Yellow Springs News Online

Antioch College Closing?

Defiant alumni start revival fund, vow to keep college open

About 600 Antioch College alumni came to their annual reunion last weekend dispirited and despondent, having heard a week earlier that their beloved alma mater would, in a year, close down. But the alumni, who spanned seven decades of Antioch graduates, left two days later determined, committed and upbeat, having decided to throw their considerable energies, talents and resources into saving their college.

Two weeks ago, the Antioch University Board of Trustees announced that Antioch College would close in July 2008, due to declining enrollment that precipitated a financial crisis. The trustees also announced that they intended to reopen Antioch in 2012 as a “state of the art” college.

But despite trustees and administrators’ best efforts over the weekend to explain their decision, college alumni would have none of it. And, as several pointed out, if their education at Antioch College taught them anything, it taught them to take on hard causes and to believe in their abilities to change the world, or at least their part of it.

The reunion was “an explosion of energy, anger, love and commitment,” according to Catherine Jordan, Class of ’72, at the event’s close on Sunday.

To alumnus Ed Goldson, ’62, of Denver, the reunion was “the most extraordinary outpouring of support I’ve ever experienced.”

And according to Julia Reichert, ’70, of Yellow Springs, the event “galvanized people in a big way.”

“People realize what a scarce and previous resource Antioch is, especially in the current political climate,” she said. “One thing we learned at Antioch is how to organize. Did the trustees think we would take this lying down? Wrong.”

The alumni put their money where their mouths were. On Sunday, they announced that, in a little more than a day, they had raised over $420,000 to help in their task. And on Tuesday the alumni board issued a statement in support of keeping the college open. The statement can be accessed online at www.antiochians.org., a Web site created after the weekend’s events.

Tough questions for trustees
The reunion kicked off Friday morning with a tense, passionate event called “Future of the College,” which filled Kelly Hall to overflowing with alumni, college administrators, community members and some members of the board of trustees. While the trustees and administrators clearly wanted to convince the alumni of the need for their plan to close Antioch and later reopen it, the alumni who asked questions showed no signs of backing away from their conviction that Antioch College must remain open.

“Do you really think that closing the college will increase admissions?” asked Dan Shoemaker, ’92.

During the event, some trustees made passionate pleas to the alumni to understand their difficulty in making the decision to close.

“We have the same love and passion for Antioch that you have,” said Board President Arthur Zucker, his voice breaking as he spoke. “I speak for the board when I say, we’re sorry.”

Some trustees acknowledged what they perceived as a failure of leadership. The board failed the college by not raising the amount of money it promised to raise to support the new curriculum renewal program, according to Trustee Barbara Winslow. When the board mandated, several years ago, that the Antioch College faculty thoroughly revamp the curriculum into new interdisciplinary courses, or the Renewal Plan, it promised that it would provide $22 million to help improve the college’s physical plant and also ensure that faculty had five years to implement the new curriculum. However, only two years passed before the board, two weeks ago, decided to close the college.

“Creating a strong development team was not something we were able to do,” Winslow said.

But the losses associated with the Renewal Plan came faster and were greater than anyone anticipated, according to Zucker, who said the board simply ran out of time and had no other choice but the decision to close the college.

According to trustee Larry Stone, if the board hadn’t decided to close the college, the budget shortfall could take down the entire university system.

But some in the audience booed Zucker when, asked why the trustees never came to the college community to tell them of the impending emergency and ask for help, he said such communication would be “meddling or interfering” with the college.

Antioch College President Steve Lawry knew of the possible closing, Zucker said, and the board assumed he would discuss it with the college community as he saw fit. But Lawry later stated that he didn’t do so because “there was no expectation on my part that this decision would be taken on June 9.”

The board did its best in a dysfunctional system, according to Lawry, who made a passionate statement about the need for an independent board of trustees to oversee only the college, rather than the current board structure, which oversees all six campuses of the Antioch University system.

“These are fine people who have lived with a deeply flawed structure,” he said. Lawry also stated that Antioch University has, over the years, suffered from its board’s low level of fund raising.

“There was no expectation set, 35 or 40 years ago, that a principle expectation for board members is philanthropy, giving money and raising money,” he said. “That’s a problem.”

According to Antioch University Chancellor Toni Murdock, the board is considering establishing separate boards for each campus in the university system, with a single board to oversee the whole university.

Asked by alumnus Tim Noble how alumni could trust this board to rebuild the college, some board members offered to step down if necessary. But the whole Antioch College community needs to take responsibility for the financial crisis and not just blame the trustees, according to Trustee Sharon Merriman.

“This problem was a long time coming. We didn’t create all the problems all by ourselves and we can’t solve them by ourselves,” she said.

In his introduction, Zucker said he wanted to dispel two “myths” about the relationship between Antioch College and Antioch University. First, he said, the college’s $32 million endowment will not, upon the closing of the college, go to the university because “almost all of the endowment is restricted for college use.”

And secondly, he said, the newly constructed McGregor building on the edge of town did not constrict the university’s ability to borrow money, as has been asserted by some faculty members. Rather, the building was financed by revenue bonds which are based solely on McGregor’s past financial performance and future expectations, he said, stating that college assets were also not used in any way to secure the bonds.

But the new McGregor building remained a sore point with some audience members. In response to a statement by Murdock that if the college reopens, it needs to be a “more unified” institution with McGregor, Greg Williams, ’95, asked, “If unification is such a great idea, why is McGregor building a new building that’s not part of the institution?”

While some have described the college’s student culture as “toxic,” Paula Treichler, a trustee and alumna who grew up in Yellow Springs, stated she does not agree.

“I have seen no evidence of the famous toxic culture,” she said. “Antioch continues to be a vibrant and creative place. But goddammit, we need money!”

Alumni organize
On Saturday afternoon, Kelly Hall again filled up, this time with alumni, Yellow Springs residents and faculty at a community meeting sponsored by the college’s community government, or CG. At the spirited event, participants claimed a new variation of Horace Mann’s famous advice to Antioch College graduates to “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”

The new motto, suggested by alumnus Glenn Keldsen and met with a standing ovation, was “Be ashamed to let it die.”

Representatives from all of the college’s stakeholder groups — including faculty, staff, alumni, students and villagers — spoke about what their group would do to keep the college open.

“Call or e-mail a friend when you get home and tell them how wonderful it is to be here and what a tragedy it would be if we lost all this,” said Steve Duffy, who has worked at the college library for more than 30 years.

At the event, present Antioch College community managers Rory Adams-Cheatham and Chelsea Martens, in collaboration with past community managers, broke the large group into nine smaller working groups, charged with various aspects of finance, legal issues and governance, and community culture and communication.

According to a summary following the event written by Tim Noble, ’02, the finance group will address, among other things, both internal and external fundraising, the creation of a sustainable business plan and transparent accounting practices.

The governance group will address the erosion of shared governance at Antioch College, the creation of a new college board of trustees, issues regarding merging with Antioch McGregor, and identification of those willing to be part of a legal team, among other issues.

The community culture and communications group will focus on communicating effectively with the media, with the village of Yellow Springs and will enhance communication between the college, alumni, and university campuses, among others.

In his summary, Noble wrote, “We would like to add that it was our experience with shared governance at Antioch College that made this process possible.”

At the Saturday meeting, alumni were challenged by the alumni board to raise $40,000 for the effort to save the college. The fund raising was kicked off by Keldsen, who stood up and announced that he would donate $5,000 in honor of his late wife, who graduated from Antioch.

But the fund raising exploded on Saturday night, at an alumni gathering under the tent next to Main Building. The spontaneous event was sparked when someone delivered new pledge cards which had just been printed with the new “Be ashamed to let it die” motto, according to Reichert.

One after another, alumni stood up and made pledges to their college, to loud applause.

The fund raising continued into Sunday, and at that day’s final alumni event, the total amount raised topped $410,000.

On Sunday, several alumni reminisced about why so many people care so deeply about Antioch College.

For many alumni, Antioch was a “seminal event,” in their lives, according to Edward Goldson.

“You came here at 17 or 18 and it was life-changing. You grew up here,” he said, stating that Antioch seems to have a greater impact on its alumni than other colleges have on their graduates.

“I’ve never known a college where you keep talking about it for 50 years,” he said.

The way that Antioch has affected their lives is complex, according to Nancy Crow, but it has to do with the ways students were challenged. The co-op program challenged students to apply their learning to the real world, the shared governance system challenged students to take on adult responsibilities, and in the small classes professors challenged students to think critically and thoroughly,

And Horace Mann’s famous advice to “win some victory for humanity” left its mark too, according to Goldson.

“That famous quote has taken hold. It has stayed with people throughout their lives,” he said.

All in all, according to Crow, it’s not surprising that Antioch alumni have taken on the Herculean task of saving the college.

“We’ve seen that process working this weekend,” she said, referring to Antioch’s tradition of shared governance. “We came distressed and enraged and are leaving with a sense of hope and much work to be done.”