Antioch College Closing?

Lawry’s ouster undermines trust

By Diane Chiddister

Only a few days after Antioch College alumni, faculty and students seemed to come together with Antioch University administrators and trustees on the possibility of keeping the college open, things fell apart this week, at least for a while. Two jarring and unexpected events sparked more distrust between supporters of Antioch College and Antioch University, after the university put Antioch College President Steve Lawry on administrative leave last Friday, a day which also included what some perceived as a mysterious temporary lock-out of those who work for the college’s alumni and development offices.

As of last Friday, Lawry was banned from the Antioch campus and also banned from speaking with faculty, students, staff and alumni, according to several sources close to the college administration. Lawry declined to comment.

The events sent unwelcome signals to those aimed at building community in support of Antioch College, according to a current university trustee.

“This is not the way to build trust. To have followed up the meeting in Cincinnati with this was such a blunder,” said Antioch University Trustee Paula Treichler of Champaign, Ill., in an interview this week.

On Aug. 25, hundreds of Antioch College supporters and invited stakeholders traveled to Cincinnati to plead with the board of trustees to reverse their June decision to suspend Antioch College operations next year. At the meeting the college alumni board presented their plan to keep the college open and to create a new governance system, in which the college would be independent from the university. A group of more than 20 former trustees presented a separate but similar plan. The board issued a press release following the meeting, stating that they were offering the alumni board two months, until their October meeting, to present a business plan for a sustainable college with the possibility of keeping the college open.

To former trustee Barbara Winslow of New York, who helped to present the plan from the former trustees, Lawry’s dismissal, and the way in which it occurred, countered the progress from the previous week’s meeting.

“I think it’s contrary to the spirit of good feeling that came out of the Cincinnati meeting,” she said this week. “To put a college president on administrative leave with a banning order goes against everything Antioch College has stood for.”

Antioch University Board Chair Art Zucker declined to comment this week, as did University Chancellor Toni Murdock. Seven university trustees did not return phone calls seeking comment. University Board Vice-Chair Dan Fallon of New York, said in an interview that he “could understand how people can view this as not a confidence-raising gesture” but that the university was acting in good faith “to protect the future health of the college.”

Antioch College Alumni Board President Nancy Crow stated on Tuesday that Murdock spoke with the alumni board this week in a conference call that “repaired some of the damage” because Murdock stated “she is fully committed to working with us.” Crow also stated that Lawry will continue to do some fund-raising work with the alums.

“We want to remain focused on our goal” of keeping the college open, Crow said.

Lawry let go
On Friday, the first sign that big changes were taking place on the Antioch College campus was an Antioch University press release announcing that Lawry was “stepping down,” from his position, effective immediately.

Lawry had previously announced in July his intention to resign from the college effective Dec. 31, and he had made this decision, according to the press release, “in light of the June 9, 2007 decision of the Antioch University Board of Trustees to suspend operations at the College.”

According to a source close to the college, Lawry announced his resignation after the board’s decision to close the college. He had believed that Murdock supported his proposal to merge Antioch College with Antioch University McGregor and create a separate governance structure and had been surprised at the June board meeting, when Murdock pushed to suspend college operations instead.

In an interview on Friday, Antioch University spokesperson Mary Lou LaPierre said she was not sure whether or not Lawry made the decision to leave last week on his own accord.

However, according to sources close to the college, he was asked to go. Lawry was put on administrative leave and will continue receiving a salary until Dec. 31 with the stipulations that he stay away from the campus and not speak with any faculty, staff, students or alumni, except those specifically approved.

Lawry had forcefully and repeatedly stated that the college, to prosper, must be independent of the university and have its own board of trustees. His public statements calling for an independent Antioch College contributed to his being dismissed, according to several sources.

“He has consistently spoken truth to power, which is what leaders should do,” according to a college source this week, who asked to remain anonymous due to job insecurity. “The conspiracy of silence about the dysfunctional arrangement of the university is not something he was willing to put up with, for good reason.”

Since the trustees’ announcement last week that they would give the alumni board two months to produce a plan and raise enough funds to keep the college open, Lawry was seen by many as one of the alumni board’s main fund raisers. The alums hope that they can continue working with him, according to Crow.

Asked this week who made the decision to let Lawry go, LaPierre said she did not know. According to one anonymous source, Murdock had expressed to the board over the past several months her desire to have Lawry leave, and stated in Cincinnati her decision to put him on administrative leave.

It is not accurate to say that Lawry was fired or let go, because he had already made the decision to resign, University Trustee Fallon said this week.

“He was the one who decided to terminate his relationship with Antioch University in the midddle of a crisis year,” Fallon said. “Once that decision was made, he was in a lame duck capacity.”

The college needed a leader who could see it through this whole year and not just until Dec. 31, Fallon said.

New leadership team
In a second press release Friday, Antioch University announced a new leadership team to head the college. Andrzej Bloch, the college’s current dean of faculty, will assume the position of chief operations officer. Joining him will be Milt Thompson, the college’s vice president for student affairs and Lynda Sirk, former director of public relations for the college who will now preside over the college’s office of development and alumni relations.

Bloch is a longtime college faculty member who came to Antioch 25 years ago as assistant professor of economics. He is also director of Antioch Education Abroad and had been interim dean of faculty since 2005.

Thompson has been with the college three years, in the position of director of purchasing and auxiliary services. He was promoted to the position of vice president for student affairs last February. Immediately before coming to Antioch, Thompson worked as operations manager for Johnson Controls, and before that as associate vice president for business services at Wilmington College.

Sirk has held the position of director of communications and public relations for two years, and before that worked for 10 years as the director of communication and public relations for the Dublin Public School system, a position she also held in Hamilton School District.

Some faculty and staff have expressed concern that Sirk is now in charge of college development and alumni relations, since she is perceived by some as being an advocate for the plan to close the college and an opponent of the plan to keep it open.

Regarding Sirk’s role as the college’s director of public relations, “I don’t think we have been well served in the press by our public relations office,” faculty member Anne Bohlen said this week. “It seems that Lynda works for the university.”

However, in an interview this week, Sirk said that she “admires the alumni for what they’re trying to do. My goal is to make everything available possible for them to make the best effort they can mount” to keep the college open.

At the Cincinnati board meeting, the alumni board stated that the university’s prior refusal to open its financial and alumni records had made it difficult to create a business plan to sustain Antioch College. The trustees agreed to share that information in its press statement last week.

According to Sirk this week, “We’re making everything available with what’s reasonable,” citing the college’s small work force as a factor. Alumni board treasurer Rick Daily is scheduled to be on campus this week to begin the process of information sharing.

The events of last week indicate “that we have an incredible clash between an academic culture and a corporate culture that doesn’t understand tenure and shared governance,” Antioch University Trustee Treichler said this week. “This clash has to be resolved before the plan for Antioch College can move forward.”

New locks in Alumni office
Campus confusion intensified on Friday when several employees of the college’s institutional advancement and alumni relations office were told at noon Friday to leave campus and not return until Tuesday morning, and to not contact any college alumni over the weekend, according to an alumni office source. An employee who returned later found a locksmith changing the locks to the offices. During this time, employees did not have access to their e-mail accounts.

Some employees expressed fears that the lock-out and changing of locks was linked with an attempt by the university to manipulate information to be shared with the alumni board.

However, the changing of the locks had nothing to do with the exchange of information, according to several college and university officials. According to Sirk, the locks had to be changed to secure university data because of the Antioch University McGregor move this week, and the presence of strangers in the building. According to LaPierre, the locks were changed because several people in the institutional advancement office had lost their jobs in preceding months and several keys are still at large. Thompson, who authorized the event, did not return a phone call by publication time.

The problem was simply one of timing, Sirk said, and the fact that college employees were working on Friday longer than expected.

“There was no lock-out,“ she said. “If they would have left when they were supposed to, there would have been no issue.”

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com