June 24, 2004

Antioch board approves major plan to ’renew’ college

The Antioch University Board of Trustees earlier this month gave final approval to a plan to overhaul the Antioch College curriculum, increase student enrollment to 900, and invest about $50.5 million in renovations and new buildings on campus, new technology and programs and scholarships.

The plan, proposed by a 17-member Renewal Commission, calls for transforming the college’s curriculum into a program based on experiential learning communities in which groups of students will study together under the tutelage of several teachers. The learning communities will “integrate students’ on-campus academic study” with “experiential learning,” through field studies, internships and other off-campus work, the plan states.

Under the renewal plan, Antioch will also change the co-op program. Most co-op jobs will be “clustered” in selected host communities and managed by at least one full-time faculty or professional staff member.

Dan Kaplan, the chairman of the Antioch Board of Trustees, and Rick Jurasek, the vice president and dean of faculty at Antioch College, described the Renewal Commission’s plan as providing a vision to create a new Antioch that is financially sustainable.

“This is about a new Antioch, but in its essence it is about a renewal of what Antioch has always tried to be and to do,” said Jurasek, who will become interim president of the college on July 1, replacing Joan Straumanis, the outgoing president whose contract expires at the end of this month.

Jurasek said that Antioch “deserves more than simply the means and support and license to simply survive, to simply stay in business. No, this college deserves to reassert its ability to lead in higher education.”

The college hopes the proposals in the renewal plan, including changes in the curriculum and co-op, will attract more students to Antioch, and retain more students once they arrive on campus, which would help fix the college’s financial woes.

“If Antioch College can raise the money, the Renewal Commission believes that this plan can not only save the College from potential financial failure, but re-establish it as a leader in progressive education for future generations,” the renewal plan states.

The commission’s report states that Antioch “must make substantial investments in its program, faculty and staff, community, facilities, student services and technology in advance of planned gains in enrollment and tuition revenue.”

Calls to several Antioch faculty members were not returned. One faculty member said that she had not yet had a chance to read the renewal report and deferred comment.

The Board of Trustees unanimously approved the Renewal Commission’s report, “Experiential Learning at Antioch College: A Strategy for Renewal,” at the board’s meeting earlier this month in Seattle. Kaplan, who co-chaired the Renewal Commission, said that the renewal plan “motivated and moved” the trustees. “They felt like they had owned it,” he said.

A year ago, the Board of Trustees formed the commission, formally called the Sesquicentennial Commission for the Renewal of Antioch College, to develop a plan to renew Antioch College. In a letter to the board, Kaplan said that the commission was charged with “conceiving a ‘new’ Antioch College which would reverse 30 years of endless and unproductive struggles.”

The commission met at least nine times in Yellow Springs to discuss the plan, according to Kaplan. In February the Board of Trustees approved the concept of implementing experiential learning communities at Antioch.

Much of the Renewal Commission’s report focuses on big ideas, such as transforming the college’s curriculum and co-op program, though it does include suggestions about how to implement the new initiatives. The college now must devise plans to carry out the commission’s vision.

As interim president, Jurasek is in charge of implementing the Renewal Commission’s plan. “The most important position I have in my interim year is to launch the new Antioch,” he said.

Jurasek plans to form 12 teams to oversee tasks needed to make the plan work. The teams include marketing and fundraising; enrollment; facilities; “learning outcomes”; first-year learning communities; and information technology. He said that the implementation of the renewal plan will be “locally owned” and involve administrators, faculty members and students.

Though the renewal plan is a complex, 45-page document, the core of the proposal is the curriculum change. As the plan states, “Although the Renewal Commission’s work was instigated by the College’s chronic and seemingly intractable business and financial problems, the Commission is convinced that an effective renewal initiative must begin with a transformation of Antioch’s educational program that better suits the institution’s fundamental purposes and commitments.”

The plan calls for a major change in the college’s curriculum centered on experiential learning communities. The Renewal Commission’s plan states that a typical learning community will have 30 to 45 students and two to three faculty members from different academic disciplines. The faculty members would team-teach, Jurasek said, integrating different academic disciplines into each learning community.

The ELC concept would increase the college’s student-to-faculty ratio to 15-to-1, from 10-to-1, the plan shows. The commission states that the higher ratio is “more sustainable.”

The college will implement the new academic program starting with the freshman class in the fall of 2006. Until then, the renewal plan states, it will run pilot programs.

Under the Renewal Commission’s plan, students on co-op would be clustered in selected host communities, providing more support for the students and helping them maintain relationships with friends and Antioch, the plan states.

The college also plans to undertake a cultural and intellectual freedom initiative to “transform” Antioch into an institution that “embeds cultural and intellectual freedom, diversity and inclusion into its core values.” The plan suggests Antioch expand the responsibilities, title and staff of the director of multicultural affairs; establish faculty endowed chairs and student scholarships in the areas of freedom and diversity; and create diversity skills training programs for faculty, students and administrators.

The center will “greatly magnify and demonstrate our commitment to our founding principles and values,” Jurasek said.

The plan also includes an initiative to build technology infrastructure at Antioch that includes a high-speed wireless network and that can connect students whether their learning communities are on or off campus. Campus information technology will be integrated into a digital library. The college will also become part of a university-wide initiative to share online courses “with real-time voice-over-Internet and document sharing.”

The plan estimates that initial investment in technology infrastructure would cost $3 million.

The Renewal Commission’s plan also addresses the nagging problem of student enrollment, saying that “enrollment growth is an essential component” of the renewal effort. The commission suggested that Antioch increase its enrollment to 900 students by 2014. According to Antioch, the college’s student enrollment for 2003–04 is 688.

The renewal plan suggests that Antioch invest up to $2 million over four years in an “intensive ‘guerilla marketing’ campaign.” Jurasek said the renewal plan will “radically strengthen” Antioch’s ability to recruit students because the college’s new curriculum will appeal to more students.

He also said that Antioch will become “much more effective at marketing Antioch College.” This effort will include adding, within months, senior and mid-level staff “responsible for marketing the renewed Antioch,” he said.

Another component of the renewal plan is the investment of millions of dollars in new and renovated buildings on campus. The plan calls for two phases of construction that will include new living space for students, a new student union and new space for the learning communities. Areas the college will renovate include the library, Curl gym and North Hall.

“The success of the renewal plan outlined here will depend heavily on significant investment to build and renovate the College’s physical facilities,” the plan states. Improved facilities could also help convince students to stay at Antioch, the plan says.

The first phase of construction is estimated to cost $20 million, the second phase, $30.5 million. Construction of the new student union and learning-community classrooms should begin in September 2005, the plan states.

The plan notes that its initiatives will cost about $55 million, not including the second phase of construction. The renewal plan suggests that Antioch link the renewal effort with the college’s $65-million capital campaign, which was officially launched last fall in an effort to increase Antioch’s endowment, among other things. Kaplan said that over $33 million has been raised in the campaign.

The plan notes that by using funds raised in the capital campaign, Antioch would have to raise an additional $25 million to support the renewal plan.

The board chairman said that the renewal plan should energize the capital campaign. “This is the kind of shot in the arm the campaign can run with,” he said.

—Robert Mihalek