The Gala coincides with the annual New College Alumnae/i reunion in Sarasota that same weekend, February 10-12tt. For more information on the weekend's festivities, please visit NCAA's website ncf.edu/web/ncflorida/reunions or contact Sarah Thompson, Alumnae/i Coordinator at sthompson@ncf.edu or 941-487-4676.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012, 5:30p.m., Sainer Pavilion, 5313 Bay Shore Road

New College is proud to claim what may be the first Nanotechnology Laboratory at an undergraduate liberal arts college in the United States. A $1.7 million, multi-year grant from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) to conduct nanotechnology research has allowed us to create an expanded Optical Spectroscopy and Nano-Materials Lab. The lab was dedicated on January 6, 2012 and will provide our undergraduates with the opportunity to undertake research in one of the groundbreaking frontiers of physics and material science. Click here to see the opening and a tour of the new lab from Physics Professor, Mariana Sendova. 

Please save April 11th at 11:00 for the ever popular Pique-Nique!

 Click the image above for more information. 

February 15-17: Sarasota Bay Watershed Symposium

Sudakoff Conference Center, 5845 General Dougher Place (various times)

The 2012 Sarasota Bay Watershed Symposium, which is presented by New College of Florida in partnership with the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program, will bring together scientists, managers, policy makers, educators and the interested public for exciting discussion, networking, and learning about Sarasota Bay and her watersheds. With symposium sessions on a wide variety of current topics from fisheries to bird rookeries, from growth management to storm water management, from ecotourism to economics, we're expecting lively discussion and some fresh perspectives to emerge!

The program features community leaders, Sarasota and Manatee County Commissioners Jon Thaxton and John Chappie, scientists from Sarasota Bay Estuary Program, EPA, Mote Marine Laboratory, Audubon, and Fish & Wildlife Research Institute, professors from New College of Florida and Eckerd College, as well as Sarasota County specialists, environmental consultants, business leaders, environmental nonprofits, neighborhood association members, and fishermen. Session moderators include Herald-Tribune Editorial Page Editor Tom Tryon, Bradenton Herald Executive Editor Joan Krauter, ABC 7 news anchor Scott Dennis and Sarasota EDC Director Mark Huey. Keynote speakers include historian Cynthia Barnett and futurist Joe Tankersley, who will book-end the program with a historical perspective and a future outlook.

Tickets cost $20, which covers attendance and meals on all three days of the event. For more information on the 2012 Sarasota Bay Watershed Symposium, visit www.sarasotawatershed.com or email: info@sarasotawatershed.com.

The New College Foundation is proud to announce TheObserver Group has generously agreed to be our New College Promise Campaign Sponsor. Emily Walsh, Associate Publisher/Multimedia of The Observer Group says, "On behalf of all of us at The Observer Group, we are very proud to be supporting such an exceptional institution as New College of Florida. The Sarasota-Bradenton area is lucky to have New College in our community and I am confident The New College Promise Campaign will not only meet its goal but far surpass it!"

The Foundation is pleased to have The Observer Group on board. "Their strength in the local market is impressive, and we look forward to a long-standing partnership for years to come," said Andrew Walker, New College Foundation President and CEO. The Observer will be providing a host of benefits, including in-kind advertising in all four of their newspapers.

Indicative of their support of New College, Emily Walsh and Lisa Walsh are co-chairing the New College Gala, honoring retiring President Dr. Gordon E. "Mike" Michalson Jr. who will be returning to the faculty in July after eleven years as College President. The Gala is February 11th at The Fete Ballroom at Polo Grill in Lakewood Ranch. For more information on the Gala, please contact Johnette Cappadona, Director of Special Initiatives, atjcappadona@ncf.edu or 941-487-4600.

Honoring the Memory of Nan Freeman

Last week, two ceremonies were held in Sarasota to mark the life and ideals of Nan Freeman, class of '71.

Most of you have not heard of Nan. She was a New College student from Wakefield, Massachusetts. Forty years ago, she was in Belle Glade, Florida, supporting the United Farm Workers' efforts to improve living and working conditions for sugar cane harvesters, when she was struck and killed by a large sugar cane truck operated by an inexperienced driver. She was buried in Wakefield a few days later.

Cesar Chavez, president of the United Farm Workers, said of Nan at the time, "To some she is a young girl who lost her life in a tragic accident. To us she is a sister who picketed with farm workers in the middle of the night because of her love for justice. She is a young woman who fulfilled the commandments by loving her neighbors even to the point of sacrificing her own life... We must work together to build a farm workers' union that is worthy of her love and her sacrifice."

Last Wednesday, the New College campus held a bay front candlelight ceremony in Nan's memory. On Friday, she was honored at a special evening Shabbat Service at Temple Beth Israel on Longboat Key.

Nan's life was cut tragically short, but the ideals for which she died endure - the right of all people to live lives of dignity, with just compensation for their work. As Rabbi Jonathan Katz said at Friday's tribute to Nan, "In today's fast-paced world   . . . the memory of a righteous martyr like Nan Freeman is too quickly forgotten. It is important to recall her life and death so that the blessing of her memory will continue to serve as an inspiration to us all."

We're grateful that the community chose to remember Nan in this way. She represents the best of what New College stands for - intellectual honesty, compassion for others and the courage to act on one's convictions. Our students continue to be active in the struggle for farmworker rights and the rights of the disenfranchised everywhere. To them and to us, Nan remains a source of inspiration.

- Andrew Walker

  Foundation President/CEO

Faculty to Watch:   

Urban Sociology Comes to Life

When Harvard-educated Professor of Sociology David Brain came to New College twenty years ago, he knew he wanted to tie together three components: teaching, research and service. Luckily for him, those three elements are at the core of all faculty teaching at New College. They're also increasingly fortunate for Sarasota-Bradenton community leaders and developers.

As an independent study project, Dr. Brain and his urban sociology students are working with community leaders on Longboat Key to develop a plan to revitalize the north end of the Key. They have been collecting background materials and data, and interviewing residents, business and property owners, seeking their ideas for the area, including potential uses for its commercial properties. Dr. Brain recently led a hands-on planning charrette for various stakeholders at the Ringling College Longboat Key Center for the Arts in Longbeach village. The workshop included a mapping exercise to identify the opportunities and challenges in the community, followed by a vision elements exercise that gave the stakeholders an opportunity to express their values by describing their vision for the Village. Their report will be presented to the public in February and an open public discussion will take place. "These are great learning experiences for the students. It's urban sociology come to life," says Professor Brain. In the spring, Professor Brain and his students will be working in downtown Bradenton, helping to create a plan to boost an area near downtown that has been redeveloped as an arts community.  

Professor Brain enjoys teaching at New College because it reminds him of his graduate work at Harvard where there were small groups, much more personal contact and more serious engagement on the part of the students. "The entire faculty is committed to this notion of what it means to work closely with students and oversee real student learning," he says. Dr. Brain also notes New College students are fun to teach. "I taught for a while at a Midwestern university. I remember handing out the syllabus and being asked 'why do we have to read all this?' Here at New College, I hear 'why are we reading Marx and not another author?'"

New College Library Association (NCLA), in conjunction with the AJC (American Jewish Committee), is proud to present Fighting the Fires of Hate:  America and the Nazi Book Burnings, an exhibition from the collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. The exhibit will open February 8, 2012 at the Jane Bancroft Cook Library on the New College of Florida campus and close on March 30, 2012.

The exhibit focuses on how a series of book burnings, initiated by German university students on May 10, 1933, became a powerful symbol during World War II, prompting counter demonstrations in New York and other American cities. The books of many noted American writers - Ernest Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, Helen Keller, Jack London and others - were included in the burnings. Among the books targeted for destruction were the works of Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, who in 1822 penned the remarkably prophetic words, "Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too."

For more information, please contact Johnette Cappadona, Executive Director, New College Library Association at jcappadona@ncf.edu or 941-487-4600.

donate.ncf.edu/holocaustexhibit