September 15, 2005

By Diane Chiddister

Antioch College is at an exciting, hopeful crossroads, with the new school year marked by a new curriculum for first-year students, new construction and a feeling of enthusiasm among students and teachers, the interim college president, Rick Jurasek, said last week as classes resumed on campus.

“There’s a great deal of curricular change and structural change, but more important, a change in attitude,” Jurasek said. “I cannot recall in my career a new year launch filled with as much confidence and constructive energy.”

Several Antioch faculty and students involved in the new curriculum also reported enthusiasm about changes at the college, although some returning students expressed concern at what they perceive as negative effects on their studies.

Fall classes started at Antioch College last week, with an incoming class of 70 new students, according to Jurasek, who will continue to serve as interim president until the permanent president, Steven Lawry officially takes over in January.

College administrators stated last summer that student enrollment would be low as the college transitions to the new curriculum. Jurasek declined to give Antioch’s overall enrollment figures, saying that the college needed to take its official census in two weeks before that information could be released.

This fall the college launched its new curriculum for first-year students, which is based on learning communities, or groups of students who study an interdisciplinary topic taught by three instructors from different disciplines. The change in curriculum is part of the Antioch renewal plan.

The college is offering three learning communities during the fall term. “A Sense of Place,” a study of bioregionalism, is taught by economist Janice Kinghorn, mathematician Eli Nettles and Colette Palamar, who teaches environmental studies. “Embodied Mind, Thinking Bodies” is taught by biologist Brenda Moore, dance instructor Jill Becker and psychologist Ann Koppelman, and “Environmental Justice” is taught by filmmaker Anne Bohlen, chemist Kab Butamina and visiting literature faculty member Rich Reeves.

According to Jurasek, the new curriculum has sparked excitement on campus.

“We have tapped into deep reserves of creativity and commitment that had been contained by decades of challenges,” he said. “Having self-determined a new template for our future, we have released all kinds of good will.”

Kinghorn, who is also the director of the new first-year program, said that both students and faculty involved in the learning communities are enthused about the new program.

“The mood is good,” she said. “Faculty like it. It’s fun to teach with other faculty because you get to learn other perspectives, new perspectives not in your field.”

Dennie Eagleson, who teaches photography and will co-teach the learning community “American Identities” in the spring with literature professor Jean Gregorek and anthropologist Beverly Rodgers, said the new curriculum is “an exciting moment. It’s very different than being an isolated teacher in a classroom.”

The new curriculum is undoubtedly a lot of work at this point, Eagleson said, but her study of learning communities at other colleges, such as Evergreen in Washington, has convinced her that it can work well for both students and faculty.

Nine faculty members will be involved this fall and nine next spring, out of almost 50 faculty.

Jurasek would not comment about what faculty members who are not involved in the learning communities think of the new program, although he said that he has “not heard concerns” about the new curriculum from faculty members.

Dean of Faculty Andrzej Bloch said that there is “less and less resistance from the faculty, more acceptance than last year” to the changes to the curriculum.

Several first-year students expressed enthusiasm for the program, although several also said that the configuration of the program had not been clearly communicated to them before they came to campus, and they had come to Antioch expecting to take a greater number of more traditional classes. They also expressed concern that they have not received clear information about the curriculum in their upcoming years at the college.

Still, several said they are open to the learning community experience.

“The idea of it is fascinating,” said Rand Rosenberg of Chicago, who is taking “A Sense of Place.” “The classes are interesting.”

But some resistance to the new curriculum was expressed by several returning students, who said that the learning communities are taking away from them many strong teachers, some of whom are being replaced by unfamiliar ad-junct professors.

The new adjuncts “don’t know our names, our writing styles or how Antioch works,” said fifth-year student Jennifer Switlick.

Bloch said the use of new adjunct professors for upper-level classes is an “unfortunate consequence” of the new curriculum.

However, he pointed out, all learning community teachers are engaged in the new curriculum for one semester only, after which they will again be available to teach older students.

Third-year student Steve McQueen said he was concerned that the learning communities are changing the campus dynamics, since first-year students seem very close to each other and more separate from older students than in other years. Traditionally, younger students have learned from the older ones in classes, he said, which he believes won’t happen now.

Another significant aspect of the new curriculum is the development of new “co-op communities” for students when they go on co-op off campus, according to Bloch.

Beginning in March, co-op communities will have formed in Santa Fe, Washington, D.C., and in the local area, he said. While students will continue to live and work at jobs by themselves, Bloch said, the co-op community will provide a structured program designed to help them more fully experience the area they’re living in, as well as be in closer communication with each other and with Antioch alumni in the area.

The co-op community will be “one of the most profound” changes of the new curriculum, Bloch said, one that he believes will “change qualitatively students’ co-op experience so that it becomes stronger and deeper.”

Other changes on the Antioch campus this fall are structural and obvious to the eye. Jurasek said the “college carried out three breathtaking construction projects within 90 days” over the summer.

The projects included the demolition of Presidents Hall, the remodeling of the first floor of the Science Building and the remodeling of parts of Birch Hall.

The Science Building renovations were undertaken to provide a learning space that was more congenial and more high tech for the learning communities, Jurasek said. Changes in Birch Hall “create more common living space,” including a new common meal area, he said.

The projects cost $1.5 million, and were financed from the college’s existing budget, he said.

Jurasek declined to discuss specifics of the college’s budget during the interview, stating that the discussion would be “too complex for the phone.” However, he offered to meet with the News in person to discuss finances.

He did say, “We are on a straight road toward fiscal vitality.”

Jurasek also said that Antioch finished last year in the black. “We have operational needs, but I won’t call it a deficit,” he said.

About seven faculty members, including several long-term faculty, have left in the past year or two, The Antioch Record, the student newspaper, reported last month. Jurasek said that the number is “probably” more than the average, and that some people left because of uncertainty over the new curriculum.

Bloch said that he did not believe the number of faculty departures was greater than usual, and that retaining faculty members has been an ongoing concern. The college hopes that the new curriculum will help increase retention of both students and faculty, he said.

Jurasek said the greatest challenge facing Antioch is “maintaining the excellent momentum we have right now across time.”

“There’s a good vibration on campus now,” he said. “We want to sustain that.”