WTW53: The Griftiest Grift To Ever Grift

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: What's so scary about the woke mob, how often you just don't see them coming.

0:00:11 Clip: Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism, and you see woke principles being pushed.

0:00:19 Clip: Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down. The woke monster is here, and it's coming for everything, everything, everything, and everything. Instead of go -go boots, the seductress green M &M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:41 Thomas: And welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 53, new college number four, the fourth and final for now, or is it? We think it's the final for now, but you never know. I mean, it's an, it really is an ongoing story. We last left off, we had just discussed the the interim president getting paid an absurd amount amount of money for interim president.

0:00:51 Lydia: Or is it? Great question. For now, yeah. Yep.

0:01:05 Thomas: But the committee, the school, they've got to find a real president. Who are they going to find? Who's it going to be? So many qualified people in the country that could be the president of the school. Hmm. We'll see. Can't wait to learn about that in the future.

0:01:20 Lydia: I'm sure it will be a very fair process.

0:01:23 Thomas: We get to that, though, I've just got to say, not only can you skip this commercial break if you go to patreon.com/wherethereswoke, you also can get the bonus that we've released, which was the lawsuit filed by one, the honorable, the Scott honorable Scott Gerver, the gosh, clueless out of him. Here's the thing.

0:01:43 Lydia: Man.

0:01:43 Thomas: Okay. I got a question for you. Would you rather take a law class from Scott Gerger or Or Kilbourne? Oh, I have an easy answer.

0:01:51 Lydia: I think I would say Gerber.

0:01:53 Thomas: Holy, really?

0:01:54 Lydia: Because I think he's so oblivious that he He probably is pretty kind to his students.

0:02:02 Thomas: What?

0:02:02 Lydia: And Kilborn, I feel like, is a jerk.

0:02:05 Thomas: My God. We have very different answers. Okay, sorry. We can't do the rest of the show. Kilbourne, I think, could be a good law professor as long as you don't, like, trip up his bullshit ego. Yeah, like I think he actually is a pretty decent professor when everything's going well. He's that kind of person with the minute he's like really thin skin. In but I think if you don't mess with that where's gerber's an idiot he like he's he's not he's he professes to be a scholar of clarence thomas and files lawsuits and well okay we can't give it away but the like I don't know man I would take okay

0:02:17 Lydia: Worldview of himself. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right. I'm going to think about it. I'm gonna think about it and I'll have to.

0:02:45 Thomas: We're going to have a hard conversation you and I as a as just like as a husband and wife about this

0:02:52 Lydia: This is a marital problem now.

0:02:53 Thomas: So anyway if you want to learn more about that and our pending divorce go to patreon.com/ where there's woke again the bonus in the meantime we got to get to part two we got here about this the best of the best the best that the selection committee is finding for president uh how that goes

0:03:12 Lydia: The school year happens. We talked about everything from, you know, the students perspective, the faculty perspective, the baseball team's perspective.

0:03:19 Thomas: This guy's fucking wallet perspective. Yeah.

0:03:22 Lydia: Yeah but couldn't serve as interim president forever. Forever. So they had to launch a search, a nationwide search for a president. And let me tell you who served on that committee. Search committee was announced April 2023. So pretty soon after, you know, just a couple months, he is interim president and then they develop the committee because they know, you know, we need to get someone in here permanently. So the committee includes Dr. Mark Bauerlein. So that is a board member. Ron Cristaldi, board member. Kessler, board member, Matt Lipinski. At the time, he was a board member in the faculty chair. He's the one that walked out during the meeting when they denied tenure to

0:03:28 Thomas: Not unless they sweeten the deal.

0:04:12 Lydia: Fellow

0:04:12 Thomas: It's It's like, you guys are leaving me out the group text. Is

0:04:13 Lydia: Faculties yeah uh alumni um from a florida house district a variety of different people and also robert allen okay bob

0:04:24 Thomas: That supposed to mean means nothing to me oh

0:04:25 Lydia: Allen the guy we've been talking about the bob allen who's been coordinating everything behind the scenes he's on the the presidential search committee. And Bridget Ziegler, Moms for Liberty co -founder, who is on the Sarasota County School Board, you and she was recently in the news because of the threesomes. Yeah, yeah.

0:04:48 Thomas: Love her who's decides who's on this committee I know we're in 18 levels of bureaucracy bullshit but how the hell where did she come from in this the

0:04:54 Lydia: Tell you. Chair Deborah Jenks, the person who was The chair single -handedly selects.

0:05:01 Thomas: Chair single -handedly the selection committee

0:05:06 Lydia: Yes. It says selected by Board of Trustees Chair Deborah Jenks, who

0:05:08 Thomas: Wait wait forever so she selects the entire higher thing wow

0:05:14 Lydia: What this looks like. That is my understanding. Isn't that crazy?

0:05:16 Thomas: It all comes back to deborah jenks

0:05:19 Lydia: Yeah. And the chair of the presidential search committee is Matt Spaulding, who was communicating with R.C., who we believe to be Richard Corcoran, via text messages prior to being appointed interim chair. And again, he is a Hillsdale College guy. Um you did know a significant search I guess they had final three including richard corcoran and the other two which were um will not call them pathetic but another another news outlet was like uh are like fake almost like to make them look to To make Richard Corcoran look way better.

0:05:51 Thomas: Like sock puppets for the yeah well I guess we just have to choose this man who about them seems not qualified I

0:06:02 Lydia: Just their experience. Let me see if I can grab the finalists.

0:06:05 Thomas: Mean in fairness richard corcoran didn't have any fucking experience so So, so

0:06:09 Lydia: That's true. Tyler Fisher was one of the other finalists, an associate professor of modern languages and literature. Richer. And over at core faculty in the Ph .D. program for text and technology at the University of Central Florida. Got his degrees in philosophy at Oxford and he's been at UCF since 2018.

0:06:30 Thomas: In other words, way more qualified than Corcoran.

0:06:33 Lydia: Well, I don't know. I mean, like like publications were saying that there's no way that this person would get the position. I'm I'm. What you're saying. But also, like, I think if if saw them in any other presidential search committee, you'd be like, no way.

0:06:43 Thomas: I get it. I, I, right. It's just funny that like, it's not the guy they chose to be the interim was profoundly unqualified, right? Or am I wrong? What was his actual qualification before being appointed?

0:06:55 Lydia: Corcoran, that he was the education commissioner under DeSantis. He has no background in education. He just served at the state level.

0:07:04 Thomas: Once you get that first thing on your resume, then you can leverage that to, okay.

0:07:10 Lydia: Yep. Then the other person is Robert Gervaisi, not he was an interim president at the University of Mount Union. Don't then he was also president at a couple of other schools and on the board of directors.

0:07:22 Thomas: So he sounds way experienced.

0:07:24 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, actually, he does. I don' I t see their CVs in front of me. I'm just getting the high level stuff. With an MBA from marketing from Wharton and and doctoral degrees and classics from Ohio State.

0:07:24 Thomas: Experienced so

0:07:36 Lydia: Yeah, good point. Yeah, I guess if I were ranking this just based off of these little blurbs, it would be it'd be Ricky Gervasi, Robert.

0:07:36 Thomas: Way more qualified okay marry fuck kill yeah fuck hire for president

0:07:52 Lydia: And then and then I don't know. And then everything I know about Richard Corcoran, I put him last. But I don'T know.

0:07:56 Thomas: But but somebody who somebody suggested those were dummy candidates basically but yeah I don't know about that they seem kind of real to be honest but uh okay that

0:08:06 Lydia: Wouldn't you know it? October 2023. Guess who got president? Yeah, no. Corcoron. So now we see that, you Corcorin is just, you know, full steam ahead. All the things that he's been working on as the interim, they're just moving, moving, and I want to talk about one of the things that he was doing over here. They were to secure, they probably didn't have to try very hard, but they were able able to secure a lot of money from the state and money. And part of that money was tied to producing a business plan. Like they would not release the money, you know, X percent of the money without seeing a business plant about how it was going to be used, the specifics, et cetera, Yeah,

0:08:11 Thomas: Philosopher guy jesus why would you call it a business plan and not a budget proposal it's a school right I mean

0:08:58 Lydia: I don't know. I texted our friend and I was like, hey, are business plans normal for higher education? Just because he is very involved in higher education in California. And he was like I don' t really know that like you'd call it a business plan exactly. He necessarily seen anything like that from his experience. But they did call it a business plan in from the legislature in Florida. And it was submitted to the Florida Board of Governors November 2023. it, they about it is a business planning. Like they have a whole section yeah

0:09:32 Thomas: Step one, hire all our friends for way too much money. Step two, profit.

0:09:35 Lydia: There starts with a comparison to Japan and I was reading through I was like what is happening was like Japan's big mistake and why we're not going to repeat the same mistake that Japan made over here in New College of Florida it is nuts it is nuts and then there's a whole session about marketing and it's like here are some logos goes we've drafted. And here is like some mobile, user -friendly mobile things that you can look at for this. So far, nothing about how they intended to spend any of the money that they were requesting, just talking about Japan and talking about marketing materials.

0:09:50 Thomas: What? Yeah. Our 700 person. Okay. Okay, sure.

0:10:14 Thomas: Well, was that for a marketing budget? You know that? My

0:10:18 Lydia: No, not they detail anything. There is money spoken about, but what it talks about specifically in the business plan is something called the Freedom Institute that they want to develop. So Freedom Institutes is a like free speech center that we see on a lot of other college campuses, essentially serving as a safe space for conservatives and right wingers that they bring in to give speeches to. Rufo just spoke at the Benson Center over in Colorado. So a lot of schools have these. But New College did didn't not.

0:10:53 Thomas: Say they have them do they have them and it's like a student organization or what you know is it normal to like the school funds them or like

0:11:02 Lydia: And they are funded by a separate donor.

0:11:05 Thomas: A donor or something okay

0:11:06 Lydia: Uh huh. Yeah. This would be funded by taxpayers. So New College Freedom Institute, they wanted to launch it in fall 2024. 24. what would they do there? They say that, you know, that they want to host all these speakers and, you Know, it'd be like, like a flowery language, all these things. And then additionally, recognize and award those who have suffered from and persevered through censorship that sought to limit freedom of thought and expression. Okay.

0:11:34 Thomas: In other words appear on where there's woke podcast yeah

0:11:37 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Get Get get a special thing here. What are they requesting in funding for this? They are asking for $50 million. Yeah. Yeah, and it's because they want to, they're going to build a brand new building, and what sucks, yeah, you have a lot of freedom to house. What sucks is that their plan, where they're gonna put this building, is on land that is right on the bay that was donated to the College back in the 60s, intended to be used as a preserve. And now they want to build this huge, I football field size building, $50

0:11:47 Thomas: Jesus Christ to house all the freedom yeah oh my god I'm sorry that's two on the nose yeah just

0:12:19 Lydia: Yeah, I know. Two million, or it's going to be even more, I think. The $50 is billion like the beginning stages. Yeah.

0:12:24 Thomas: A down payment Jesus Jesus.

0:12:26 Lydia: And the preserve, not only has it been important for wildlife and the environment, it's also helped to shield the neighboring areas from flooding during hurricanes. And so now if you build something on Florida, historically, you know, known to be at sea level for most of the state and sinking, now you're going to have a new building in a high velocity flood zone. What is that going to mean for the people who live near there? What kind of risks are they having to assume now? They were told they would be involved in the planning of this, but they weren't and the plan just came out with an architect that drew up a bunch of things the neighborhood is starting has started coming to the board meeting saying what are you doing like this is our our neighborhood and you guys just aren't even talking to us about this like you say you're going to and you ignore us um

0:13:19 Thomas: What phase is this in? Like, was this approved or anything?

0:13:23 Lydia: Think it's still still pretty early. They have not broken ground or anything like that.

0:13:28 Thomas: But is it approved? Like dude, was the money awarded or set aside or what?

0:13:32 Lydia: It's hard to tell because what you're going to hear from all of this is that the legislature is just writing checks, so many checks to new college, and there isn't even a budget that has been produced for new college.

0:13:46 Thomas: Okay. I would like to remind everyone that part of the rationale for taking over this fucking school was fiscal irresponsibility. The

0:13:53 Lydia: Yeah, if that weren't enough, they are also really eager to launch a presidential scholar in residence program. Doyle, Titania McGrath, who pops up all the time. He is a presidential Scholar in Residence. Yeah he Yep.

0:14:06 Thomas: Same three fucking people presidential scholar in residence oh

0:14:11 Lydia: Yep. He signed a contract and he got $40,000 for four weeks to do independent study projects for four students.

0:14:17 Thomas: This is the griftiest fucking grift to ever grift

0:14:24 Lydia: And there's an organization called Save New College where they're starting to document a lot of these things and pull together contracts and all of these various things and then preparing questions that they're demanding Richard Corcoran answer. And one of their questions is, why is he getting $40,000 for four weeks when a different presidential scholar in residence was paid $6,000 for the same time expectations? What is the difference there? Like, you out and say it and say what you what you're saying. Yeah.

0:14:49 Thomas: He's really good at twitter amazing jokes it's the same one joke every single time do

0:14:56 Lydia: See. Another program that they're really excited about is, say that they're going to start their own venture fund in the business plan. OK, why? Why is that happening?

0:15:05 Thomas: They have a business school yeah that's what venture

0:15:07 Lydia: Because everything is individualized like majors. I mean, they have they have like, you know, business degrees and economics and all those sorts of things. But, you yeah, they want to start Their own venture Fund. They are really excited about partnering with other entities. And I had recently seen and did some digging on this. One of those new partners is Ricketts College of Great Books.

0:15:11 Thomas: Fund what

0:15:31 Lydia: Ricketts is Joe Ricketts. He's the billionaire owner of the Chicago Cubs. Very Republican, very racist. He had some emails that leaked back said Christians and Jews can have a mutual respect for each other to create a civil society. As you know, Islam, cannot do that.

0:15:51 Lydia: Yeah. And then it goes on. Therefore, we cannot ever let Islam become a large part of our society. Muslims are naturally my and then in parentheses, our enemy due to their deep antagonism and bias against non -Muslims.

0:15:50 Thomas: As you know oh my god the fuck was this about was

0:16:05 Lydia: Um sure because that was in 2019 this is not that's not an old email that's pretty recent

0:16:12 Thomas: There like a muslim baseball player that they were gonna sign what the fuck is that about okay whatever my

0:16:15 Lydia: He's also really into the birther conspiracies about obama um you you know this stand -up guy he's going to actually be their commencement speaker at new college for graduation this year so what is this ricketts college of great books uh that I just mentioned this is from what I can see a Nebraska LLC that is seeking approval to operate as a post -secondary institution I was looking through their application it was submitted February 9th 2024 and the numbers that they're presenting say that they are assuming they'll become fully accredited in 2026 at which point we'll join this entity called SARA and offer our courses to students outside of Nebraska. Want to offer like associate's degrees, bachelor's degrees and certificates in the great books. I don't really totally understand how you can make an entire curriculum based off of that, but they're really trying. In the application, they say that they will not offer courses to students until after the application is approved and that they have not entered into any agreements with other institutions with the transferability of their credits, and they won't be able to do that until they're accredited, which would be at least a year from this point in time. They announced a partnership with New College January 12th, 2024.

0:17:12 Thomas: Jesus

0:17:37 Lydia: This application was submitted February 9th. 9, 2024 is when they submitted their application for, even to get accredited seeking approval to operate as a post -secondary institution yeah yeah

0:17:36 Thomas: Wait they already had a deal before they had that before they even applied for that what the fuck yeah

0:17:51 Lydia: Something is going on something is freaking weird yeah

0:17:55 Thomas: Seems grifty what remember when we heard that really kind old lady in one of the previous episodes be like um there's some allegations that the people are profiting yeah holy fucking shit no kidding each of the board members was like in their yacht when they said that

0:18:13 Lydia: That's joe ricketts that's uh what we're looking at from their business plan again their business plan was really light on the details except for their logos that they offered. I'll attach the business plan because it's really fun to look at. And again, it's like two pages on Japan. I don't know why. It's very strange.

0:18:31 Thomas: Is unreal this is so much taxpayer money

0:18:33 Lydia: It is a lot of taxpayer money. It does not stop there. There. Clip because we need to talk about the board voting on approving a bonus for Richard Corcoran. He's doing an amazing job. And I sent you that clip, so why don't we go go ahead and and hear that now yeah

0:18:51 Thomas: Because he's was

0:18:58 Clip: Anyone consulted with the foundation about whether or not they have sufficient funds to pay this I am concerned about the depletion of foundation funds we know that the divisions have been have needed to use a lot of foundation funds this year in order to bring in all the candidates for interviews we know they have not received budgets for this year from the administration and so we're running on faith we know that a number of receipts that are submitted to the foundation are not paid in a prompt way and so I just have concerns and I'm wondering if anyone on the committee checked with the foundation about whether or not it is viable for them to pay this money we'll have general counsel galvano answer that please yes I that was an issue that had come up earlier and so I confirmed that the foundation does have the funds and has set these funds aside thank you are there any yes trustees I just I wanted to make the obvious comment here the president Corcoran has brought in 50 million dollars in appropriations the largest annual infusion the financial resource in the school's history more than the college obtained in the total last 10 years my assumption is that previous presidents also received bonuses this seems to be a bonus that was actually earned thank you trustee spaulding any other questions or oh is there uh

0:20:05 Thomas: The bonus yeah

0:20:34 Lydia: Do you see Christopher Ruffo in the background? Yeah, So Richard Corcoran's getting $200 ,000 bonus from the new college foundation, the nonprofit arm of the school. This brings his salary to $900,000. Again, $83,000 housing stipend, $12,000 car allowance. Of that money is coming from the foundation.

0:20:38 Thomas: Profit arm plus a bunch of other stuff yeah oh is that not the normal source of funding for the school I just huh

0:21:01 Lydia: You sure, but a George Mason University research professor named James Finkelstein studies public university president salaries specifically, and he looked at the study that was done to estimate the compensation package for Corcoran, and When he said that it was poorly done, they built the package based off of private schools like Hillsdale instead of public schools. And in quotes, this is totally out of whack.

0:21:30 Lydia: He estimates the cash value of Corcoran's position is six and a half million dollars over five years. And that makes him the second highest paid college president in Florida, only behind Ben Sasse at the University of Florida. And he gets about one and a Half million. Is important because do remember that Florida state senator that said something's going to happen there back in 2020? Joe Gruters, his wife is the executive director for the New College Foundation. Again, they're they paying for the bonus in full. I don't know how much of the rest of his compensation package they're playing for. You know, and I was I spent a lot of time looking through their 990s. I was trying to see, you know, the money movement, what that looked like for the foundation. I did not find anything like we're donors necessarily. But the Save New College organization, their website calls out one of their questions is, are the donors aware that their donations are being used in this way? You were their donations provided? You know, were they earmarked for certain things in particular? Because you can do that as a donor, especially a significant donor. Or did they donate money that can be used for whatever purpose? Are they aware? They want to know the all, when we're talking about money, New College of Florida is asking for $416 million over five years.

0:22:57 Lydia: $227 million would be from the state and then they would be requesting that the state enter into $189 million via bonds.

0:23:05 Thomas: Oh like like taxpayer bond.

0:23:06 Lydia: Yeah, when I looked at year over year, I tried to pull this together from the, State you University system of Florida, and their overview of allocations documents. So bear in mind, these numbers, they should be apples to apples. They don't include things like capital outlay or any non -recurring appropriations to the best of my knowledge. But it should be apples to apples comparison. In 2017 -18, New College's allocation was $31.1 million, essentially. It went up 10% the following year in 18-19, went up 3% in 19-20, went down in 2020-21. Again, again, that makes sense, COVID, by about 5%, went back up 3%, $21.22 to $34.5 million, remain essentially unchanged to 2022-23, $34.68 million, and then went up 52% in 2023-24 to $52.8 million, an of $18 million.

0:24:09 Thomas: But he's bragging about getting a $50 million that counts as something else or something.

0:24:14 Lydia: Yeah, so they have capital outlay projects that are getting approved. They have, you know, that deferred maintenance that the state never wanted to take care of. Suddenly now they have the money to send over to take care of that. And again, that four hundred and sixteen million total over five years. You're looking at just this year, it's about $82 million in total.

0:24:36 Thomas: Rationale is this school the taxpayers too much money. And then they do all this stuff and they also are going to give this president a massive bonus based on the justification that he secured more money. That's also taxpayer money that's

0:24:53 Lydia: Yeah. And they Media Group had a significant opinion piece, and part the opinion piece they had someone who is a veteran of corporate boards look through the business plan that I read to you in portion, you know, the Japan and all those things, to get his thoughts. Be the best liberal arts college in America, how will this be measured? It doesn't say. Further, there is no timeline nor a cash burn rate on the sports program. When I look at a business in which to invest, here's what I look for. What is the product? Why is the business's product better than what is currently available? What is size of the market? What share does it believe it can capture? What investment is required to bring the product to market and capture that market share? How long will it take to bring product the market and what is the expected return on the investment? Always the same six questions. I could not find the answers to any of these questions.

0:25:43 Thomas: It's not a fucking business so

0:25:44 Lydia: Right. Right. Other piece that they're trying to do is, you know, when they're comparing new college to the other public colleges and saying, you know, they're not performing as well and the cost is too much per student, et cetera, et cetera. We have to take it over. Then on the flip side, they start comparing it to private schools to tout, you you know, like how amazing of an investment it is. And they are requesting that the legislature amend law so they can start using operational savings to fund capital improvements. Right now, that is something that is not allowed for public colleges. But they say Florida private schools such as Ringling, Eckerd, Rollins, Flagler can borrow and fund capital improvement from savings via state -sponsored financing mechanisms. Public colleges are prohibited from participation.

0:26:35 Thomas: Because usually it's a savings is like it's taxpayer money so it's Not like but

0:26:39 Lydia: Lawmakers have judged that this would create excessive risks for taxpayers. But the exclusion of New College from this approach has led to existential risks for the college itself. New College will seek to be permitted to take the risk to succeed. The college will work with the Board of Governors to pursue legislation that will allow for this change. Change and why are they complaining they just also got tons of capital outlay money for this budget like they're getting everything they want they're just trying to mess with it so it can stay that way forever and they can fund whatever they want their stupid freedom institute

0:26:58 Thomas: Why wouldn't you just propose expenditures to do this stuff and then that what do you yeah but I mean this This just means they would have to be, quote unquote, saving money somewhere else, right? So I don't know what they plan to cut exactly. Oh, maybe it's a way. Yeah, maybe its a way to get some sort of money that's allocated for something to be free for them to spend on something else.

0:27:37 Thomas: Yeah, that's probably what it is. Because otherwise it doesn't make any sense. Like the is the money that is going to this, you know, the taxpayer money.

0:27:36 Lydia: Just move money around yeah yeah um also submitted something called the Student Success Plan Monitoring Report, which is required if you score X number of points or lower on the state's performance -based metrics system. It's how they decided that New College was not doing well. And so now they have to submit a report to show that they are making progress in those metrics. And there are some positives in here. I want to be totally fair. They have things like increasing scholarships, creating additional master's programs. They want

0:28:16 Thomas: Their RBIs have gone up substantially. Substantially more

0:28:20 Lydia: To have free 24 -7 tutoring available for students. I think that's great. Rate. They want to hire additional academic coaches. They want to offer free laptops. So that's not a barrier for students. They wants to make improvements to campus life. Those things are all great. But I want to be clear that these there things are able to come about because they are getting the Florida legislature to sign off on whatever they want when Florida has said for years when New College would ask for money no. They just said no no no. And now they're able to actually make these things that they could have done years ago if they had the money for it.

0:28:41 Thomas: Taxpayer money yeah wow

0:28:58 Lydia: And next to the chart of retention rates that they put in there when they're like estimating out, the first thing they did to improve their rate forecast was in quotes, fix the toxic culture. Just so you know, that's an objective measure.

0:28:51 Thomas: This is insane retention of like professors or something or just oh retention

0:29:16 Lydia: Students. They had a lot of students that that they said would drop out after freshman year at New College. That was something that was tough in the previous years.

0:29:22 Thomas: In the previous thing oh

0:29:24 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. So they think that fixing the toxic culture is something that will change that. Go out, I just want to talk about where we're at now, pretty recently. And this is the mission update. I had said the mission statement is defined in statute. They have decided that they want to do another one that not be via statute. It would just be internally. It's not clear. So they had a meeting on 23rd. This is very, very recent. And they basically gathered public together other to start brainstorming what they want to see in a mission statement. And they started with a draft, an initial draft for each of these little work group tables to work on. Came in to clarify that it was okay for them to do this. They're not violating statute because they're trying to draft an additional mission statement and they want to have a final draft available May 13th. So it can be for public comment prior to the June 13th board meeting. So they're working on this kind of like pretty tight timeline. One of the questions that was brought up as they're kicking this off was, was there any consideration made that most students are not here during those 30 days, May 13th to June 13th, and a lot of the faculty are also off at this time. So what does substantive input look like truly during that period of time and they kind of uh like they weren't really interested in answering that question specifically um

0:29:24 Thomas: Interesting huh you

0:31:01 Clip: Wrote this initial draft that I'm looking at uh that I I don't know I think it was a combination of people but any other process questions otherwise I'll turn it back over to

0:31:10 Lydia: I just wanted to get that on the record

0:31:13 Thomas: Is this it wait is that another board or is Is this a different notice

0:31:16 Lydia: So so this is a like of. But it's more of like a workshop.

0:31:19 Thomas: And comment? Oh, okay.

0:31:22 Lydia: They're asking these questions and then they are divided up in tables where they sit and they talk about the mission statement as currently drafted. And they all report back.

0:31:29 Thomas: What it? Why do you think they need a new mission? Is this important?

0:31:33 Lydia: No, it's not. But this is what they're spending their time on. So wouldn't you know it, Chris Ruffo was heavily involved in drafting this mission statement draft.

0:31:42 Thomas: I would have thought he would. That's why I'm asking, like, is this important. That's a busy guy. That's the guy who's got a lot of bullshit to do. You know?

0:31:50 Lydia: Yeah. I mean, he's he's engaged in all the board meetings. You heard him yell at Amy Reid, Dr. Amy Reid and tell her to shut up. You saw him throw up the thumbs up when Richard Corcoran got another $200,000. And Matthew Spaulding said, you know, now we're actually giving a bonus to someone who earned it as previously no one else had. And so here's the language that he put together.

0:31:56 Thomas: I did. Yeah. Mm hmm. You out it was he

0:32:16 Lydia: He is one of the writers. He has not claimed that he has written this 100 percent. Is the only one who has publicly shared his involvement with this.

0:32:16 Thomas: It was him him

0:32:25 Lydia: I imagine another trustee member, you now, take your pick, honestly. A lot of them are so terrible, but this is what he's put together. New College of Florida, our mission is to revive the great tradition of the classical liberal arts and to cultivate good citizens, artists, academics, entrepreneurs, and statesmen. The founders of New College envisioned a community of scholars modeled on the University of Oxford that would provide students with a classical liberal arts education and pass down the learning of our civilization in tradition. In our era of stifling academic orthodoxy, this task is more urgent than ever. At New College, our unwavering commitment is to rediscover the deepest purpose of education and to give students a foundation of logos, human reason, and techne, the applied arts. Our distinguished faculty and student body, while advancing of a diversity opinions, hold a shared commitment to liberal principles, free speech, open debate, colorblind equality, all oriented to the

0:32:23 Thomas: Wow yeah yeah

0:33:18 Lydia: Pursuit of the highest good. Us be unapologetic. We are a public university open to all in which exceptional students of any background can participate in the great tradition of the West. Our calling is to provide a liberal arts education befitting free men and women and a free society. While others are caught in the fray of ideology, we look up to the true, the good, and the beautiful. We create students who the will move earth. So the comment that, yeah, it's it's pretty awful.

0:33:44 Thomas: Pretty bad yeah it was pretty awful yeah

0:33:49 Lydia: The that happened at literally every single table during this workshop was, this is too long. This is not a mission statement. And the point where the person who's up there is, I think the Dean of Students, David Rancourt. And he okay, does everybody agree that it's too long? Like after he heard it a bunch of times, and they're like, yeah.

0:34:12 Lydia: And But you go to 5651, we'll hear from a faculty member who goes on to more eloquently speak to what she wants to do with this mission statement.

0:34:24 Clip: I'm Milena Carrasco I teach history of art at New College okay is that better right I think we pretty much agree with everything that's been said I guess the one thing we might quarrel with is we didn't find much in the draft that's proposed that we thought was worth keeping maybe a little bit of that language but but fundamentally I think we like the existing mission statement maybe one or two words there that could be improved but I don't think that there was anything we wanted to retain and I would I would strongly recommend that we just ditch the existing initial draft and also

0:34:28 Thomas: Mic mic yeah

0:35:10 Clip: Focus on the state statute language which I would think would be something we we want to be consistent with we don't want to be in violation of anything that's outlined there that language goes back to when New College was established as an independent institution and I think also

0:35:32 Thomas: She doesn't know how to use a mic but she speaks the truth in

0:35:33 Clip: A problem we had with the initial draft was that it is it's a text that provokes controversy and argument rather than any it's not a rallying cry that we can all agree to and feel comfortable with so it's likely to exacerbate any divisions that are currently existing at the college and that's not something I think anybody would want to make happen we

0:35:51 Thomas: Other words it uh it sucks sucks real bad I

0:35:54 Lydia: All right. We can end there.

0:36:01 Thomas: Can't tell if it's still on because she's does

0:36:02 Clip: Also reminded ourselves a little bit history of the college, its founding.

0:36:03 Lydia: So quiet.

0:36:08 Thomas: She think a microphone is just something you have to like be touching vaguely for it to work like sorry I didn't change the volume that was the volume of the first thing

0:36:16 Lydia: I know. Yeah. So that's where they're at right now, you know, really spending valuable time.

0:36:23 Thomas: That's okay yeah that's like current

0:36:24 Lydia: It's week. That's what was happening last week, so, you curious to see how much more money they can squeeze out of Florida taxpayers for all of this nonsense and other kind of shenanigans they're going to get into. I think the federal grand jury for Richard Corcoran is going to be really interesting. I wonder if we're going get some public documents from that.

0:36:25 Thomas: Day okay well

0:36:47 Lydia: I mean, depending how far it goes.

0:36:46 Thomas: No yeah not from the grand jury unless it's yeah this

0:36:51 Lydia: Unless they decide they want to indict in any of his if has to respond to any sort of discovery requests, if we get anything from that and how much General Counsel Galvano. It's It's crazy. It is crazy.

0:37:02 Thomas: Is so much fucking grift this is nuts

0:37:07 Lydia: Yeah. This is why it needed a dedicated episode in this series because it's such an intricate web and it all comes back to these charter schools. I didn't even get into some of the craziest stuff from that bid rigging that I was speaking about too. People in the Department of Education for Florida who are involved too. I'm just concerned about like, you know, we have listeners out in Florida. I have friends out in florida and I'm just genuinely concerned about what public education is going to be looking like. Rough already in a lot of ways and I am very concerned about how it's going to look in the coming years. I want to say to lighten the mood, but normally don't we listen to some committee? This is an a new college sanctioned group comedy class supposedly um was hosted downtown and they this was end of january of this year year when this video was posted. The dean of students attended, as did President Richard Corcoran.

0:38:14 Thomas: This for a class? I still don't.

0:38:15 Lydia: No, I guess it says a class. Yeah. So I guess Yes, it is a class, but it, David Rancourt, I wanted to give his try at some stand-up. And so he he hopped up on that stage and we get to hear some of his stuff.

0:38:26 Thomas: Dear God. OK, will I be able to handle this? I think I'm gonna have to leave. All right, everyone. You know how the Muppets and Muppet's Christmas Carol gets scared at the end and they're like, all right, it's too scary. That's my cringe. I'll see you later, everybody. Enjoy. Enjoy whatever this is. Oh my God.

0:39:13 Clip: Like a mile to the bus stop every day, good exercise, and there's this one girl that was at the bus stop every day, and Susie, she's a pain in the ass, you know, one of those kids that no matter what you get the next day she's got the same thing, you know, just piss you off. Well, I gave him the ball, Susie gave me the ball, I gave me a game, Susie got the next, the same game, the next thing, and I looked at him and said, you know, there's something in my hand that Susie can't. No, I'm seven. Mom's trying to make me feel good, you know? That's what moms do. She said, well, you've been doing something, you kind of, but she doesn't know. I said, what's that? She said you're a little down between the legs. That's called a penis. Susie don't have any legs because she's a girl. I'm feeling pretty good about myself.

0:39:59 Clip: So I go to bed, the next morning walk on down to that school bus stop, and I see Susie. She's kind of got a little eye to it and I look over and I say, Susie, I want to show you something. I pulled out that little pecker and I said, it's called Venus Evelyn. I wish I hadn't done the same thing. We go to school, everything's good. Next morning I get up, I walk on down to school and I stop feeling really good about myself. I see that little bitch. She's got a big old grin on her face.

0:40:28 Clip: Big old grin. Big old green on her head. And I go, all right, Susan, what you got? She looks at me, smiles, lifts up her skirt and says, David, my mama says I got one of these. I only have as many of those as I want. I'm

0:40:43 Thomas: Okay. How was it, everyone? I had to leave the earth. Birth I wasn't an I went to the moon I couldn't be anywhere around that no I'm lying I had to hear that and I'm gonna need to go to the hospital honey oh

0:40:57 Lydia: It's pretty bad and it it doesn't get better his his other comedy I guess uh is pretty rough and then apparently richard corcoran went up on the stage after him and

0:41:01 Thomas: Man so no one no one decided to end the entire thing right then and there which is the which is what you would do if you were a human. By the way, he's calling a seven-year-old girl a bitch. Boy, healthy attitude women right there.

0:41:22 Lydia: Bitch yeah yeah uh Richard what Richard Corcoran comes on. Like,

0:41:32 Thomas: We're canceling this entire school jesus

0:41:33 Clip: Actually the president of your college, and you've got to...

0:41:35 Thomas: I make a shitload of taxpayer dollars

0:41:39 Clip: The job doesn't really pay well, but it's a good job. But

0:41:45 Thomas: Fucking christ the balls the

0:41:47 Clip: That wasn't our dean students, or should I say our former dean students.

0:41:50 Thomas: You should I have a feeling not for the same reasons oh what

0:41:53 Clip: There's a lot of gays over there. I think he's trying to tell me something. Bunga bunga.

0:41:55 Lydia: It's like a racist thing

0:41:58 Thomas: Bunga bunga dear

0:42:01 Lydia: He did as part of his set

0:42:03 Clip: So last thing is, my wife and I, we have six kids. And people always say, Oh my gosh, you must be Catholic, you're must be Mormon. Except we're not Catholic Mormons. We just drink a lot.

0:42:17 Clip: I was talking to my oldest daughter the other day, and I said, you know, tequila, how is it?

0:42:26 Clip: And she was complaining about fighting with her brother, and so I go over and I say, hey, Courvoisier, stop! Stop it! You know, that's how I struggle finding Zeta. Try finding tequila and Courvoiser in the tourist things. It doesn't exist. But thank you very much. I appreciate it.

0:42:47 Thomas: Boy well Well, he's not getting the bonus for his comedy. That's for sure. This is so bad.

0:42:51 Lydia: When reached for comment about the video specifically david rancourt's video. The university basically as if the news organization writing the article was akin to cancel culture. They say, cancel culture is over at New College.

0:43:10 Lydia: Comedy is a work of art, one that is reliant on our society's tenets of free speech and free expression. New College supports its students, faculty, and staff's right to participate in artistic endeavors like a comedy performance or any other civil exercising of free speech and free expression, except for wearing a Black Lives Matter pin when you're an orientation leader. That doesn't count, I guess, as free expression.

0:43:32 Thomas: Is crazy like this is actually Crazy. Furthermore, I would like to point out that the president came out and said he was going to fire the guy essentially because he was gay. So that's cool, too. All Well, I may never get over this. Thank you for scarring me for the rest of my life. It's why couldn't it have been a drag show with Randy Fine? Instead of this awful homophobic sexist terrible comedy what

0:43:48 Lydia: Know you've been curious about our uh favorite drag name brandy fine what he's been up to yeah yeah Yeah. Yeah. Well, apparently there is some major drama here that is pretty fresh as well. He is trying to get the Florida Atlantic University president position. Has come out and said that DeSantis essentially promised it to him. He was like, why would I leave the legislature? I've been there forever. Why would I leave that and then like interview against like 60 other people for a job unless I knew I was going to like get it? He was not a finalist. Then DeSantis's office came out and they were like, Randy doesn't know what he's talking about. And, you know, going off. And so there's been this weird drama back and forth and back and fourth. And now the search is suspended due to anomalies is what it says. And some people think it's because they're going to redo it and get fine back in there.

0:44:51 Lydia: That's what they think. So the interim president is extended through the end of 2024. we'll have a new, yeah, Florida Atlantic University, which is bigger than New College.

0:44:51 Thomas: Way this was for some other college university that's not hard

0:45:02 Lydia: Yeah. So, you a lot from the New College takeover. And I think we'll see how things adjust for attempt number two attempt number three at other places we'll say yeah that's bad yeah

0:45:02 Thomas: Jesus christ this is so bad hey everyone they want you to be mad at trans people so they can do this and steal all the public money and be the corrupt piece of this shit and self -dealing and dealing with their friends like this is why it serves them to have you always mad at some other thing at some minority group immigrants trans people gay people like this is this is Why they spend all their time doing that and then no one in Florida gives a shit apparently like I'm sure people do but like not To a degree that actually matters this is crazy well

0:45:45 Lydia: Nobody in power nobody in power anyway and the people like below are screaming and trying to be heard but it might be too late well So spread it far, spread it wide. I'll include some links to to some of the really journalism I read.

0:46:03 Thomas: Genuinely feel ill from watching that comedy I hope you're happy with yourself god gonna be sick so embarrassing god people who don't have secondhand embarrassment are like I don't understand how you live like Well, that was crazy. Is there, wait, is there more of this? Are we done with New College for now?

0:46:07 Lydia: I'm sorry. Yeah. We're done with New College for now.

0:46:25 Thomas: Okay. Well we're definitely keeping an eye on that. I think this concludes New College For The Time Being, right? Yeah. Well I got to go recover physically and mentally and uh wow well done great research there and please just vote these people out just get rid of these people please florida would it be so hard

0:46:44 Lydia: Yep. They're just interested in profiting for themselves and everybody that they like in their weird networks and their spider webs and they don't deserve it. So

0:46:56 Thomas: Thanks so much for listening to where there's woke thanks so mucho for the great research well done and please support the show, uh, don't get to make nine hundred thousand dollars from fucking taxpayer money grift um we make zero taxpayer dollars that I know of so if you would like to support this research and this show please go to patreon.com/wherethereswoke thanks so much to all who do we really appreciate you and uh I'm gonna go die now thank you

0:47:00 Lydia: Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Bye, everybody.

0:47:42 Clip: I'm Milena Carrasco I teach history of art at New College okay

0:47:47 Thomas: Mic mic

0:47:48 Clip: Is that better right

0:47:49 Lydia: Have another thing for fun that we can be horrified by.