Adding Light Where There’s Heat: A Discussion with Mary Ruiz of AltLiberalArts
AltLiberalArts board member Mary Ruiz.
Recently, I talked with Mary Ruiz about her work with AltLiberalArts, the nonprofit education initiative that offers alternative and online learning programs to fill the gaps created by current government bans and censorship in higher education institutions in the US. Besides being an AltLiberalArts board member, Ruiz is also the former chair of the Board of Trustees of New College of Florida, the public liberal arts college that underwent a conservative takeover in 2023 when Governor Ron DeSantis replaced many of its board of trustees with right-wing activists. The new board majority went on to fire the college’s president and dismantle its DEI initiative and gender studies program. Those drastic changes led to the departure of 40% of New College faculty members and approximately 25% of its students. In response, in 2023, Ruiz and a group of scholars and community leaders assembled AltLiberalArts and began offering free lectures, workshops, and courses focused on academic freedom, student activism, and civic engagement. Since its formation, AltLiberalArts has offered a number of popular online discussions with high-level thought leaders, such as Judith Butler, Masha Gessen, and Maya Wiley.
Following is an edited transcript of the discussion with Ruiz, who shared insights about Alt Liberal Arts’ last two years, what’s coming up, and the important role the initiative is playing in the pitched struggle for academic freedom in the US. To note, Ruiz has no relationship with New College of Florida and speaks only from her own experience as a student, alumna, and past board member of the college.
TR: Can you tell me about the general mission of AltLiberalArts?
MR: We are interested in academic subjects that have been marginalized, such as gender studies and race history and the intersection of science and politics. Those subjects are under siege and we’re also very concerned with civic engagement and academic freedom, because all will be marginalized if we're not careful. The history of how AltLiberalArts came to be is very similar in some respects to Central European University in Hungary and Smolny College in Russia, as well as others where the liberal arts were under siege. We use a similar networked model to plan our offerings as online educational resources.
TR: It’s been two years since the political shift at New College of Florida. What has happened since then?
MR: In 2023, Governor DeSantis appointed a majority conservative board of trustees, who, in their first meeting voted to release President Patricia Okker, who had been chosen after an extensive national search, with high participation from all elements of campus. The next steps included shutting down the Diversity Equity & Inclusion office, and then gender studies later became disfavored. There is an infamous photo of a large amount of books from the library in the dumpster. About 40% of the faculty left in the next year. Since then, New College has been hiring faculty to fill positions but it's a managerial challenge when you have that kind of turnover. Students are in the process of their education; some have lost their sponsor for their thesis. So that kind of transition and uncertainty has been very difficult for all concerned.
TR: What is AltLiberalArts working on now?
MR: In April and May, AltLiberalArts will be offering a program on the Five Disruptive Principles of the Liberal Arts, which New College of Florida pioneered between 1970 and 2020. Student agency is one of those principles. There will be an academic panel on April 1 with those who are actually practitioners, either as students that have become academicians or former administrators or former faculty. They'll describe those principles that we see as the core that can help people persist in pursuing an authentic liberal arts education. We commissioned five academic committee members to choose the Five Principles and each one of them writes an essay that includes an exposition of the principle and includes brief case studies that are illustrations of the point. So it might say, “this is the principle and this is the impact on the education of a student or a faculty member.”
I think it’s important to ask, when we talk about civic engagement, “What are the pillars that uphold power and sustain it? What is an effective way to resist, to preserve your own values?” That's one of the topics that AltLiberalArts is going to be featuring in a credit course on civic engagement this summer or next fall. One of the ways that authoritarian forces seize power is that they take over the narrative, the history, and the definitions of what we're about. AltLiberalArts wants to assist liberal arts students in staying clear about what it is they value about a liberal arts education and how they would define it; how to have a critical eye toward what the value of a liberal arts education is and how it's pursued.
TR: Can you say something about the practical benefits of a liberal arts education?
MR: I think that liberal arts institutions have to look at the issue of change as the business model for them shifts and students are asking different questions. They are asking what the retention rate is and they want to know what the prospects for their future are. And so colleges have to be more prepared to make the case for liberal arts and to offer the kind of flexibility that will meet the needs of changing student populations.
An example might be the case of a graduate named Allison Vest, who studied both fine art and science in a liberal arts college. She's now in a medical profession and uses her artistic abilities to design prostheses for people that feel natural and becoming to them. And she had a reality show, too, named Body Parts. That's an example of how allowing people to pursue their passions in disparate fields with a great degree of mastery, agency, and self motivation can result in something that makes for a better world.
TR: I know AltLiberalArts was already in the zone of dealing with political crackdowns but how has the current US government affected the initiative?
MR: I think that it just heightens the sense of urgency for our mission. Because the people who were promoting these more conservative ideas at New College now have the ear of the President. New College is a case study in the challenges that are being raised with the liberal arts. National media realized that and held it up as a cautionary tale. And one by one we're seeing it in other universities. Similar to New College, Governor Desantis just appointed trustees who are very conservative, most of them from out of state, at the University of West Florida, another public institution. So we weren't an isolated case.
I think that students and faculty and administrators, when they are facing uncertainty, need to remember that we are targets not because we don't matter but because we do. These are difficult times for the liberal arts but there's always been a history of the liberal arts being very relevant and very powerful. When you have people who want to assert control and limit the independence of the populace, they're going to have to tamp that power down because you can't have people asking questions, challenging concepts, researching the facts, distilling their own synthesis, which are all things we learn in our liberal arts education, no matter what subject we study.
TR: Any closing words of inspiration?
We're trying to add light where there's heat. Meaning, one side is saying that gender studies shouldn't be part of a liberal arts education and critical race theory is divisive. They’re throwing bombs effectively. So there's a lot of heat. But when you hear someone like Judith Butler, Masha Gessen or Maya Wiley speak, there's a lot of light. There's a lot of clarity and understanding. And so we're offering that counterpoint so that people feel prepared to make their own analysis and decisions about what's going on.
AltLiberalArts will present a series of panel discussions on “Five Disruptive Principles in the Liberal Arts,” beginning with a live recording taking place on April 1 in Bradenton, Florida. This panel discussion will not be accessible online but viewers can join five additional panels on Student Agency, Depth and Breadth, Mastery, Mutual Engagement, and Assessment for Excellence from April 21- May 22.
Register to receive notifications about upcoming panels and more at AltLiberalArts and follow on Instagram.
Post Date: 03-10-2025