New College of California was a college founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971 by former Gonzaga University President, Father John Leary. It ceased operations in early 2008.New College's main campus was housed in several buildings in the Mission District in San Francisco. The offices at 777 Valencia, and companion buildings across the street, were home to its Humanities-based programs, including the Humanities BA, Mathematics, Poetics, Writing and Consciousness, Media Studies, Graduate Psychology, Experimental Performance Institute, as well as a broadcast studio and administration offices. New College of California School of Law was located at 50 Fell Street in the city's Civic Center. The North Bay Campus in Culture Ecology and Sustainable was housed in Santa Rosa, California, in a building owned by the Arlene Francis Foundation, a private foundation run by Peter Gabel, former president of New College and Arlene Francis's son. The Science and Math Institute classes were held at the Southern California University of Health Sciences in Whittier, California, within of downtown Los Angeles.WASC and college governanceThis concentration of power in the hands of a small group—characterized by the absence of democratic governing structures and the lack of effective oversight by the Board—was an important factor in the Western Association of Schools and Colleges', or WASC's, decisions to impose sanctions on the college through much of the school's history. WASC actions and criticism periodically resulted in short-lived reforms that were invariably dismantled by the administration after the accrediting agency eased its scrutiny—a pattern that was repeated several times during the school's history. The pattern itself was criticized by WASC when it sanctioned the college in July 2007, months prior to the revocation of accreditation.
