On October 25th, Valencia College faculty received a concerning email from college president, Dr. Kathleen Plinkse, stating the New Student Experience (SLS 2940) and Social Problems (SYG 2010) courses were to be promptly removed from the school’s general education curriculum.
New Student Experience, a class that has seen enrollment of over 10,000 students in this fall semester alone, is currently included in the school’s general education requirements. The course helps students through their collegiate experience by highlighting financial and academic resources, instructing on setting personal and professional goals and assisting in planning degree pathways.
However, those courses have now come under scrutiny as a result of Senate Bill 266 (SB 266) passed by the Florida legislature in 2023.
SB 266 is an inherently out-of-touch attempt to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion from higher education and instead prioritizes a “neoclassical education focused on Western European civilizations.” The bill seeks to regulate public college spending and punish institutions who offer gender and racial studies.
The bill is a part of a larger effort from Gov. Ron DeSantis and other conservatives, including recently appointed New College of Florida Board of Trustee member, Christopher Rufo (a former visiting fellow at the conservative, Heritage Foundation, and vocal opponent of DEI), to remove “woke” ideas from Florida colleges.
SB 266 and other restrictive education bills and their effects have been felt throughout Florida’s public education at various levels including K-12 education. House Bill 1557 for example, infamously referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay Law”, prohibits the full teaching of Advanced Placement Psychology, due to its explorations of human sexuality and gender. This places additional financial burdens on high school students by taking away the chance to reduce potential tuition costs through earning college credit in high school via AP exams – in this case the AP Psychology exam.
Gainesville’s Santa Fe College, an institution in the same system as Valencia, has similarly removed over 50 courses from their general education offerings with even more under review according to article out in November from reporter Timothy Wang of The Independent Florida Alligator.
In the case of Valencia, New Student Experience and Social Problems combined (including honors variations of the courses) held over 20,000 seats for students at Valencia. With the removal of these courses from the general education curriculum, seats in these classes are expected to drop significantly.
“At any other institution, you might imagine students can just take other courses. One of the challenges that is unique to Valencia is that we are experiencing our highest enrollment ever. Overall, if you look at all of our courses, in all modalities, our fill rate is 89%. There are no other seats for students to move into,” Dr. Kathleen Plinske shared during the November 18 Board of Trustee meeting.
However, this is not the only challenge facing Valencia. Many courses throughout the institution are taught by part-time faculty, many of whom have worked at the college for years. New Student Experience in particular, is uniquely staffed by over 80% part-time faculty.
Valencia’s Faculty Association President, Chris Borglum, shared the concerning reality of the situation regarding the future of faculty who teach New Student Experience.
“I was heartbroken that about 18 of my colleagues, many of whom are personal friends, are not going to be able to continue their careers at Valencia because there’s not going to be SLS offered, so we can’t continue their contracts. I don’t know that we gave enough attention to the human cost of this,” Borglum explained.
Despite collaborative work by faculty and administration last spring to review courses potentially in the line of fire from the state as a result of SB 266, New Student Experience (SLS2940) and Social Problems (SYS2010) were both approved by the Board of Trustees, and then ultimately rejected by the state on October 18. As a result, Valencia College has had to hustle to complete an overhaul of the school’s general education courses within a short three-week deadline.
To offer new seats in the Fall 2025 semester and continuing forward, Valencia has now conditionally approved new course offerings including multiple foreign language and introductory courses in business, film, and microeconomics to make up for the loss of New Student Experience and Social Problems. Some of these courses continuing forward would be used to satisfy Gordon Rule writing requirements for students.
However, many of these courses come at the expense of faculty who could now see larger class sizes and for students, many of whom value Valencia’s small class sizes and diverse modality offerings.
Going forward, it is hard to imagine that Florida and its leaders have the best interest of students and educators at the center of policy. It is no exaggeration to believe that politicians like Gov. DeSantis and their ideological war with academic institutions threatens academic freedom.
And on a national level, with President-Elect Trump’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education and his recent pick of retired wrestling performer and founder of sports entertainment company Titan Sports, Inc., Linda McMahon (with notably zero experience in a classroom setting) to lead that cabinet spot, the future of public education in America is concernedly uncertain at the expense of students and educators.
