- March 26, 2025
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Of course it was no surprise. The minute word spread that Gov. Ron DeSantis is proposing to shift responsibility for the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art — Florida’s state museum — from Florida State University to New College of Florida, there was horrified gasping, choking and resistance.
That’s the way it always goes around here when someone proposes dramatic change. Especially at New College. What?! There he goes again. Power hungry Richard Corcoran just going after more empire building, and using his buddy to get there.
This is a complicated work of art and politics; a complicated work of vision and business execution (or lack of); and, as most everything does, it involves a lot of money — taxpayer money, to be precise.
Depending on the insiders with whom you speak, everyone can make a good case — for keeping the museum under the FSU umbrella or transferring it to New College. But the explicit question President Corcoran has thrust into the public square for consideration is: Which institution is most likely to take the Ringling Museum “from good to great” and, at the same time, provide the best benefits to Florida taxpayers?
Were it not for Bradenton lawyer Bob Blalock, the late Sarasota state Sen. Bob Johnson and former Senate President John McKay back in 2000, the Ringling Museum, Ca’ d’Zan and Circus Museum, minus everything else there now, likely would be as it was — a local, Sarasota museum on the decline, growing financially desperate for a way to stay afloat.
The civic-minded Blalock and Johnson took to McKay the idea to have either Florida State University or the University of South Florida become the stewards of the museum — financially and operationally. With access to state funding, a much wider net of possible donors and possibilities of undergraduate and graduate art programs, one of the universities could sustain the museum and help it grow.
Together, Blalock, Johnson and McKay pitched the idea to each university to bid. Obviously, FSU won. McKay shepherded the idea through the Legislature.
One of the key features of this stewardship was tucking Ringling’s finances within FSU’s billion-dollar operations. That prevented future governors from messing with the Ringling’s finances and turning the museum into a political pawn.
For the past quarter century, you can accurately say the merger has worked.
In that time, the fast-decaying Ca’ d’Zan was restored; the Historic Asolo Theater and Circus Museum were restored; the museum continued to grow in collections and prestige; and new additions gradually filled out John and Mable Ringling’s property, including the Tibbals Circus Model, Glass Pavilion and Center for Asian Art, among them.
Along the way, as part of an FSU-wide capital campaign, FSU and the board of the Ringling Museum of Art Foundation Inc., the fund-raising arm and overseer of the museum, raised $101 million in 2019 in an FSU-wide capital campaign. The amount exceeded the $100 million goal. Long-time, local museum supporters were agog that goal could be reached.
They will tell you the relationship with FSU and its donor network certainly contributed to the success. Worth noting is that in The Ringling’s annual list of top donors, FSU and the FSU Foundation are always the museum’s top two donors.
But the benefits go both ways. The Ringling helps FSU, too.
While New College’s Corcoran makes the case that geographic proximity would create a more dynamic and intertwined relationship for the two institutions, breaking the tie between FSU and The Ringling might be like trying to saw the Sunshine Skyway in two.
Every FSU president who succeeded Sandy D’Alemberte, the president who made sure FSU won the bid, has felt and seen the importance of The Ringling for FSU.
To be sure, one of the most important jobs of a college or university president is to raise money. In that vein, since The Ringling has become part of FSU, we were told, The Ringling typically is always among FSU’s top five colleges for generating the most donor money.
The story goes that when the late T.K. Wetherell became FSU’s president (from 2003-2010), he wanted to give The Ringling to USF. D’Alemberte said once Wetherell sees how much money The Ringling generates, “he will love it.”
Suffice it to say, behind the scenes over the next three months in Tallahassee, there will be intense conversations among powerful FSU-Ringling supporters; the DeSantis-Corcoran-New College contingent; and Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Daniel Perez. Perez is an FSU graduate and has already clashed with DeSantis.
It may get ugly. Don’t put it past DeSantis to use The Ringling as a chess piece. “You give me Ringling-New College, or, Mr. Speaker, I’ll veto your pet projects.”
One of the pro-FSU-Ringling arguments will be that their relationship is working well. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
To that end, if you read The Ringling’s 2023-2024 annual review, you easily can get the impression the museum and its affiliates are thriving. The 28-page book is chockful of reports on the year’s new exhibitions, public outreach programming, arts performances, art acquisitions and restorations of the historic grounds. Mind you, annual reports are crafted to paint the best picture possible.
Even so, numbers do tell a story. In the past two fiscal years, The Ringling has reported record financial and attendance results.
Then there is the infrastructure. Again, read the annual review. You cannot help but sense The Ringling is a complex operation with many spinning plates — all of which take honed expertise.
A key ingredient to The Ringling’s operations has been the hiring of Executive Director Steven High in 2011. Not only had he been executive director of four art museums, his MBA gave him fiscal expertise. High oversees nearly 500,000 square feet of buildings, 66 acres of grounds, 260 staff members and 400-plus volunteers.
Entwined in that are the services that FSU provides: its development office supports The Ringling’s development team; building maintenance expertise; risk and insurance management; and, as one director noted, “PSI compliance (credit card processing and security) for more than 400,000 visitors.”
Also crucial: the museum’s curators. A proponent of maintaining the FSU relationship, the former director cautioned that a change to New College could bring what often happens when leadership changes in any business: Key people leave. “Curators are the essence of the museum,” he said. “They have the relationships with the art donors.”
Altogether, the pro-FSU contingent argues that FSU’s Ringling infrastructure would not just change the logos on their shirts to New College. New College would need millions of dollars in state funding to build the people infrastructure to operate The Ringling.
How long and how much would that take? What opportunity cost?
President Corcoran presented part of his case for the merging of New College and The Ringling in the Feb. 20 editions of the Observer. He called it “an alignment that strengthens Sarasota’s role as Florida’s premier hub for arts, education and scholarship, while ensuring that this historic and cherished museum remains deeply connected to and preserved by the community that has shaped it for nearly a century.”
He argues it’s common-sense geography, which would translate into better use of resources.
FSU and its administration and leadership are 330 miles away. And as every business owner who has multiple locations knows, distance between the home office and the satellites always means there is an “out of sight, out of mind” loss of culture and attention.
You can make a good case theoretically that having the two institutions as physical, next-door neighbors would ensure a more dynamic, more efficient, day-to-day culture and relationship for growth for both institutions.
Likewise, Corcoran is not making a case that the FSU-Ringling relationship is unsuccessful or broken. But what we don’t know — nor has he presented — is how much better The Ringling could be or should be doing. Are there data? Show us the money, say, a cost-benefit analysis.
Part of Corcoran’s argument is that The Ringling’s potential is hampered and held back being a sliver (0.8%) of a $3 billion-a-year FSU enterprise, an institution that pays far more attention to reviving a flagging football team than to maximizing the under-invested value of The Ringling.
Give him the floor, and Corcoran can passionately make the argument that a combined New College and The Ringling would propel his vision of creating the premier liberal arts college in Florida, to be sure, and among the tops in the U.S.
For Corcoran, this is not a conservative or progressive issue. It’s a vision. But he also knows he faces institutional resistance to change and doubts among taxpayers that he can execute his vision.
You can make a case for that doubt.
For one, Corcoran’s reputation is Trumpish — disruptor.
His style is not to dither and yap. It’s action. It’s break and throw out what doesn’t fit or what he doesn’t want and do things the way he wants — within the boundaries of state law. Never mind the pieces on the floor or feelings. Corcoran is all about: Measure the ultimate outcomes.
In that vein, when you read the New College board’s evaluation of Corcoran, all of the above is there. He has eight objectives that can earn him $200,000 on top of his annual $795,000 compensation.
In the most recent evaluation, he listed 66 major milestones and deliverables. Including:
But there is still this bugaboo: New College has a long way to go for Corcoran to tout success. This one measurement hangs over him and New College: The cost to educate a student.
At New College, it’s $107,000 a year. By comparison, at Florida Gulf Coast University, it’s about $22,000. New College tuition and fees account for 3.9% of the college’s annual revenues; at FGCU, they account for 53% of revenues.
Under Corcoran’s vision, New College costs will always be higher than the other state universities because of its academics.
But for taxpayers to make the judgment that it makes economic and management sense for New College to take over the stewardship of The Ringling, if you were an investor with a moderate risk tolerance, a logical conclusion would be to say: Not now. Not yet.
Convince us with more results that the core business is stable, consistent and growing. And make the case with analysis that the idea is more than a grand vision.
