College
students challenged by reduced services, support
By Lauren Heaton
The current crop of Antioch College students is small but mighty, according
to several sources, who cite the fact that no new student has dropped
out since school began last month, an achievement unheard of in recent
memory, as evidence of the group’s spirit and commitment to the
college.
But while many students are energized by the opportunity to join the
alumni and faculty effort to save their college from the brink of closure,
they also must deal with a definite downside to the Antioch University
trustees’ decision to suspend college operations for four years
beginning next July. Because of an approximately $2 million budget shortfall
this year, students are challenged to create a productive year with
limited library access, fewer student support staff, and less money
for campus events.
Smaller numbers
After Antioch University announced in June that it would suspend operations
at the college in 2008, total enrollment at the college fell from 325
last year to about 230 students this year, mainly due to a smaller than
average first-year class and 120 seniors who graduated last year. Sixty-six
new students enrolled in this year’s freshman class.
While current faculty number 39 altogether, not far off from last year’s
45, the number of staff positions has been maintained at 57 union staff
and 36 non-union staff, approximately the same number of staff since
the college eliminated 20 positions last spring due to last year’s
$1.5 million operating deficit.
Though this year’s college budget has yet to be approved, college
Chief Operations Officer Andrzej Bloch anticipated the college’s
operating deficit to be more than $2 million due to the loss of tuition
from the difference between the projected first-year enrollment, an
already low 120 students, and the actual number who showed up in August.
The college committed earlier this summer to maintain its current curriculum,
but the previous years’ staff cuts have resulted in reduced level
of services and has made campus life this year more challenging for
some.
A slimming of student services
At the center of campus is the library, whose hours have been cut from
10 a.m. to 9 p.m. most days, relative to last year when the library
opened at 8:30 a.m. most days and closed at 11 p.m. The staff for the
library, which serves both the college as well as the nearly 700 students
at Antioch University McGregor, has been cut to two professional librarians
and two staff members, according to library employee Steve Duffy.
“We’re exhausted and a little nuts here because we’re
way understaffed,” he said. “There’s no back-up, and
no one better dare get sick,” he said.
But if students plan well, they can still get the materials they need,
if not with the efficiency they are accustomed to, Duffy said.
Fifth-year student Nicole Bayani has gone to the library several times
needing to check out a book or a reading for the following day and found
it closed, she said.
Students have also felt the lack of a dedicated dean of students, whose
position last year was rolled in with auxiliary services under the new
position of vice president for student affairs and services, a post
now held by Milt Thompson.
According to Community Manager Rory Adams-Cheatham, whose visits as
a student to the dean of students’ office were seldom but critical,
students need a full-time advocate while they’re on campus in
order to remain focused.
The college’s budget cuts have also reduced the Community Government
budget, which funds student groups, such as The Antioch Record, Third
World Alliance, the Queer Center, Activities Grants, and the Community
Manager salaries. Especially large was the cut to Activities Grants,
which went from $35,000 last year to $14,000 this year and greatly reduced
the number of events paid for by the college, Adams-Cheatham said.
Hot breakfasts are only available on weekends, according to Bayani,
who said after dining services were cut, students suddenly began seeing
hot dogs on the menu every week.
Due to cuts last year, the college bookstore lost one of its employees
and is now trying to operate the store on both the college campus and
the new bookstore on the recently-opened McGregor School Campus West
with one full-time employee, bookstore manager Dave Kunka, who is paid
by the college. The college bookstore is open from 10 to 3 Monday through
Thursday, while Kunka operates the McGregor store from 3 to 5:30 during
the week and 10 to 3 on Saturdays. Though Kunka said college students
did not traditionally use the bookstore regularly after the first week
of each term, Bayani said it saddens her to walk by and see it’s
not open.
“It feels like they’re dismantling our school while we still
go here,” Bayani said. “I would have expected them to provide
the appropriate services until it shut down; we’re paying and
we aren’t getting what we should be getting.”
Tim Noble, a 2002 graduate of the college, noticed the campus was operating
at less than full force when he visited two weeks ago.
“The spirit of Antioch is alive and fighting, but the conditions
on campus are truly difficult, particularly for students, faculty, community
government, and those who are trying to keep it going,” he said.
“The university says they’ll help us and will consider alternate
plans, but they’re operating as if it is still closing.”
According to Bloch, the college is maintaining a level of operation
commensurate with a time the college had full enrollment.
“We are not shutting down operations — we have more adjunct
faculty than ever so that the curriculum we offer is as complete as
it can be,” Bloch said. “By design we did not cut operations,
especially curriculum and campus services.”
Faculty stretched to the limit
In addition to the loss of faculty positions last year, several months
before the announcement that the college would close, the university
put a freeze on filling tenure-track positions, according to Peter Townsend,
professor of environmental science and geology. Several academic departments,
such as biology, history, sociology and music, were close to hiring
full-time tenured professors when University Chancellor Toni Murdock
notified faculty that the budget would not support new tenured positions.
For biology, that meant the department’s sole faculty member,
who retired last year, would not be replaced by a tenured position,
and the department would have to begin another search for a visiting
professor. Unfortunately, when that person took an extended leave this
month due to illness, there were only adjuncts to teach biology, Townsend
said.
A similar story occurred in the sociology department. When the sociologist
who was hired last year decided after the closure was announced to take
a tenure-track position elsewhere, the department was suddenly without
a dedicated professor to lead it, Townsend said. Meanwhile in music,
assistant professor James Johnston was offered a position as tenure-track
professor, but it was quickly rescinded in the same manner as the others,
Johnston said.
While several professors said the students are quite serious about pursuing
their academics this year, given the uncertain future, Associate Professor
of Dance Jill Becker said that the lack of support for a fully operational
campus is “demoralizing.” She and two other faculty members,
Jean Gregorek and Dennie Eagleson, have been volunteering at the library
to help provide the minimal support students need to complete their
studies.
“It makes it hard to have faith that this opening to negotiations
is sincere,” she said of the university’s stated willingness
to consider plans to keep the college open.
Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com