Second in a two-part series—
Antioch McGregor: Unique strengths, challenges

By Diane Chiddister

In some ways Cathleen Tong is a typical Antioch University McGregor graduate. In her mid-30s, she longed for more meaningful work and a change of career: specifically, she wanted to teach children. So in 2000 she signed up for the McGregor program that offers teacher certification for adults who have college degrees in other fields. Two years later, she had her teaching certificate along with a master’s degree in education.

Now a teacher in a Springfield inner-city charter school, Tong, who lives in Yellow Springs, believes she received excellent training from McGregor. She was encouraged, she said, to value the whole child and respect individual learning styles, to use creative and innovative teaching techniques, and to bring to her job her unique gifts as a human being.

“We were taught to always look at the big picture,” Tong said in a recent interview. As a result, she said, she uses more creative techniques than do most of her colleagues, and she believes the children in her classes benefit from the innovative approach that she learned at McGregor.

Kay Bosse of Dayton came to McGregor for a different reason. An actress and member of the Human Race theater company, she had no intention of changing her career, but, at midlife, she sought to deepen her knowledge and understanding of the world. She found what she sought in the Weekend College classics program, a little known part of the McGregor curriculum.

“It’s a great program. It changes lives,” Bosse said in an interview this week.

Although Antioch University McGregor has been in existence in Yellow Springs for more than 20 years, many in the community know little about its students and programs.

And in the recent publicity around the potential closing of Antioch College, some have questioned whether McGregor reflects the values and traditions of the college. Interviews with a variety of students indicate that McGregor students feel they receive an outstanding education, and that their classes reflect the traditional Antioch emphasis on fostering creative and critical thinking and respect for diversity. However, while Antioch College students and faculty have traditionally acted as almost equal partners with administrators in school governance, at McGregor some students and faculty feel frustrated at what they perceive as having little voice in decision-making. For some, that lack of shared governance has made McGregor a less dynamic school than they believe it could be.

Weekend College began it all
If you’re looking for the connection between the McGregor School and Antioch College, you need only find Jim Malarkey, the man who started it all.

In the mid-1980s, then-Antioch University President Al Guskin sought to improve the Antioch College Adult Degree Completion Program, which until then required adult students to attend regular Antioch College classes. Guskin believed that adults needed their own classes, and that those classes should meet at a time that didn’t interfere with their jobs. Thus the Weekend College, which provides classes for adults on Saturdays, was born.

Malarkey, who had taught anthropology for two years at the college, led a team that designed the program’s new curriculum, and he’s been with McGregor ever since.

The new program began in 1986 with about 30 students, a handful of faculty and two program offerings, human development and management. Soon after, faculty found that Weekend College students had little knowledge of history, and Malarkey created a new program to address that need. Malarkey, who had taught in a great books program at the American University of Beirut, fashioned a curriculum that included not only the great books of western civilization, but those of the eastern world as well. That program, called the classics curriculum, is the McGregor School’s “best kept secret,” according to Malarkey, because, the school does not promote the program.

Kay Bosse, the actress who completed the program, found the classics program to be transformative.

“It opens up the entire world and gives you a grasp of the human condition, a glimpse into the human community,” she said.

The classics curriculum is one small part of McGregor’s Weekend College undergraduate program, and overall, according to Malarkey, the program is “holding its own as the best degree completion program in the region.”

The Weekend College has grown since 1986 to its current level of about 170 students, and it offers degrees in humanities, human development, management, health and wellness, human services administration and liberal arts for educators.

Among the strengths of the Weekend College is the diversity of its students in terms not only of race, but also age and economic level, according to Chair of Liberal Studies Joe Cronin, who said the program is unique in bringing together people from all walks of life, from Wright Patt employees to corporate workers to those who live on public assistance.

“Students say they learn as much from the other students as from the instructors,” he said.

One who would agree is villager Brooke Bryan, who came to McGregor last spring after having previously attended Antioch College. The McGregor classes meet the high standards she had found at the college, she said, and the McGregor students’ diverse life experiences, which they share in the school’s small classes, bring additional richness to the learning process.

However, faculty members are also challenged by trying to meet the needs of students who come to the school for very different reasons, Cronin said.

“Some are here for a journey, a growth process, and others because they need to advance in their work place,” he said. “Some want the more authentic Antioch experience and some want convenience. Both students exist in Antioch McGregor.”

While the undergraduate program is doing well, McGregor graduate liberal arts programs are struggling. The school offers distance learning graduate degrees in conflict resolution, management, community college management, community change and civic leadership and individualized liberal and professional studies. The programs have suffered in the past few years from the attrition of faculty members, and student numbers have dropped accordingly..

In an interview last month, McGregor President Barbara Gellman-Danley said that hiring new faculty is a priority.

Education program strong
Business is booming at McGregor’s education program, according to Zach Sharif, executive dean of the school’s education department, which offers both teacher certification and some graduate degrees.

“The last four or five years, this program has mushroomed,” he said in a recent interview, so that now the number of McGregor education students rivals the numbers of much larger state university programs.

Education is the school’s largest program, with more than 330 students this fall out of a preliminary McGregor total of almost 700 students. The program has grown significantly in the past three years, according to Antioch University President Barbara Gellman-Danley, and it currently employs nine full-time faculty and about 30 adjunct instructors.

“This is a very strong, nationally recognized program,” she said in a recent interview.

Last spring the McGregor education program achieved accreditation from NCATE, or the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, a substantial move for the school, according to Gellman-Danley. The multi-year accreditation process was rigorous, and achieving it means that the education program is considered on par with leading schools nationwide, she said.

McGregor was the first school in the area to offer a teacher certification program to non-traditional students, those who had previously earned college degrees in other disciplines but later chose to become a teacher.

“We have a different kind of student, one who has already done things in life and is dedicated to becoming a great teacher,” Sharif said.

Both Sharif and Gellman-Danley are especially proud of the fact that about 30 percent of education program students are minority students. Recently, Antioch University McGregor as a whole was honored for its student diversity when it received a 2007 Diversity Award from Minority Access, Inc., a non-profit educational association.

Governance issues
The most obvious difference between Antioch College and Antioch University McGregor is the schools’ governance structures. While faculty and students at the college have historically been almost equal contributors to decision making and faculty benefit from job security due to the college’s tenure system, some at the McGregor school feel they have few decision-making opportunities, and that their jobs are always on the line.

“Over the past seven or eight years the role of faculty in decisions affecting the academic programs at McGregor has diminished significantly,” according to Gina Paget, former chair of the individualized masters program, in a written statement. “The absolute number of faculty has decreased from 32 to less than 20 in the last four years. Faculty have been appointed by administrators rather than selected by search committees with strong faculty representation. When faculty have left or been dismissed they have not been replaced. Crucial programmatic and curricular decisions are no longer made at the departmental level but rather at the executive level.”

Several current and past faculty members, who asked not to be identified for job security and professional reasons, stated that that lack of power diminishes the level of vitality and academic freedom that McGregor faculty members should have. While faculty members continue to try to do their best in the classroom, their lack of autonomy undermines their relationships with students, some believe.

Many faculty members in recent years feared for their jobs if they spoke up or opposed the current administration, according to a longtime former full-time faculty member, who asked not to be identified for professional reasons. While some McGregor faculty sign multi-year contracts, they can be dismissed at any point.

In response to these concerns, Gellman-Danley last month said that no faculty member should feel that his or her job is not secure.

“People speak up all the time,” she said. “There is no reason for anyone to fear for their jobs.”

In recent weeks, faculty members have been informed that they may now speak to the press, a change over former policy.

Students want a voice
In recent years, students have also lobbied for more voice in the McGregor School. While it’s a challenge to create a sense of community with commuter students who have busy lives with jobs and families, students still yearn to do so, according to Weekend College student Charlotte Dungan, who publishes The Voice, the unofficial student newspaper.

Dungan, who pays for printing the paper out of pocket, said that she approached the administration for funds to pay only for printing, but was turned down by Gellman-Danley, who said she had received other requests and couldn’t choose only one. Four other McGregor students write for the paper, which accepts submissions by all students and, according to Dungan, does not feature especially controversial topics.

Having a more engaged student body would benefit everyone at McGregor, she believes.

“It could be such a dynamic, involved place,” she said.

Brooke Bryan, one of the paper’s contributors, expressed in a recent issue her desire to see the McGregor School provide more student services, including an office of student services, in-house scholarships and more welcoming student meeting spaces in the new Campus West building.

A petition last year signed by many Weekend College students requesting student government did not get any results, according to Dungan, who said the student behind the petition then graduated and the issue seems to have been dropped.

As a faculty member, it is frustrating to see students find their voices in class but not have the opportunity to use those voices in the context of McGregor issues, according to Cronin.

“In my opinion it would be useful to explore ways to involve students in administrative decision making, at least those things that impact their own experience,” Cronin said. “We see education as empowerment. To stifle that within our institution doesn’t make sense.”

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com

*The writer is a former adjunct faculty member of McGregor.