Send Us Your Students!
American higher education has become a cesspool of narrow-minded bigotry. At New College of Florida, we're spearheading a reform movement. We're building an environment safe for both students & ideas.
My Substack postings may have slowed a bit since I completed the American Spirit series last month but fret not, dear fans. I’ve been keeping busy.
When I’m not writing for Substack or working on the American Spirit book, I’ve got a day job as admissions director at New College of Florida. For those who don’t know the institution, we’re at the very forefront of the movement to reclaim American higher education in the name of liberal values, classical education, civil discourse, and basic decency.
As you might imagine, we get a lot of hate thrown our way from those intent upon preserving the narrow-minded bigotry that has come to characterize America’s leading academic institutions.
What does it mean to be admissions director at a college committed to reform? Perhaps above all else, it means rebuilding the student body after years of institutional decline. I started by building a profile of the “ideal” New College student:
- Academically strong because we’re an honors college;
- Self-directed because we’ve got a personalized undergraduate curriculum driven towards critical thinking and research;
- Open to tradition and the Western Canon because we’re recommitting to classical education;
- Confident and secure in their own identities because students capable of presenting with pride and hearing questions and challenges as opportunities to learn and to teach are necessary for civil discourse and the free exchange of ideas to flourish.
If you know of any students who fit that profile, or of any schools promoting such students, please send them my way!
While such ideal students can and do graduate from every high school in America, I suspect that they arrive in greater proportion from schools and families that emphasize similar values: Magnets, charters, homeschool programs, classical academies, religious academies, parental rights organizations, and merit-based advocacy groups all come immediately to mind. If that list jogs your memory into directing students or schools our way, please act upon that impulse!
At the same time that I’ve been working to get out the message of what we’re building at New College, America’s most prestigious institutions have lent a helping hand. The appalling outbreak of campus antisemitism, and the ambivalence or support it’s received from faculty and administration, has shocked large parts of America (including Congress).
Given that I’ve spent years researching and writing about surging leftist antisemitism, the Woke/Islamist alliance, and campus corruption, I’m among the minority that was not remotely surprised. As with all things, however, an awakening provides new opportunities. The more people who appreciate that America’s leading Universities have adopted a pervasive, toxic, Woke (or critical theoretic) worldview, the more they can appreciate the importance of the reform movement we at New College are working hard to lead.
The juxtaposition of the dominant toxic worldview and our higher ed reform movement has been central to my recent writing and discussions. I’ve targeted some of them specifically to the Jewish community and its high schools—which have spent decades cultivating relationships with universities whose campuses are no longer safe for Jews.
It’s easy enough to accuse me of self-serving motives. I want to attract top students away from the Ivies and their equivalents to come to New College. I’d want that even if the Ivies still were what they used to be. But the truth runs far deeper.
American education is hopelessly corrupt. Staying inside a corrupt institution means that you must either become corrupt yourself or take personal and professional risks to fight for reform. I tip my hat to all who choose to stay on the inside, bear those risks, and fight the good fight. Most people need something different, something better, something easier, something safer. That’s what we’re building at New College.
If you know of students—whether or not they fit all four of my ideals—who just want a college where they can learn, speak, explore, and play with ideas freely, please send them our way.
In the meantime, and for your further reading or listening pleasure, here are some of the missives I’ve put into play over the past few weeks:
From the podcast of Elliot Resnick, former editor of the Jewish Press
If you note that they’re all takes on the basic theme I’ve outlined above, you’ve gotten the point.
I believe strongly that if enough people understand what we’re building and understand what makes it unique in today’s America, my recruiting job will do itself. Students looking to learn, and parents looking for a genuine education in a physically safe environment, will come flocking to us. So too will refugee faculty members seeking the sorts of institutions they thought they had found.
They’re already coming. Once again, if you know anyone who fits the bill, get them to us fast so they can get to the head of the line!
Oh, and have a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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For more information about Bruce D. Abramson & American Restorationism, visit: www.BruceDAbramson.com
To learn more about how America’s elites destroyed the republic, see: The New Civil War: Exposing Elites, Fighting Utopian Leftism, and Restoring America (RealClear Publishing, 2021).
To learn more about the ideology driving today’s anti-American leftism, see: American Restoration: Winning America’s Second Civil War (Kindle, 2019).
To learn more about our work at the American Coalition for Education and Knowledge, visit us at The Coalition for America.
To learn more about how I turn the ideas I discuss here into concrete projects that serve the interests of my clients, donors, and society at large, please e-mail me at bdabramson@pm.me.
Golly, for a space that’s safe for students you sure have pushed a lot of students out. And for a place that wants a variety of perspectives you sure are focusing on people who already share your perspective. It’s almost like “you’re the baddies.”