New College: The First Three Decades

Furman “Brud” Arthur was the first employee of New College of Florida.

As the newly-founded and newly-named college began its life, the trustee executive committee sprang into life. Meeting at the chairman’s office in November [1960], the group engaged WDR as its fundraisers. They also hired Furman C. Arthur, a local newspaperman, as administrative assistant to the board and accepted an offer by Van Skike of the use of a small suite of offices in a downtown Sarasota office building owned by his family and the loan of some furniture by a local stationer. Now the embryonic college had a staff and a headquarters. [from the book]

Arthur eventually ran public relations for New College. After his retirement, the New College Foundation commissioned him to write a history of the college, which was published in 1995 as New College: The First Three Decades.

One might reasonably assume that a history commissioned by the college’s fundraising arm and written by its former PR guy would inevitably be a puff piece, but Brud, drawing on his background in journalism, proved an exceptionally adept historian. Unfortunately, his book went out of print some 20 years after its initial publication, and copies are now hard to find. That’s a shame, because it’s an indispensable resource for anyone interested in New College’s history (of which there are more these days, what with the place much in the news, for regrettable reasons).

My own interest in NCF’s history was rekindled some years back at a major reunion, where I bought my own copy of the book. To facilitate my research, I sheared off the book’s spine and scanned it to a PDF, making the text searchable.

Now, with the kind permission of his heirs, Robin Draper and Sam Arthur, I’m able to make that PDF edition of Brud’s book available to the general public. Thank you!

Thanks also to the efforts of Ginger Lyon NC’70 for providing the impetus for the project, and most especially to Caroline Chambliss NC’79, without whose diligence it would never have come to a successful conclusion. We are all grateful.

And here it is [46MB PDF]: New College: The First Three Decades

See also: Skating on Thin Ice