New College Independent Alumni/ae Association

This seems like a good time to pay respects to former faculty who set a good example for their students and advisees. For myself, three stand out: Robert Chrisman, Carol Silverman, and Ani Mander. There are, of course, others, but these three were the ones who went out of their way to help me. Dr. Chrisman, editor of The Black Scholar magazine, was my assigned advisor when I first arrived at the school. He asked me what I proposed to do with my time there, and when I told him I wanted to develop a curriculum for applied research, he convinced Dr. Silverman, Director of Research at the USF College of Professional Studies, to add me to her list of advisees. Carol Silverman guided me in my academic development with such care and thoughtfulness, that the work I was able to produce garnered national attention. Ani Mander, who passed away before I could get to know her well, took the trouble to remind me of the value and worth of philosophers, of which she expressly included myself.

As I look back on my two years there, these three, and my library work-study supervisor Karen Prescher, enabled me to take advantage of that window of opportunity to make the most of the lessons I had learned from a decade of intensive civic involvement. Lessons, thanks in part to them all, that I was in turn able to pass on.

What is done with those lessons becomes part of the legacy of the people who represented what was best about the school.

New College of California is now history. For documentation of the school’s demise, see Stop Systems of Silence in the sidebar.

Would any other students like to file a class action lawsuit against the school for their egregious misconduct of funds and being a mockery of higher education, in turn losing their accreditation? Would any other alumnae/students affected by New College’s mismanagement like to file a class action lawsuit with me?

As reported previously, KPFA ran a fund raiser for New College on the air back in March.  A website run by New College board members and hangers-on used the link to the streaming radio show to raise additional funds.  After receiving many complaints from outraged members of the public, KPFA responded appropriately.  Recently, we had a brief conversation with a KPFA board member in Berkeley.

According to KPFA board member PhoeBe ANNE (sorgen), KPFA has strict rules regarding raising funds on the air.  Francisco Herrera, the host of “La Onda Bajita”, did not have permission to raise funds for New College.  He was punished by being removed from the air for a week (”La Onda Bajita” airs weekly).  Supporters of the show were outraged and felt that the host’s free speech rights were violated.  PhoeBe assures us that KPFA takes financial guidelines very seriously.