Antioch & Academia & Personal Posted by JP Stormcrow, 17 Jun 2007 07:16 pm

An Iconic Progressive College Closes Its Doors - A Small Diminution of the Possibilities of the World

There are more ways of being different than being the same. There are more ways of being dead than being alive.

These two aphorisms(1) crossed my mind as being particularly apt when I heard the sad news last week that Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio (liberal bastion and alma mater of Coretta Scott King, Stephen J. Gould and Rod Serling) was closing its doors at the end of the 2007-08 academic year. My daughter had applied and been admitted to Antioch for this coming fall, and it had remained on her list of “maybes” well into April, so I had a modicum of insight into the problems the college faced. The admissions folks did a credible job of putting up a brave face, but it became clear to my daughter and me that you would be signing up for a crisis as much as for a college (although the end came more quickly than I expected) . And if we had in fact been one of the 125 or so families who put down a deposit and turned down other colleges, I doubt I would be waxing quite so philosophical right now. As it was, we had the privilege of visiting the campus three times in the past year - due in part to its proximity to some of my family as well as our interest in Clifton Gorge and the excellent Glen Helen nature preserve which abuts the campus.

Both of us were intrigued by the unique co-op oriented curriculum at Antioch (I also had some prior familiarity with it), and everyone we spoke to who was associated with the place was interesting, thought-provoking, passionate about Antioch … and, well, different. Different as in different from each other, as well as different from most everyone else you meet while looking at colleges. (I never would have suspected that so many aspects of so many colleges could be characterized so succinctly as “Awesome”.) My sense is that it would have taken a very deft touch indeed for any institution which was buffeted by such powerful passions from key stakeholders to survive in today’s realpolitik academic world. And although I am not really in a position to judge (but am certainly in a position to opine…), where deftness was called for, there seems instead to have been a long history of questionable decisions which led to the current situation. In the 1970s, Antioch expanded to become Antioch University, a group of flar-flung “campuses” of which the Antioch College was just one part.  Antioch University lives on at a few of these campuses, but they have a very different mission, mostly adult education. Within that tangled web lies what to many is clearly the proximate cause of most of the trouble.  To get opinions and a sense of the place from alums,  do read this post (and the comments): What happens when your Intellectual Home goes bust? by Sara at The Next Hurrah. Unsurprisingly, there has been an outpouring of writings on the web. Antirecord.org has a good compilation of other links, and it was also a place where I found some informal information on Antioch back when we were in decision mode - its original name was apparently antiochsucks.com, and it reflected some of the love/hate relationship that folks seemed to have with the place in recent years.

The official press release from the school is optimistically headlined: Antioch College Suspends Operations to Design 21st Century Campus. State-of-the-Art Campus projected to open in 2012.

But in an interview Tuesday evening, the university’s chancellor used “if” to describe a prospective reopening. And several people at the college said that they were not sure how the financial problems could be solved and the campus rebuilt in a few years.

And all 40 or so remaining faculty apparently will lose their jobs - so I for one am not so sure that we will be seeing a next generation campus springing up in Yellow Springs(2) (3) anytime soon. In fact my modest proposal, informed by the relatively heartless objectivity of someone with a superficial knowledge and no real stake in the place, is that if they want to go “21st century”, they should just make most of the campus part of Glen Helen and leave it as a museum of 20th century education, and build the State-of-The-Art Campus almost entirely on-line(4). Call it Second Life for Antioch … unless that’s already taken or something.

I am not sure whether even a well-managed Antioch could have survived in a world of $40K+/year college costs, a world where Harvard’s endowment added more value ($3 billion) in a year than the total value of all but the largest 25 endowments, and where Professor Fouad Ajami, the Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University can write something as fatuous as his “Soldier’s Creed” defense of Scooter Libby and not resign in disgrace. Of course there is no reason to expect any part of the academy to be exempt from the ills of society-at-large, and those “elite” institutions face their own very significant, if less visible crises - however, their’s are more along the lines of “potential and actual loss of soul” than the shuttering of operations due to financial constraints.

So Antioch (the reality) was maybe not the best test of whether Antioch (the ideal) could work, whether any college so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. But what I do know is that the loss of an Antioch (even if it has been happening in slow motion since 1972) diminishes us all, and casts doubt on whether any academic institution can long survive that does not base its decisions on maximizing the Net Present Value of its Endowment (although with a very low Discount Rate, Hey! Academia is about nothing if not the future….) . From what I can see, if the primary challenges of the next generation involve familiarity with sushi bars and climbing walls, we’re set. Having smart kids coming out of college ready to challenge a corrupt and criminal administration, not so much. I mean how many benjamins are to be had in doing that?

And what about our family’s decision? (Working titles for this post included: Stormcrow Family Helps Kill Antioch and Pragmatic Parents Precipitate Problems at Progressive Institution.) A relatively easy call to not sink tuition into Antioch in 2007 (in fact most would question why we even considered it an option), but would we have done otherwise 5, 10, 20, 40 years ago? Or would the opportunity to strive to Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity (Antioch’s motto) pale beside schools that appeared to provide more potential for a better payoff for our personal “endowment”? Who the hell knows? It is not as if attending Antioch (now or then), was some kind of objective “good”. But in a sense we did get off the hook, because the warning signs were so clearly visible on this particular road not taken.

I do salute schools that continue to follow their own course: The College of the Atlantic in Maine, Marlboro College in Vermont, Hampshire College in Massachusetts, Evergreen in Washington, New College of Florida and St. Johns College in Annapolis and Santa Fe are some that I am aware of. And having come within shouting distance of send a lot of benjamins Antioch’s way, once we figure out what is the best avenue to provide financial support that will truly help our perception of what Antioch represented, we will contribute something (… ah, but certainly not a tuition’s worth), and I would urge others to consider doing the same.

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(1) There are more ways of being dead than being alive - This is my own shortening of a statement from Richard Dawkins: “However many ways there may be of being alive it is certain that there are more ways of being dead. ” There are more ways of being different than being the same is a takeoff on the previous thought that I came up with while observing a few isolated outliers among a group of teenage boys at “play”.

(2) The small rural/exurban area around Antioch (located just east of Dayton) has an interesting and diverse set of small colleges. There is Cedarville University - a baptist institution, Wilberforce University - a small historically black college, and Central State University- a small historically black state school. And not too far down the road is Wright State on the outskirts of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base - newer, but larger than the others.

(3) Ironically, while I was cooling my heels in the Admissions Office at Antioch in April, I read an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled Blue Towns in Red States by some guy named Bérubé (subscription req’d. for more than the intro). Among other things, it pointed out the relative stability of the academic “industries” in those blue towns. I am not going to say that Antioch is the exception that proves the rule, but it is worth noting the “man bites dog” surprise that has come with the shutdown, and that the closing of a like-sized enterprise in the private sector would no doubt be a wholly local story. I wish good luck to the community of Yellow Springs as well, it has a unique character. It is close enough to Dayton and Wright-Pat to withstand the economic effects better than many college towns (and it has already adapted to the long, slow decline). But there is a danger of it becoming merely a quaint suburb, something it seemed to be already struggling with before the latest developments (as well as trying to hold off the all-too-familiar suburban/exurban sprawl.)

(4) My suggestion to build an online campus is more serious than my flippant words might indicate. In this day and age I do not think there is any way that starting from its current state, Antioch can recreate an economically-viable residency campus which honors its ideals (after answering whose ideals get to be “its ideals” first of course).  An online campus is an environmentally sound campus, and it provides an opportunity for outreach to broader range of “students”. One idea, would be a progressively-oriented clearinghouse for co-ops and online courses (and face-to-face ones as well - but just not necessarily in Yellow Springs) - possibly extending the ideas embodied in UC Berkeley’s DeCal or Oberlin’s EXCO to the ‘net.

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Responses to “An Iconic Progressive College Closes Its Doors - A Small Diminution of the Possibilities of the World”

  1. on 18 Jun 2007 at 8:33 am 1. christian h. said …

    Thanks for the post, JP. For somebody like me working at a large educational factory geared towards producing what’s called, somewhat revealingly, “productive members of society”, the demise of yet another place keeping the dream of “education of the whole human being” alive is sad. From my point of view, the problem is that Antioch, or St. Johns and the others have always been exceptions - never coming close to the critical mass needed to change society. And that means, in the end, they are or have been places of indulgence - a reasonable choice mainly for those who can afford not to become “productive members of society”. Still valuable - producing “traitors to their class”, as it were - but not as is an alternative to corporatized higher education.

  2. on 18 Jun 2007 at 9:14 am 2. JP Stormcrow said …

    From my point of view, the problem is that Antioch, or St. Johns and the others have always been exceptions - never coming close to the critical mass needed to change society.

    I had somewhat similar thoughts. I remarked several times, that Antioch would have “worked” better if there were a whole ecosystem of alternative colleges.

    I do think that there is the possibility of some interesting developments with the Internet and a “Web 2.0″ approach - something like a WikiAntioch or a Wikiversity. (And search on the Internet and you will find, there is in fact a Wikiversity.) A lot of room for abuse there - and I am sure many of those avenues of abuse will be explored and provide more heartburn for traditional academia and academics, but in one form or another, for better or worse, this rough beast is surely slouching towards Virtual Bethlehem to be born.

  3. on 18 Jun 2007 at 10:48 am 3. black dog barking said …

    But in a sense we did get off the hook, because the warning signs were so clearly visible on this particular road not taken.

    I’m sure in your campus visits they dangled reasons that Antioch would be a wise investment. May Shut Down For A Few Years isn’t much of a marketing point and a bit long for a bumper sticker. What were these warning signs?

    (Assuming this knowledge isn’t some type of double-secret higher educational insider information in which case—Look! A Fireball!!)

  4. on 18 Jun 2007 at 11:32 am 4. Oaktown Girl said …

    in which case—Look! A Fireball!!

    Oh, those wacky Czechs! Next, they need to do one with Gojira inserted into the scene. All kidding aside, that’s pretty funny and clever. I think there has been a Simpsons episode or two where the video behind anchorman Kent Brockman showed crazy things going on (completely unbeknown to Kent) in an otherwise tranquil setting.

  5. on 18 Jun 2007 at 11:38 am 5. JP Stormcrow said …

    What were these warning signs?

    Various.

    Physical plant condition. (This was in contrast to most places that all seemed much spiffier than 30+ years ago.) My daughter kinda liked it in general … but some basics like the library and scientific equipment were clearly suffering.

    Would get waffling answers on some basic questions such as number of students enrolled.

    Talking to people (students, faculty and administrators) - no one came out straight and said it, but it was easy to connect the dots and most would admit that survival was in doubt when I brought up the question directly. (but tactfully … ha!) But it seemingly had been in doubt for quite some while, so I think they were a bit enured to it, leading to a seeming sense of surprise when the wolf finally came.

    The faculty are in a seriously tumultuous situation right now. Their jobs are on the line, they can be fired at will, and are devastated that they have spent the last two years implementing a new curriculum with the promise of being funding for five years, only to find they no longer have a job. The alum and alumni board need to step up to the plate and put a stop to this thing; we need to seek legal action for an injunction or to hold the Board of Trustees legally accountable for the commitments they made to the institution.

    They were a couple of years in to significant change in the curriculum - did not get a sense that everyone was behind it. Some hated it.

    Searching on the Web, found a number of intimations of fundamental issues. For instance this site Save Antioch popped up in March of this year.

    This is my second college search and I have used that as an excuse to plunge far too deeply into learning about colleges and universities, so I may have been more attuned than some. (Not that my studies have really helped in the actual searches.)

  6. on 18 Jun 2007 at 12:45 pm 6. Oaktown Girl said …

    [Lunch break, can make a “real” comment now.]

    JP - this is a wonderful piece about a tragic story. I’m so glad you’ve taken the time to write this up because otherwise I would have had no idea about Antioch College had you not shared it here.

    This is so sad, and indeed we all lose out, whether we recognize it consciously or not. It relates to a lot of what I’ve been thinking about for a long time (and I’m sure many of you have too), about all the “little” things that happen for the financial profit of a very few that add to the continual collective soul-crushing experience of living in America. Just in my immediate neighborhood - an empty corner lot that for decades served as the neighborhood pumpkin patch and other communal activities destroyed this year to make room for upscale condos. And about a half mile from that, there’s a little fenced lot off to the side of a building that folks now use as a tiny place to let their dogs go off leash. It too will be replaced by condos. So every little piece of open urban space that currently serves the many must be eliminated to serve big money interests. We all die a little indeed.

  7. on 18 Jun 2007 at 1:46 pm 7. JP Stormcrow said …

    Found this nice article at Inside Higher Ed which uses the Antioch closure as a springboard to talk about issues for progressive colleges in general. Touches on some of the issues that both christian and I raised.

  8. on 18 Jun 2007 at 4:23 pm 8. Sara said …

    Thanks for this perspective JP, and for note to the Next Hurrah threads. I’ll add a new thread tonight or early tomorrow.

    I think the perspective of someone who saw through the Public Relations effort at Admissions is most important. It isn’t just a buyer beware message, it is a recognition that spin can’t cover over huge holes in what Antioch was supposed to represent in the world of progressive American Education. This needs to be a much larger conversation than just among Antiochians, it needs to be pragmatic — how do you do progressive Liberal Arts HE in the current economic enviornment, and do it honestly, make it available to what tend to get called “Working Families” and young adults who don’t want huge debt following them around for years. And I agree — the internet is a tool that a properly organized faculty could use as a platform at very low cost comparatively — and a former residential college re-habed as a sort of conference center with science labs, could be melded to the whole as a way to deliver a quality product and much lower costs. It has gotten out of hand — in the 50’s my parents could pay most of my costs out of a moderately high level civil servant’s salary without sweat. Some good creative re-thinking and re-defining is clearly necessary.

  9. on 18 Jun 2007 at 5:15 pm 9. JP Stormcrow said …

    I think the perspective of someone who saw through the Public Relations effort at Admissions is most important

    However, it is fair to note that for almost all of the colleges I have looked at for my two kids, PR has been the main activity of Admissions. It’s just that at other places you had to do a little more legwork than just look out the window of the admissions office to see the gaps…

    Looking forward to reading more at your place - interesting to see some of the dramas explicated that I only got whiffs and hints of.

  10. on 18 Jun 2007 at 5:32 pm 10. christian h. said …

    The fact that no college can escape the need to engage in PR - even if in so doing it contradicts its own goals - is another sign of the totalitarian nature of modern capitalism. So is the transformation and reduction of communal space Oaktown Girl mentioned.
    How can a system of higher education that is reduced to a sales enterprise (sales to future students, to potential faculty recruits - something I saw firsthand this year - and to the donors, of course {if a “controversial” professor comes up for tenure, cut her or him lose, as just seen at DePaul}) produce anything but parts of the corporate machine? The amazing and encouraging thing is that we don’t manage to deform (all of) our students. I think educators working hard to do the right thing (often in conflict with or behind the back of our administrations) can take some credit, but most belongs to resiliency of human nature (you see, I’m an extreme optimist…).

  11. on 18 Jun 2007 at 6:22 pm 11. karen said …

    Greetings from a member of the class of ‘67. You touched on many of the factors behind Antioch’s demise. Your concern with the library and science facilities was voiced by my daughter (then a high school junior) in 1987. If truth be told, Antioch - a world-class leader in sciences and engineering in the 60’s (we graduated as many foundation fellows as the Ivies!) - virtually abandoned math and science in the 70’s in the quest for “relevance” (whatever that means).

    Am I proud of the education I got at Antioch - absolutely. Am I bitter at the scheming, lying and general run-arounds we got from the University, the development office and other powers that be - you betcha. Did either I or my husband (also class of ‘67) encourage either of our kids to apply to Antioch - not on your life. The coop program was a shambles, and what age could not do to the physical plant, the students (or an active minority thereof) did themselves. What kind of place needs to chain down a bench donated by the alumni to prevent students from carting it off?

    Ten years ago, a small group came together to agitate for independence from the University. We called it the Antioch Independence Fund and due to the indefatigable efforts of the founder, raised more than $1 million for the college - provided that it was set free from the University. We were slandered by the trustees, the alumni association, the development office. In the end, the fund was dissolved and much of it went to other recipients (I sent mine to Berea College).

    Antioch taught me to think, made me a survivor and prepared me to try to make the world a better place. I learned more there than anywhere else, before or after. I would grieve for its closing if I weren’t so damn mad. I’ve been in mourning for the last 30 years.

  12. on 19 Jun 2007 at 10:13 pm 12. Zeus said …

    Thanks Oaktown Girl for the call to get up off my butt (assembling bookshelves as I’ve just moved– It’s a great new place). Well, I actually grew up in Ohio and remember visiting Clifton Gorge in early college to go rock climbing, one of the few decent spots in Ohio to do so. And Glen Helen is one of the most beautiful and spiritually compelling places in the Midwest. The town of Yellow Springs was mellow, crunchy, and pretty white, but the atmosphere certainly fit the intent of the school. I had a former colleague from my college professor days, Paul Ewald, move there to enter administration. I wonder how he is doing and what he is doing now. Oh, and don’t forget Young’s Dairy down the street, one of the best tasting, straight-from-the-cow, creamy-as-all-get-out ice creams you’ll ever taste.

    I too think it a shame that Antioch might go the way of the eight-track, but I sometimes also think that the eight-track analogy might be too close to comfort, along the lines of “what were they thinking”. Can anyone remember why the bulky eight track was considered revolutionary and desirable? Can anyone explain in retrospect why a homey haven like Antioch felt the need to kill itself financially proselytizing itself with far-flung campuses designed to spread the word? Therein lies one of the great tragedies of progressive liberalism– ideals with not a lot of practical sense sometimes. By practical I do not mean so-called capitalistic “realism” (read cynicism and exploitation). I simply mean development from the ground up, using your strengths as a co-op college with an integrative focus.

    I tried in vain at a former conservative liberal arts school (yes there is such a thing, see administration) where I taught to propose a “niche” for schools like these. You can’t be a major research university. You can’t (or shouldn’t) attempt to be a “comprehensive regional university (read commuter, second-tier state university trying to gain a name with “student-as-customer” rhetoric), and you can’t be an elite liberal arts college. So why not fill the niche as a professional college that takes a liberal arts approach, that educates broadly but integrates that with practicums, one that educates lawyers, and principals, and naturopathic doctors without being a specialty schools, a school that educates employers and entrepreneurs and social change agents who can dream big and know how to apply their skills to realize dreams.

    To bad Antioch, like many liberal institutions, knows how to dream big and care heartily, but ain’t so great on the innovation and feedack aspect. This needs to happen or Antioch, if it comes back as 21st century, will be a cliche rather than a newly reborn, intimate, school of learning and doing. I wish it well.

    Citizen Zeus

  13. on 20 Jun 2007 at 8:36 am 13. JP Stormcrow said …

    OK, quick comment in the midst of too much travel.

    Zeus, did a search on your pal Paul Ewalld, and if I am not mistaken, he is the fellow at this link at Regis University in Denver. (when I first saw the name, I confused it with Regents University (Pat Roberson’s place), and said Wow! What a change. His bio mentioned working at Antioch. At the link is an article on books/authors that shaped him, would have been a good response to our Reader’s Anonymous post.

    I have been following the Antioch saga online. Best source is this RSS feed. A lot of alums are coming to a reunion in Yellow Springs at the end of this week. Looks to be quite the time.

    The discussions have moved on to specifics of which I cannot really speak, I am impressed that a number of folks are trying to draw on the engagement lessons they learned at Antioch. However, here is a lot of anger at the current Board of Trustees and the whole University/College thing. It may well be justified, but in my experience it is never as open and shut have some have painted it, and I would like to see more of the “university” side represented - and to what extent they are in fact delivering on the Antioch vision. (Most of the Trustees are Antioch College grads.) But, I am really outside my realm of knowledge. it is also interesting to see the dynamic between folks who graduated at different times. Hopefully something can be worked out.

  14. on 20 Jun 2007 at 8:46 am 14. black dog barking said …

    Can anyone remember why the bulky eight track was considered revolutionary and desirable?

    Eight track brought stereo music to automobiles, at least in my part of world. Daytime radio was local, AM, and boring in ways we would find fascinating today—extremely detailed grain and livestock market reports, call-in shows where garage-sale junk was bought and sold. But the pièce de merde-ly résistance was a singularly lifeless soulless music. Bad. My thankfully dim recollection is of the Greatest Failures of music recording, 1960’s edition. Aural waterboarding.

    At night we could listen to regular music from the big 50Kw stations.

  15. on 20 Jun 2007 at 12:30 pm 15. Zeus said …

    JP, Thanks, Yes that Paul Ewald is the guy. They have a nice picture of him on the link you gave me. If there was any doubt, the article on his favorite books definitely cinches it. I’ll have to drop him a line. Thanks for the contact.

    I think you are right. If they are going to have a reunion, why beat the tired route of the “university” versus students and alums. I think, for the most part, there is good will and good feeling on both parts. Perhaps the reunion could be a great place to pool ideals and practical experience. (I have no doubt that many alums are now running non-profits, fundraising, and still committed to liberal progressive visions of the future). What a concept. A liberal approach to liberal education applied to create a more liberal (and financially sustainable world).

    Black Dog Barking. I think there is a parable in your words. It don’t matter the sleekness of the technology. If that technology is delivering crap, better for it to be unavailable. I see the same play working out in education, where education technology means finding slicker ways to deliver more vacuous products. Hopefully we do our part to turn this around. I believe the purpose of waagnfnp was to produce just this kind of well-written and thought discourse with the timely dashes of humor to keep us from getting to serious about ourselves.

    Citizen Zeus

  16. on 20 Jun 2007 at 1:26 pm 16. spyder said …

    WOW, wow…. here i am sitting in the information commons at the University of Arizona, surrounded, literally, by hundreds of students working online (mostly to stay out of the heat–reminding me to learn to say no when someone asks me to help produce an event in the summer down here) and i read this about Antioch. Wow. Memories i have of that fine institution, dating back certainly to the sixties when fellow high school graduates chose to pursue that path. I recommended the school to parents and students over the years as a place that respected certain values rare in the academe (civil liberties, service to social justice, peaceful being).

    This day is not boding well. Damn. Just before reading this i found out a friend died tragically on Monday. He founded and directed a really amazing organization that promoted the best of what ngos, non-profits, quagos (quazi-governmental orgs), do for people around the world. He will be hugely missed as will Antioch. All this reminds me how blissfully unaware i am touring on the road in the sheepland of amurka. We are a nation of sheep run by pigs controlled by wolfs.

  17. on 21 Jun 2007 at 6:28 am 17. Kiera PSI said …

    We are a nation of sheep run by pigs controlled by wolfs

    Methinks we need to learn to become the wolves.

    produce just this kind of well-written and thought discourse with the timely dashes of humor

    ah HA. I knew I had a purpose here (the timely dashes of humor) other than re-trunking miscreants.

  18. on 21 Jun 2007 at 11:40 am 18. spyder said …

    Walking through the catacombs a bit ago in this huge technologically advanced university library (damn nice edifice) i came across a meeting of the custodial staff. I bopped my head in and said that as a retired academic type i felt i needed to thank them for all their care of the facility, and that i am sure they are never thanked sufficiently or even occasionally. I then said i would post this out to a group of Prof types to encourage them to thank the various custodial and janitorial staffs at their fine institutions. Perhaps if Antioch had cared about the infrastructure a bit more, acknowledging that it is essential to a good educational environment, then what ifs might be might have beens. non lo so.

    I do know that without the direct support of maintenance, janitorial, custodial, physical plant and all of those very hard working contributors, none of us would be as relatively comfortable as we are. So take some time at the beginning of the Fall term and thank some of them personally. It feels good to do so, and they really appreciate it.

  19. on 21 Jun 2007 at 12:47 pm 19. Oaktown Girl said …

    Methinks we need to learn to become the wolves.

    Well, at least take some valuable lessons from the wolves, anyway. Lesson #1 - you can’t keep your balance if you’re busy leaning back on your heels all the time. And you certainly can launch any strategic attacks from that position.

  20. on 22 Jun 2007 at 10:45 am 20. Phaye Poliakoff-Chen said …

    This is a letter that a group of us sent to the chancellor and the chair of the board of trustees. It’s an analysis/summary, with a positive plan for the future. (Any alumni who would like to sign can contact me directly at chen@speakeasy.net. Thanks.)
    June 22, 2007

    Dear Mr. Zucker and Ms. Murdock,

    As graduates of Antioch College in the late 1970s and early 1980s, we can identify with the tragic uncertainty now facing the campus community after the Board of Trustees suddenly announced it is closing the College in Yellow Springs.

    We, too, were told that the College would likely be closing at some time during our tenure there because enrollments had dropped and the endowment was too small. As it turned out, that didn’t happen. But the internal debate over the relationship between the main College campus and Antioch’s satellite campuses (it was never a true university no matter what the college PR department said) was high on the agenda in those years.
    Many of us remember refusing to shake hands with then College President, William Birenbaum at graduation ceremonies in 1980 as a public protest. It wasn’t merely that we disliked his ideas about education, his arrogance in dealing with students, faculty and staff, or his misguided attempts to funnel resources away from Yellow Springs. An even greater transgression was his total disdain for a cornerstone principle of Antioch College: community governance.

    We are outraged and saddened to see that the current Board of Trustees has exhibited a similar lack of regard in the way it has sprung news of the College’s closing on the campus body politic. It has compounded the wrongdoing by not outlining a clear role for that community in key decision making about what kind of institution will supposedly reopen its doors in Yellow Springs in four years.

    As this year’s alumni reunion goes forward, we want to deliver a clear message to you and the current College administration: We will not support any future educational institution bearing Antioch’s name that fails to return control and academic focus to the main College in Yellow Springs.

    The Board of Trustees needs to be comprised of members who support that mission and who have demonstrated their commitment by contributing to the College campaign. The assets of the College need to be returned to the College—including Antioch University McGregor, which should be merged with the College and come under the control of the College President.

    College leaders should launch a democratic process of renewal on campus that will result in a plan for a future educational institution in Yellow Springs that respects the best traditions of Antioch. The current Board of Trustees has betrayed those traditions, both in the way it announced the College closing and in actions it has taken—or failed to take—that have brought us to this pass.

    Specifically, the current Board of Trustees reneged on a commitment to raise the needed funds to implement the Renewal Commission Plan that it imposed on the College. In fact, most individual trustees did not even contribute to the campaign. When the fundraising campaign foundered, trustees failed to address the obvious implications for the College. In addition, the board only recently discovered problems with University bookkeeping that disguised previous losses. The University Board of Trustees has failed miserably in its legal and ethical responsibilities and has lost all moral right to the Antioch name and mission. The time has come to return control of Antioch College and its assets to the College community, including its alumni.

    We stand ready to pledge money and fundraising energy to a reopening of Antioch. But we will not support any plan created without the involvement and leadership of members of the College community. Nor will we back a future institution that fails to uphold the school’s long established standards of shared decision-making, innovation and the notion that even the privileged realm of higher education can be a proving ground for social justice.

    Sincerely,

    Barbara Solow, Class of 1980, Highland Park, NJ
    Christopher Adams, ’87, Landsdowne, PA
    Jeanne Badman, ’80, St. Paul, MN
    Lesley Pownall Bahr, ‘83, Buffalo, MN
    E. Ann Baldwin, 80, Higganum, CT
    Helen Bloch, ‘78, Forest Hills, NY
    Douglas Brodoff, ’77, Paris, France
    Marianne Connolly, ‘80, Amherst, MA
    Peter Crosman, ’77, Flintridge, CA
    Laura Drey, ’80, Durham, NC
    David Feinstein, ’79, San Francisco, CA
    Cora Hook, ‘79, Bethlehem, PA
    Rob Kenter, ’80, Toronto, ON Canada
    Laura Markham, ‘80, New York, NY
    Marc J. Masurovsky, ‘77, Falls Church, VA
    Barbara McCann, ‘83, Washington, DC
    Lizzie Olesker, ’79, Brooklyn, NY
    Glenn Paris, ’80, San Diego, CA
    Lydia Dean Pilcher, ’80, New York, NY
    Phaye Poliakoff-Chen, ‘80, Baltimore, MD
    Scott Pollock, ’80, Evanston, IL
    David Pratt, ’80, Brooklyn, NY
    Sandina Robbins, ‘80, Oakland, CA
    Jodi Solomon, ‘80, Boston, MA

    cc: Steven Lawry, President, Antioch College
    Risa Grimes, Director of Alumni Relations