Mission
The mission of New College is to offer an undergraduate liberal arts education of the highest quality in the context of a small, residential public honors college with a distinctive academic program which develops the student's intellectual and personal potential as fully as possible; encourages the discovery of new knowledge and values while providing opportunities to acquire established knowledge and values; and fosters the individual's effective relationship with society.
Principles Guiding our Mission
As a member of the State University System of Florida, New College of Florida, the four-year residential liberal arts honors college of the State of Florida, preserves its distinctive mission as a residential liberal arts honors college. To maintain this mission, New College of Florida has the following goals:
- To provide a quality education to students of high ability who, because of their ability, deserve a program of study that is both demanding and stimulating.
- To engage in undergraduate educational reform by combining educational innovation with educational excellence.
- To provide programs of study that allow students to design their educational experience as much as possible in accordance with their individual interests, values and abilities.
- To challenge undergraduates not only to master existing bodies of knowledge but also to extend the frontiers of knowledge through original research.
New College pursues these goals through highly selective admissions, an individualized and intensive "academic contract" curriculum, frequent use of individual and small-group instruction, an emphasis on student/faculty collaboration, a required senior thesis and innovative approaches to the modes of teaching and learning.
In particular, the College since its inception has subscribed to and attempted to foster the following principles:
- Each student is responsible in the last analysis for his or her education.
- The best education demands a joint search for learning by exciting instructors and able students.
- Students' progress should be based on demonstrated competence and real mastery rather than on the accumulation of credits and grades.
- Students should have from the outset opportunities to explore areas of deep interest to them.
The mission and goals of New College evolved out of intensive dialogue about higher education at the College's inception, involving administration, trustees and the charter faculty. Subsequently, the faculty developed a unique curriculum that enabled it to realize the four principles that appear above and to sustain the College's broad commitment to individualism, pluralism, flexibility, freedom and excellence.
