New College of Florida board approves $200k bonus for Corcoran, denies tenure to professor

New College of Florida's board of trustees voted Thursday to approve tenure for six professors, deny tenure to one professor, and approve a $200,000 bonus for President Richard Corcoran as part of his yearly evaluation.

The annual bonus, as laid out in Corcoran's contract with New College, is based on his performance since taking over as the college's leader last March. The additional pay is in addition to his $699,000 base salary, which combined with other benefits and bonuses brings Corcoran's total compensation to about $1.1 million — among the highest in the state university system despite New College being the smallest Florida public university.

Corcoran's evaluation was based on eight performance goals, which the committee determined Corcoran met or made adequate progress toward. The goals included: increasing fundraising for New College, increasing campus life inclusive of improvements to student housing, food services, adding sports, re-envision the campus master plan, increasing campus safety and security, faculty additions with growth and excellence, increasing enrollment growing to 1,200 by end of year five, enrich academic programs and offerings, and increase second-year retention metric growing to 85% by year five.

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"President Corcoran has brought in $50 million in appropriations," said Trustee Matthew Spalding. "My assumption is that previous presidents also received bonuses. This seems to be a bonus that was actually earned."

The vote was near-unanimous, with only one "no" vote from faculty Trustee Amy Reid.

Denying tenure

The board also voted on tenure for seven tenure-track professors, approving all but one. Professors Rebecca Black, Lin Jiang, Nassima Neggaz, Tania Roy, Athena Rycyck, Gerardo Toro-Farmer and Hugo Viera-Vargas were all up for a tenure vote at Thursday's meeting, but Viera-Vargas was denied at the recommendation of Corcoran despite public outcry for the board to approve his tenure.

"Denying him tenure would be a mistake for a campus with an actively understaffed music department and an expanding body of Latin American students," said Andy Trihn, a third-year computer science student at New College, during public comment.

Tenure-track faculty endure a rigorous tenure process with letters of recommendation, committee reviews and evaluations. The board's tenure committee recommended each of the seven tenure candidates be approved for tenure. However, Corcoran provided the board with a recommendation to deny Viera-Vargas based on missing certain qualitative metrics.

Viera-Vargas, an assistant professor of Caribbean/Latin American studies and music, was previously denied tenure at an April meeting last year along with four other professors up for early tenure. He was notably a plaintiff in a lawsuit against SB266, a sweeping higher education bill from Gov. Ron DeSantis which also removed arbitration in university employment disputes.

Several public commenters said denying Viera-Vargas tenure amounts to retaliation from the administration against a faculty member for being a plaintiff in a lawsuit involving New College of Florida. Now denied tenure, Viera-Vargas' future at the college stands in question as universities don't generally renew contracts with faculty it denies tenure to, according to the faculty union.

Before the vote, Reid asked the board members to weigh the significance of their vote and the message it sends to the faculty. She also says the numbers that the president used to evaluate Viera-Vargas were faulty, and the board should consider qualitative factors as well.

"His numbers are higher, closer in line with averages than you may think," Reid said. "The quality of his teaching is exceptionally high, and he also brings wonderful performances to our campus."

Corcoran rebutted Reid, pointing to Viera-Vargas' shortfall in quantitative metrics as laid out in his memo to the tenure committee. In his memo, Corcoran said Viera-Vargas had "only sponsored a total of 29 contracts (average of 5.8 per year), 9 tutorials (average of 1.8 per year), 3 theses (average of 0.6 per year), and served on 15 baccalaureate committees (average of 3 per year)," which he said did not meet the bar for tenure.

Viera-Vargas was not at the meeting, nor did he attend a union press conference afterward.

In a statement following the meeting, the New College Chapter of United Faculty of Florida denounced the board's decision, stating that it "undermined the meritocratic process" and was based on "weak and unprecedented rationales."

"This decision creates an environment of fear for both junior and senior faculty who may perceive this act as a threat by the administration that no faculty members are safe," the statement read.

Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at sbwalker@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: New College of Florida board approves bonus for Corcoran, denies tenure