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Last Thursday, we received almost 50 e-mails from Novocollegians upset with our piece on the school for last week’s College Guide. Their letters show a wholly impressive passion for the place, a connection that clearly extends beyond campus — we got letters from as far away as London and San Francisco. These kids love their school. We’ll be posting a response to their concerns shortly (it’s up), but for now, here’s a sampling of our inbox. Many of these letters are addressed to Joel, who wrote the article, and none of them have been edited for anything but formatting and requests by the authors to remain anonymous.

Dear Mr. Rozen:
I found your article about New College to be near-enraging due to its shocking disrespect to both the school and its students. There’s a reason that we do not advertise our parties in the community: THEY ARE FOR STUDENTS ONLY. Your open invitation to the Sarasota area to some of the walls that we try to keep most private (Body Paint, anything with underwear in the title or theme) treats a party for students as an open brothel for the general population, where they can get “some action” or troll for “older peeps”. I cannot fathom the level of disrespect you have for New College students if you would sell us out like this. That you invite everyone and their drunk buddies to our events is distasteful at best, dangerous at worst. Harassment complaints at New College are at their highest when the number of non-students at a wall is highest.
You, my dear sir, are why we have the phrase “sketchy townie”, and it appears that, thanks in part to your endangerment of New College privacy, it will not be disappearing from our vocabulary any time soon.
Sincerely,
Scarlett Taylor

To whom it may concern,
In the last issue of Creative Loafing, New College was mentioned as a place to party, being placed on a list for “Parties to watch for.” New College, parties or no, is not a place for all of Sarasota to hang out. New College parties are for the students who live here, not for sketchy townies that create trouble and danger on our campus. Remember, New College students are paying tuition to learn and live here. Open invitations to anyone who wants to “party like they mean it” only infringe on the security of all New College students. This is our home and Creative Loafing and the rest of the Sarasota community need to respect that.
A sincerely worried student,
Melissa Fisher

Dear Lovely Editors of Creative Loafing,
I’m sure that this is not the first letter you’re receiving from the members of our student body regarding the profile that your site did on New College. Regardless, there’s something to be said about numbers, so I’ll offer my own perspective on what others must be telling you as well.
New College is for New College. Period. We occasionally bring our friends (as in, people whom we are comfortable being completely responsible for) to enjoy what our little oasis has to offer, but unfortunately that invitation does not extend to the entire Sarasota area. Our Walls are not there to provide outsiders with hook-up opportunities, be the goal people or substances. Our PCPs are security-laden events, where only ourselves and our designated (and wrist-banded) guests are permitted to be on campus. We want to enjoy ourselves, and that goal is hard to achieve with strangers wandering around everywhere. You refer to us as a “tight-knit bunch,” and that is completely true.
We earn what we enjoy. And while we do enjoy sharing our experiences with others, there are boundaries.
You might want to advise your readers (actual guests of New College students excluded) that the probable result of trying to crash one of our parties will be their removal from our campus. It’s quite easy to spot those who don’t belong. And we’re not shy about informing our RAs and campus police of trespassers in order to ensure the security of our campus and the safety of our friends.
While I thank you for taking an interest in our school, I kindly advise you to, in the future, not take it upon yourself to invite the entire coastal community to enjoy private parties.
Regards,
Anonymous

As long as I’ve gone to New College, I’ve felt lucky to be on a campus where I can walk back to my room alone at two o’clock on a Saturday night and not think twice about it. And I know why this is possible, why I don’t have to call the campus police for a ride or ask a friend to walk me, as too many of my female friends at major universities feel compelled to do: there is an immense level of cooperation and trust within the student body and between us and our police. We students have our community boundaries established and we respect those boundaries. Problems on campus are often related to outsiders coming in to our “debauchery-laden” parties and crossing those boundaries. Sexual harassment and rape are common problems on many campuses. They are not one on ours, and we would like to keep it that way. Advertising our parties and our campus as a good place for locals to get “a piece” was in bad taste and will hopefully not create a problem for us as the new semester starts.
Lauren White

Hey,
I read your article on “College” in the most recent issue of creative loafing and I have a problem with it in two accounts:
1. I am a New College student and I resent the fact that you represent New College’s parties as available hangouts for all of Sarasota’s residents. These are parties intended for New College students and guests that they invite. Palm Court is not equivalent to a club.
2. I really didn’t like the parts about how much post-college life sucks.
Thanks for listening.
Benjamin Praff

I’ve just read your latest edition. I am absolutely not pleased. It is completely, COMPLETELY unacceptable for you to ADVERTISE our HOME as some sort of party central for the area. Our walls are not public events. We can bring guests, yes, but random townies and people from other schools are not supposed to be here at all! We remove them from our campus! We have security at all walls, and that is what they are there for! Locals are NOT INVITED. These are New College events. You didn’t advertise the R.A. skit the other night, you didn’t invite them to our mini-classes or to participate in our dance tutorial or Pride club. These are SCHOOL events. By advertising us as a local hang-out spot, you have made the night-time campus seem a lot more dangerous. If people feel like they can come over whenever they want, they probably will! And we new college kids like to walk around at night, and wander off on our own, and it usually seems fine to do that. Our community is close knit and fraternal, and I have never felt unsafe on it. We protect each other. I don’t feel like I’m going to be bothered, touched, or raped when I go to our community gatherings, i.e. walls, but I do not have at ALL the same kind of comfortability with sketchy strangers from around town. Our body art wall is coming up, and it will be the first time I have attended one. I was a very shy first year. But our community is safe enough that I feel comfortable walking around wearing nothing but paint. That is NOT SO if there are people from the town there! They are not my friends, they are not my brothers and sisters, they are not the family that I eat, sleep, and learn amongst all year. They are STRANGERS, and many of them think that New College is a pretty convenient place to get booze and ass. Please, NEVER advertise us as some sort of community bacchanal. It would be even better if you could somehow revoke what you have said and try to repair the damage. Because of your thoughtlessness, I no longer feel safe on my own nighttime campus.
Enjoy the rest of your day, and tomorrow try to start acting like the rational, compassional, intelligent human beings I know you are.
Love,
M. Bailey

To Whom It May Concern,
I am appalled that Creative Loafing published in its magazine an open invitation for all and sundry to attend wall parties and palm court parties (often referred to as PCPs) at New College. In the first place, PCPs are invitation by NCF students only and require a wristband to attend. If one does not have a wristband there are multiple police officers and security guards on duty who will escort uninvited guests off of New College property and will use means to restrain these uninvited guests if necessary. Secondly, while wall parties are a common weekend event at New College, they are, for the most part, only for New College students, alums, and trusted New College guests. While there is not as much security at a wall party as at a PCP, there are police officers around who will take care of any problem that a New College student has with any non-student on campus. Walls rarely have fights or incidents of violence, but when they do happen, they are usually the result of non-NCF students who instigate them.
Before you advertise a wall party or PCP to an entire demographic, it would be wise to include the precautions that are taken place at such events.
Sincerely,
Rebah N. Solomon, New College 3rd Year

The article you wrote pertaining to New College is both offensive and of atrocious journalistic merit. I understand that Creative Loafing is of the neo-news breed, but at what point have journalistic integrity and accuracy become so blatantly ignored? Violations of privacy, perception, and truth litter this feeble summary that, instead, should have enlightened our community to the greatness of this institution. New College is an honors college, a leading producer of Fullbright Scholars, and ranked among the nation’s best schools. These points have all been ignored in this abhorrent piece of journalism (this requires using the term lightly). The SPJ Code of Ethics states: Seek Truth and Report It, Minimize Harm, and Be Accountable. Instead of following these principles, you have placed stereotypes upon our wonderfully diverse student body. You have degraded my home and my family. You have offended the students, faculty, administration, and lovers of New College. You have over-stepped your ethical boundaries and disgraced our community and the paper you represent. Everything your article represents goes against the values we cherish here at New College. If you do one decent thing in your career as a journalist, Be Accountable. Retract the erroneous statements made in the article and apologize to the students of New College.
Oh, and keep your paws off our parties.
—Zoe Kenney

Joel Rozen-
I was dismayed to read your article on New College in Creative Loafing. It lacked quality of any kind and miserably failed to capture the essence of NCF. I’m a third year straight-laced NCF student and will soon be an esteemed medical doctor. The education I’m getting here is top-notched. You should be ashamed of your uninformed and insulting article. You might possibly be writing about a handful of philosophy major first years, but the fact is, if you’re to succeed at NCF, you can’t party. These people that you speak of do not remain more than a year at New College. And advertising NCF as a hangout to pick up girls and party is the last thing we need because the Sarasotans that you’re attracting with your article are the same ones who occasionally get alcohol poisoning and overdose. Also the only rapes that have occurred on campus are between non-NCF students and New College students. The NCF students are the victims. There’s a certain level of trust that a small community like ours contains that outsiders cannot appreciate nor respect. Your article failed to help any respectable person.
Thanks for nothing,
Anonymous

Hey Joel,
Thanks for the publicity, yeah right. What a slap in the face. What kind of joke was that? Your reductive inconsiderate fetishistic trash should be fried up and served to you for breakfast. Thanks for nothing.
-Marcus Michelsen
PS: “*Walls:* Weekly weekend jams hosted by individual students and clubs — some are risqué (count yourself in for the skin-friendly “Body Art”), and some are, um, risqué (strip down to your skivvies for “Underwall”). Head over to the 2-foot brick miniature wall encircling Palm Court for a piece … of the action.”
This section particularly infuriates me. Who do you think you are, indiscriminately inviting all of Sarasota to come get laid at our school? That is seriously wrong! I cannot emphasize how sickened I am at such inconsiderate and depraved journalism that characterizes our students home as a sex-fest night club. Our school is not Sarasota’s private whore house, and it is not Cheetah either, get your facts straight, or stay away. Just because you can walk around in your undies in your living room and take dumps in your toilet, does not mean the whole town is invited to do the same thing. We live here, we do what we establish to be acceptable amongst ourselves, if you can’t treat our space with respect when you are a guest, stay out! What do you want, a bunch of New College girls raped because people come on our campus looking for sex? How naive are you? You think that hasn’t already happened? People on this campus are VULNERABLE!!! Apparently you forgot about that when you wrote about the school as if it were a public park or business that used sex to make money, and not a place where students live.

Hello Joel,
As a New College student who doesn’t neatly fit into one of the “cliques” that you created, I take serious offense to your article. New College is not a one dimensional entity that can be described in such simplistic terms. Instead, we are a multi dimensional group of people with varied interests and concerns. Your article did no justice to what our community is, and cast us in an extremely unfavorable light. In addition, you made public the details of our PRIVATE parties, as if New College existed solely for the enjoyment of the Sarasota/Bradenton community. Our body art wall is coming up soon, as and a woman who last year was made very uncomfortable by the non student presence at our last year’s body art wall, I shudder to think what will happen this year, now that you have provided all that information to any creep who wants it.
I could continue to elaborate all the myriad ways that you have offended and done a disservice to the New College community, but I have work to do…(it doesn’t involve getting drunk, passing judgement on others or smoking weed.) You owe the New College community an apology, as does Creative Loafing. You came on our campus, interviewed our students, printed pictures of them with your article, and were probably warmly welcomed by all. Instead of printing a factual, interesting article that tries to truly educate your readers about our unique community, you choose to go for sensationalism and rumors. New College and the greater Sarasota community deserve better than such substandard journalism.
— Amy Ortiz

I am writing this e-mail to express my dismay at an article about New College which was recently published in Sarasota’s Creative Loafing. Aside from completely misrepresenting New College, which I don’t honestly care about, you place the entire community at risk from unwanted guests attending student functions. Your public invitation to our parties is completely innapropriate. NOBODY at New College wants these strangers invading our campus. Nearly every problem we have had in regards to drug overdose, violence, vandalism, sexual harrasment, or even Rape have been related to non-New College people feeling entitled to “party” on our campus. Your article furthers my belief that students need to reclaim their space. In order to deal with your invitation, we will be trespassing any non-students or uninvited guests onto our campus. They can complain to you about their criminal record.
Casey Schelhorn

Hey,
I read your article on “College” in the most recent issue of creative loafing and I have a problem with it in two accounts:
1. I am a New College student and I resent the fact that you represent New College’s parties as available hangouts for all of Sarasota’s residents. These are parties intended for New College students and guests that they invite. Palm Court is not equivalent to a club.
2. I really didn’t like the parts about how much post-college life sucks.
Thanks for listening.
Benjamin Praff

Dear Joel,
As a fourth-year New College student, I was very disappointed by the article you ran about our school. Our Walls are not open to the public; they are a space for the hard-working students of New College ONLY to de-stress, have fun, and be a community that otherwise spends much of their week reading, writing, and researching. The article implied that Walls are available to the Sarasota community to find find naked, writhing bodies waiting for non-Novo Collegians to join in the fun. This simply is not the case. Don’t advertise for us: we don’t want that kind of publicity. We are much, much more than a party school.
Teagan Keating

Hi Joel,
I understand you were the author of this highly offensive and inappropriate article which grossly misrepresented our college, campus, home, parties, and environment in general. I am very, very concerned about the attention your article will draw to our campus and our private parties which are NOT for the community, but for the students and residents of New College alone. As a concerned student and Resident Advisor here at New College, I ask that you publish some sort of an apology or addendum to right some of the wrongs we, the students of New College, feel were committed erroneously in your article. The [mis]information you provided in your article could greatly harm our safety and security and frankly, I resent that. Please take these words to heart; we were deeply offended by your article.
Thanks,
Annemarie Roberts

I read the article, and as I’m sure you’re about to get plenty more emails from New College students. I like the people in Sarasota, I have friends. But I also live on this campus, and you’re article basically invites anyone to come here. I am not saying that New College is not welcoming and that we do not want anything to do with the community, however we would appreciate it if you did not say that anyone can visit when we have a strict policy, especially around PCP’s, that only those invited by students are allowed to attend. I think some type of retraction should be printed, simply because that is the responsible thing to do, considering your paper failed miserably about doing research about our policy on visitors. It’s almost comical how poorly the article describes New College.
Sincerely,
Alton LaBrecque

Hi Joel
I graduated from New College last May and have since relocated to San Francisco, but (for a variety of reasons and with several very different tones of commentary from my friends) I have been sent your college guide by multiple people. I’m confused about who you spoke to who would encourage non-New College students to attend walls, PCPS, and particularly the intimate and private themed parties you mentioned. Maybe the school is suddenly less insular than it was last year (highly doubtful since they just started classes this week and haven’t had time to develop a new, gregarious collective attitude). I did really appreciate the inclusion of Professor Schatz on your list of Top 5 Professors, as he is one of the most capable, kind and excellent instructors I’ve encountered. Next time you might focus on the student-led initiatives for New Urbanism in Sarasota, or for GLBTQ language in New College governing documents, or memorial mango groves planted in honor of deceased fellow-students. Last year around this time, Creative Loafing mentioned the Four Winds Cafe and the Giant Chess Board, but this year my alma mater sounds like more of a party school than I recall it being just four months ago. The mixed reaction I’ve been privy to makes perfect sense to me — in that vein, I want to thank you for the coverage of New College, but also with the caveat that you seem to be directing potential creeps to an open campus which certainly won’t appreciate them.
- Gwendolyn Roberts

Hi there,
I just wanted to let you know that New College parties are NOT open to the general public. There have been way too many problems from non-New College people (aka “Townies”) attending the parties for them to have remained open to non-students. Though we here at New College love and embrace our Sarasota and Bradenton people, regardless of student status, we have had to hire security to police the non-students that try to crash parties. New College students respect the campus because we live there. It’s understandable that outsiders don’t always understand that we must take care of the place because it’s ours. It’s a shame that the parties can’t be attended by everyone in the community, but a few bad apples have ruined it for everyone.
Just to get the record straight, “Townies” are welcome, but they must be invited and always chaperoned by a current student of New College. If they are found partying without one, they will be immediately booted off the campus, and a trespassing citation will be given.
Thank you,
Melanie Malefyt, current 3rd year at New College

Dear whomever this may concern:
I feel very uncomfortable that any means of publication is advertising my backyard (literally) as a place to go party and “grab a piece of the action.” I live a dorm that incompasses Palm Court, where the walls
happen and the fact that non-students are roaming about the campus after decent hours is frightening.
The walls are made possible by students, for students, and with the host’s money. The walls are NOT public grounds for parties, especially for strangers and students who are not enrolled in NEW COLLEGE.
Please uninvite the people you have invited into our home because they are not welcome.
Anonymous

Dear Mr. Rozen,
Based on your article, “From High Times to U.S. News: Your Guide To: New College,” I am curious as to where you received instruction in journalism. My limited understanding of journalism has been that journalists strive for truth in an effort to better inform the public of their surroundings. Your naïve, juvenile article was insulting and nothing more than a piece of sensationalist writing that anyone with a grasp of the written word could have thrown together. New College prides itself on its standards for academics and individual integrity. I am only beginning my second year here, but I am more than comfortable asserting that as New College is my home, so are the students a part of family. I do not take kindly to insular thinking reducing my home to a group of cliques, which are not recognized as such by New College students, and parties, which are not central to our philosophy in learning for individual growth in order to perpetuate community growth. I would hope that you have the decency to retract your invitation to the greater area of Sarasota to party on our campus, as the majority of problems the campus experiences with breaches of safety involve uninvited individuals who are not affiliated with New College in any manner. Furthermore, you should apologize to the New College community for reducing us to such a negative and constrictive definition.
Sincerely,
Kaitlyn Collins

Yo Joel Rozen. That article you wrote in Creative loafing was pretty much an advertisement for non-students to come to our school and party. Perhaps you like it when strangers come to your home, get drunk, hit on your friends, and vandalise your property, but most students here don’t.
Just to let you know.
Anonymous

Dear Mr. Rozen,
As an RA at New College, it is my duty to let people know when they are doing something that is detrimental to our college. Normally, I only carry out that duty when it is a resident, otherwise, the campus police would deal with that person.
However, you are neither a resident, nor are you on campus causing problems, instead, you are an outside force that has issued a statement to the general public declaring our currently safe campus to be a hot spot for parties.
I have no way to convey to you the ill you have possibly done to my school by publishing this article. I have no knowledge of your moral fortitude or how you hold yourself responsible for an article such as this one. All I can say is that I am responsible, not for your articles, but for my residents, and your article will attract unwelcome guests. Guests who may treat my fellow students in a horrible way. I honestly am afraid of what could happen.
I don’t think that anyone who does not attend my school is evil or anything like that. I do believe however that our community, while not isolated in the geographical sense, but is isolated in an idealogical sense about the community we build with our peers, or so the world at large often leads us to believe by the actions fellow humans take against one another, of most concern are rape, assault, and murder. Our small student body remains almost completely unblemished in these respects, and we believe that is the only way the community we have built can continue in it’s current direction.
There may be no response to the things I have written to you, what is printed and read is as good as fact to many.
—Raymond Roberts

The article posted about New College pretty much made a honors college that is known for its academic achievements sound like a place to score drugs. It seemed to look over the fact that this school is one of the hardest in Florida. Not to mention the fact that every person that graduates from this college must write a thesis and defend it in front of at least three professors ALL OF WHICH HAVE AT LEAST A DOCTORATE DEGREE, because unlike most colleges this school requires each teacher to have a doctorates degree and requires them to do research. This article also fails to mention that this is one of the few colleges that has less than 20 people in each class so that each student can actually be held responsible for learning and mastering the material unlike big universities where people attend a lecture class of over a hundred students and only learns enough to pass test and pretty much just recite back what is said to them with out engaging in any original thought. this article also encouraged people who are looking for drugs to come to our campus and come to parties that are meant to be only for students at New College. It is unfortunate that this article was written with such little knowledge on the topic it was addressing, how stupid of you.
—Jessica Burgan

Dear Mr. Rozen,
I have just read your “Guide to New College” in Creative Loafing. For the most part, your article was harmless and maybe even on the corny side of humorous, but I am concerned about the section called “Parties to watch for.” You have invited all of Sarasota to what are intended to be– essentially– private New College events. The Walls, and especially those you specifically mentioned (the Underwall and the Body-Art Wall) exist only because of the unique sense of community among the New College “family.” Perhaps it is naive to expect a secure environment when our campus is in the midst of an urban area– however, I believe you have put our safetly and security at risk by so publically and casually writing about these parties. The tone of the article seems to suggest that New College parties are a good place to get a date or find someone to have sex with. Moreover, you have also clarified the timing of the three Palm Court Parties each year. As a fourth year student at New College, I have seen the security at these parties dramitically increase each year. The “students and New College family-only” policy for these parties is strictly enforced (with numerous security checkpoints, etc), and only a few authorized visitors are allowed. We are trying protect the members of the New College community, not to specifically exclude the greater Sarasota community, and your article has seriously undermined these efforts.
It may be said that “any publicity is good publicity,” and I can agree with that statement for most of your article. Thank you for including New College in Creative Loafing, but please, next time remember that such flippant comments as “Head over to the 2-foot brick miniature wall encircling Palm Court for a piece … of the action” could put New College students in danger.
Sincerely,
Rachel Renne

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