New College:  A New Philosophy

Some thirty years ago, a small group of educators, church leaders, and Sarasota, Florida citizens found themselves in a position to create a college that could address the dissatisfaction they felt with American higher education -- dissatisfaction with putting bright students to trivial tasks and with the gulf between teacher and student.

From the group's discussion came four principles, principles that, once put into practice, changed the way an undergraduate education happens. The principles became part of New College, and they guide students and professors today as surely as they did when the college opened in 1964.

 

	Each student is responsible in the last analysis for his or her own education.
	The best education demands a joint search for learning by exciting teachers and able students.
	Student progress should be based on demonstrated competence and real mastery rather than on the accumulation of credits and grades.
	Students should have from the outset opportunities to explore in depth areas of interest to them.

We invite you to read through our pages, a brief portrait of New College at a point in time. While they are designed to give you a sense of the spirit and energy that abound here, they cannot capture all the change fostered by unchanging principles.