A student’s window before and after the housing policy change. Photo by Naomi Nerlien.
During the end of the Fall 2024 semester and into Spring 2025, mounting discontent grew between students and the New College Housing department in response to repeated and unexpected changes in housing assignments and policy.
On Dec. 12, 2024, two days before campus-wide, routine room checks by New College housing staff began and students would be obligated to officially vacate campus for winter break, students were made aware of an update in housing policy through an email from Associate Director of Housing Carley Cruz.
The policy regarding windows especially stuck out to students:
“Windows and balconies may only be used as a means to enter and exit the building in an emergency situation. Posting, hanging or displaying materials in or around residence hall windows and balconies, or on NCF window coverings, is not permitted. This includes items such as bottles, cans, plants, posters, flags, banners, signs, paint, lights, “post-its,” or any other objects that block access to or obstruct the view through windows or window coverings.”
This policy change came hot on the heels of other sudden housing changes, such as the administration’s rapid, seemingly indiscriminate removal of furniture in dorm lounges, tighter restrictions on which students can stay on campus during ISP and, following the damage from Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, the further shuffling of students to and from portable housing units students have nicknamed “Banyan boxes.”
According to page six of the New College 2024 Housing Contract that student residents are required to sign prior to living on campus, “The College reserves the right to make additional rules and regulations, and/or to modify existing rules and regulations. Student residents will be subject to the new or modified rules and regulations as adopted.”
In January, ongoing tensions were reflected by students who spoke with Old School Catalyst staff writer Alexandra Levy.
“My impression of it is that we’re in an era of political absurdity where if you can stun your opponent into confusion, you win,” thesis student Orion Martins said. “I think there’s probably a subset of students who are talking about it, which is a lot smaller than most students who are here to be college students, not to participate in America’s political battleground. I think that it is a microcosm of the country and the world.”
Martins attributed the change in policy to college tours and how the administration might be uncomfortable with prospective students being influenced by “anti-takeover” posters.
“It seems that the people in charge are very interested in their image and curating it in a way that is definitely not a natural, wild aesthetic,” Martins continued. “They’re not looking for unpredictable views on college tours. And I think that’s probably because they’re trying to attract conformists to the school, and it’s very hard to create an attractive school for high-performing social conformists.”
Second-year Joey Willett wrote messages on their window in expo marker to counteract the new policy.
“I already had an ‘Abortion is Healthcare’ poster up,” Willet said in an interview with Levy. “They want me to take it down, I’ll write it bigger in my window.”
Willet explained how frustrating the new policy is because they feel that it clearly violates the privacy of students. When blinds break or do not function properly, students need curtains, flags or posters to prevent people from looking into their bedrooms.
Willett emailed Cruz about specifications of the new policy and said they received an unclear response.
“I have furniture in front of my window that [this policy states] is a fire violation and she was not specific enough about it,” Willet elaborated. “This is a ridiculous policy and if you really care about fire safety, you would say ‘don’t put furniture in front of your windows.’”
New College has a long standing tradition of decorating the balconies of the Dort and Goldstein dormitories. According to a 2023 Catalyst article, upperclassmen living in Dort and Gold “would hang flags representing any and all types of affinities ranging from countries of origin, Dungeon and Dragons (DnD) guilds, pride flags, favorite sports teams and memes.” Beginning in the fall of 2023, Dort and Gold have been occupied primarily by first-year student athletes unaware of the tradition and the balconies have remained empty since.
“The administration is seeking to limit any student expression in these on-campus spaces,” second-year Ellary Combs told Levy. “Beginning with the removal of expressionistic stickers on the student mailboxes, to the erasure of the Gender and Diversity Center, this is just another attempt to limit students’ expression and suffocate the existing culture of the school itself.”
New College removed hundreds of stickers from student mailboxes by the start of the 2024 Fall semester and placed a large sign warning that it is prohibited to place stickers on mailboxes in Hamilton “Ham” Center, which had not been a problem on campus historically.
First-year transfer student Jasmine Myers told Levy that she and eight other students had emailed Cruz about the change in policy. She described Cruz’s responses as vague.
“[The administration is] taking away so much of what makes up New College, which is a liberal arts college, so it’s going to be unique,” Myers said. “And this is starting to look like a community college. My last community college had more student expression than this college currently does.”
“It is important that we find novel ways to express ourselves when our free speech is encroached upon!” Martins wrote in a January message on the student email forum. “Break your habits, do things for the community, talk to strangers, ask questions and absolutely fear nobody, we’re in this together.”
Dissidence and Coincidence in February
Tensions on campus continued to mount into the spring semester concerning the sudden changes in housing policies, often coming without any substantive student input. On Feb. 21, campus police officers began questioning students at their dorms about an incident that happened during the campus’ Valentine’s Day Center of the Universe Party (COUP) the previous weekend.
Second-year Ash Guldi, second-year Old School Catalyst reporter Alex Levy and thesis student Beaux Delaune told Old School Catalyst about being questioned by the police.
“It was like 8:30 [A.M.],” Guldi began. “I heard the knock, and thought, I must just be groggy. . . [Eventually] I went to answer the door and peeked my head out and there was a cop standing there.
“I waited for [the officer] to be, like, oh sorry, wrong room, but then he said, ‘Are you Ash Guldi?’ And I said ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Can I talk to you for a minute?’ . . . I stepped out into the hallway, and he said, ‘I just wanted to ask you about the window being broken at COUP.’”
Guldi explained that they had been in Palm Beach for a wedding during the night of COUP. They had heard about a window being broken, but not which window. The officer told Guldi to bring their other roommate, Levy, to talk about the incident.
“He said, ‘Have you heard about a brick getting thrown through [Housing Area Director] Kyle Davis’ window at COUP?’” Levy recalled. “My jaw was on the floor.”
On Feb. 15, the window to Davis’ room—located in the Gold dormitory—was broken after allegedly being smashed with a brick. Information about this incident had not been posted by campus police prior to publication, and they did not respond to Old School Catalyst’s email request for details about the investigation.
Delaune’s questioning occurred about an hour before Guldi’s encounter with the officers.
“My roommate knocked on my door and woke me up to tell me that the cops were there for me,” Delaune said. “I rushed to get dressed since it was about 7:30 [A.M.]. . . He basically just asked if I did it. It was kind of accusatory, he just asked, ‘Did you do it? It’s alright, if you did it, but we just want to know. To have a conversation.’”
Delaune had voiced discontent with the policy changes weeks earlier.
“He said something like, ‘I understand, you wrote a strongly worded email to housing and were upset about the window policy.’ Which was something that I did do. He said I made good points in my email. He didn’t explicitly state why he asked me anything, but he did kind of insinuate that because I had sent the email to housing that I was upset [and so] I was a suspect.”
It is unclear what the common thread among students questioned may have been. However, Guldi explained that the officers referred to a list of students to be questioned about the incident. Guldi, Delaune and Levy all said that campus officers requested them by name, and that other roommates were not questioned.
“[The officer] said, ‘We’re just going door-to-door, finding out who was at COUP and if anyone has information,’” Levy recalled. “I was, like, ‘Oh, how many people are you asking?’ He was like, ‘We have a list about 40 people.’”
Four days after students were questioned, students saw Davis and Housing Area Coordinator Nicole Shakespear checking from dorm to dorm and taking photos of students’ windows.
Students began receiving warning letters giving notice of possible upper-level disciplinary action and to take down what was in their windows within 48 hours.
“I was being threatened with a housing conduct hearing after being talked to by a cop . . . it felt serious.” explained Delaune, who received a letter from the Dean of Students and Vice President of Student Affairs four days after their questioning.
“I just kind of felt offended that the school cared so much to police what students were putting in their window, even if it was something as small as a sticky note. . . I was confused because this was so unprecedented for New College.”
The New College Student Conduct Process page clarifies, “Upper Level Hearings are conducted by a Judicial Coordinator. These hearings are for high-level violations such as drugs, alcohol, misuse of property, etc. What qualifies as a high-level violation is at the discretion of the Judicial Coordinator.”
Delaune emphasized frustration with the tone of the letter they received.
“It felt weird to be threatened with something as serious as an upper-level conduct hearing for having a poster in my window that had a picture of my dog and a newspaper clipping . . . an upper conduct hearing is the same sort of conduct hearing [students] who sexually harass people [on campus] have. It just seems like an extreme reaction.”
As of publication, there has been no public resolution to the case.
