{"id":159975,"date":"2026-02-18T16:12:43","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/159975\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T16:12:43","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:12:43","slug":"proposed-bill-means-new-college-could-claim-usf-sarasota-manatee-campus-the-crows-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/159975\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposed bill means New College could claim USF Sarasota-Manatee campus\u00a0 \u2013 The Crow’s Nest"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, the University of South Florida\u2019s BOT chair, Will Weatherford, announced in a university-wide email that the Florida House of Representatives officially proposed a bill to transfer the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College of Florida, including all its assets, facilities and debts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo by Kendall Bulkiewicz | The Crow\u2019s Nest<\/p>\n

By Jasmin Parrado\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week, the Florida House of Representatives officially proposed a bill that, if approved by the House and Senate, could transfer the University of South Florida\u2019s Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College of Florida.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The proposal was announced in a university-wide email on Feb. 16 from Will Weatherford, chair of USF Board of Trustees.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bill\u2019s approval would mean the campus\u2019 facilities \u2014 and debts \u2014 would become New College property. This includes its first residence hall \u2014 known as Atala Hall, which opened in August 2024 \u2014 as well as the $53 million debt the university incurred from financing the hall\u2019s construction.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The conversation of the campus\u2019 transfer isn\u2019t new. Talks of the proposal recently reignited after state legislators shelved the matter last Fall and Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 2026-27 proposed fiscal budget made headway in the university community\u2019s discourse this year about the state\u2019s agenda regarding postsecondary education.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But as far back as May of last year, internal email communications<\/a> between USF leaders were disclosed and circulated, revealing a draft for a bill that would transfer the campus to New College.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Weatherford\u2019s statement, USF and New College leadership facilitated discussions about the transfer for an extensive period of time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is clear from those conversations that New College\u2019s growth and finding space for New College\u2019s expansion are priorities for the state,\u201d Weatherford said in the email.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The proposal sparked community concerns about DeSantis\u2019 underlying agenda to expand on a sociopolitical transition to a conservative reimagining of New College, which is the smallest postsecondary institution in the state.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In December of last year, DeSantis appointed<\/a> sportscaster and former Ohio State football head coach Urban Meyer, who is known to have associations with conservative public officials at the state and national level, to New College\u2019s Board of Trustees.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

DeSantis also reappointed Debra Jenks, board chair and attorney who has publicly endorsed the appointment of other officials supported by DeSantis, and Mark Bauerlein, editor for Conservative Catholic magazine First Things.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the USF Board of Trustees meeting on Dec. 11 last year which addressed the proposal, Weatherford stated that the discussion is a matter of policy that the board cannot \u201cdictate or control.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we do control as a university is how we treat and protect our students, our faculty and our staff,\u201d Weatherford said during the meeting. \u201cRegardless of what happens, I want everyone to know \u2014 and I want it to be heard loud and clear \u2014 that for our students, whatever commitments we made to them we will fulfill.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\t\t Post Views: 38 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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Written by: Jasmin Parrado<\/a> on February 18, 2026.
Last revised by: Julia Ferrara<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Monday, the University of South Florida\u2019s BOT chair, Will Weatherford, announced in a university-wide email that the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-159975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}