South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
New College of Florida president Corcoran gets $200K bonus after first year to make close to $1M
New College of Florida President Richard Corcoran, who spearheaded a controversial remaking of the Sarasota school over the last year, received a $200,000 bonus Thursday from a majority of trustees who said he had met the goals they set for him.
The money adds to Corcoran’s base salary of
$699,000, a sum that made him one of the state’s highest paid university presidents when it was awarded last year.
A former speaker of the Florida House who also served as state education commissioner, Corcoran,
59, was hired as interim president in January 2023 and elevated to the permanent position in October.
He was tapped for the job by a board of trustees with six new members appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The school of fewer than 800 students situated on Sarasota Bay soon became the centerpiece of the governor’s effort to remove what he called “woke” influences from Florida’s public universities.
The trustees evaluated Corcoran on eight metrics.
According to a document outlining his goals and accomplishments, he secured about $50 million in state funding for the next fiscal year, raised $400,000 at a clam bake benefiting the New College Foundation, increased the foundation’s funding and cut its overhead costs by $3 million annually.
The document also credited him with improving campus life by addressing maintenance issues, initiating the school’s entry to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, hosting two public policy debates and improving food options for students.
Other accomplishments listed include “re-envisioning the campus master plan” and “improving campus safety and security.” In the category of “faculty additions with growth and excellence,” Corcoran is credited with hiring a director of faculty recruitment, establishing a recruitment and retention bonus structure for existing and new faculty and “negotiating the largest cost of living adjustment in New College’s history.”
Those developments occurred in a year when New College lost 36 faculty members going into the first fall semester under Corcoran, a number the provost called “ridiculously high” for a school with less than 100 full-time teachers.
Toward the goal of increasing enrollment, Corcoran’s evaluation states he helped welcome a “record-breaking incoming class in fall 2023 with a total of 325 total new students.” It credits him with increasing diversity, including a 300% increase in Black students and 100% increase in Hispanic students.
The evaluation states he also increased scholarships and enriched academic offerings, in part by joining with Ricketts Great Books College to offer an online version of the New College liberal arts degree.
The document says he eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion “bureaucracy, far ahead of the rest of the universities around the state and country that are now taking similar action” as well as the gender studies area of concentration.