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