard should come to New College of Florida, where they can study with free tuition thanks to a newly established scholarship program,\u201d Richard Corcoran, president of New College,\u00a0wrote<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/i>\u00a0on Nov. 8, 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will find that we prize free speech and condemn violence. Since Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed six new members to our school\u2019s board of trustees in January, we\u2019ve vigorously protected free expression on campus,\u201d Corcoran added. \u201cWe have enacted measures to stop ideological gate-keeping and enforce disciplinary actions against violence and threats.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t tolerate that here,\u201d David Rancourt, vice provost of enrollment management and of strategic initiatives at the school, told JNS, of Jew-hatred.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe encourage and foster debate and discussions and even disagreement in a civil, thoughtful way,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s just no place for physical violence in this body politic, and if we can\u2019t figure out how to do that at a small public liberal arts college in Florida, then I don\u2019t know how we can do it anywhere else in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

New College, which is highly\u00a0ranked<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in\u00a0U.S. News & World Report<\/i>, has nearly 700 students and more than 90 full-time professors on a 110-acre campus.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 10, 2023, three days after the attacks, the college\u00a0stated<\/a><\/span>\u00a0that it \u201cunequivocally stands with Israel and the Jewish people during this difficult moment in history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will aggressively uphold our legal obligation to ensure Jewish members of our campus community are protected during this time,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Despite the school president\u2019s offer to students in the\u00a0Journal<\/i>, there did not seem to be any takers, according to Rancourt, a former deputy chief of staff to former Florida governor Jeb Bush.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany folks don\u2019t know what we\u2019re doing here,\u201d he told JNS. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to believe that someone would spend $70,000 to $80,000 to go to a school where people hate you because of your beliefs, and I assure you that does not happen here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to pay a heck of a lot less than that, about a third of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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The New College of Florida in Sarasota, Fla. Credit: Courtesy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2018Not going to solve anything by screaming\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

Rabbi Stuart Altshuler, of the Conservative synagogue Temple Beth Sholom in Sarasota and a former religion professor at Chapman University in California, plans to join New College in August to teach modern Jewish history.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid Rancourt and President Corcoran have been interested in bringing Jewish students, especially Jewish students who have been bumped out of the universities on the East Coast, the high names, and try to create a place where Jewish students can come and study,\u201d Altshuler told JNS. \u201cSo we\u2019re determined to bring Jewish studies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five years ago, when Altshuler visited the campus, he saw \u201cfree Palestine\u201d and LGBT signage everywhere, and \u201cthe college was failing,\u201d he told JNS. \u201cThey were down about 600 students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, asked his friend Corcoran to take over, and the new president of the school changed the institution dramatically, according to Altshuler.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of money has been brought into the college,\u201d the rabbi said. \u201cHe got rid of a lot of faculty members who were not teaching with the determination of making this college really the jewel of what higher education should become.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rancourt told JNS that the school thinks that diversity, equity and inclusion programs harm students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe they\u2019re just a continuation of indoctrination, and we believe indoctrination is wrong and is dangerous,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe that we\u2019re consistent on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

New College hopes that its students will \u201chave a firm understanding of the values of Western civilization that were the founding principles for the foundation of what I believe, and our college advocates, is the best country in the history of the world,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is our country, the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

The college has a \u201cSocratic stage\u201d\u00a0series<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in which it hosts public-policy discussions and debates. \u201cSometimes, it\u2019s a bit of a TED Talk-type thing, but typically it\u2019s a healthy exchange of ideas with people who have varying opinions on different issues,\u201d Rancourt told JNS.<\/p>\n

In November 2023, the college hosted a\u00a0debate<\/a><\/span>\u00a0between Jason Greenblatt, a former U.S. envoy to the Middle East, and Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former Palestinian Authority official.<\/p>\n

The debate between the two was \u201cone of the most fascinating dialogues at a time when stress was high,\u201d Rancourt told JNS. \u201cIt was an incredible moment and a great example for our students that we can disagree on things, but we don\u2019t have to hate each other to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to solve anything by screaming at each other,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Altshuler, who will run the Socratic series, told JNS that he intends to bring speakers like journalist Douglas Murray and to bring back Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School professor emeritus at Harvard Law School. He also aims to invite Israeli scholars to the series and the lecture at the college.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s such a boycott now on Israelis: professors, academics,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not going to happen at New College.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe loudest voices in the room should not win the debate. The best voices, the most articulate voices should win the debate, and usually that involves a modicum of sanity,\u201d Rancourt told JNS. \u201cHigher education in many ways lost its approach, its sanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rancourt told JNS that New College is scheduled to meet on March 5 with Hillel International to discuss bringing a chapter to the campus. He has also been in contact with the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee, he said.<\/p>\n

The college also hopes to enlist someone to help students find houses of worship and is building a contemplative center for weddings and other ceremonies, and for students to \u201cpray and think\u201d on campus, according to Rancourt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a safe space for students of all religions to come and practice,\u201d he told JNS.<\/p>\n

New College also aims to add \u201cheft to our religious-studies program,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Altshuler intends to work with Rancourt and others on outreach to Jewish prospective students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to generate good publicity so that Jewish students in particular know that they have a real good possibility to study and live a normal Jewish life here without intimidation and antisemitism,\u201d Altshuler said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shortly after the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, New College of Florida, a public liberal arts school in the Gulf Coast city of Sarasota, began encouraging Jewish students to come seek refuge from antisemitism on other campuses. \u201cThose facing intolerance or physical danger at Harvard should come to New College of Florida, where they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2838,"href":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2836\/revisions\/2838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishflorida.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}