Nikki Cohen began her studies at New College in 1987. Originally from Philadelphia, she remembers being struck by the beauty of all the giant live oaks with hanging moss along the seaside campus.
“In that Southern Gothic kind of way, it was magic,” she said.
In 1988, Cohen took part in a student protest to try and save a stand of oak trees on the college’s east campus. Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport wanted to cut them down to make way for a parking lot…