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October 25, 2007
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October 25, 2007 |
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Editorial A letter to Antioch trustees Welcome to Yellow Springs. So much has changed since your June meeting, when you made the decision to, at least for a few years, close the college. Then, the college seemed to be dying, with declining enrollment, mounting financial needs and a weakening connection with alumni. It’s understandable that you chose to suspend operations to stem the financial loss. According to one spokesperson, university leaders at the time thought the story of closing Antioch College would blow over in 72 hours. This is not what happened. What happened was a new, totally unexpected story. It’s a story of galvanized alumni, hundreds of busy adults who have taken on a new job on top of the jobs they already have, the job of saving their college. It’s a story of faculty, students and villagers who have thrown themselves into the effort to keep Antioch open. It’s a story of many more students than anticipated showing up this fall to a school that had announced its impending closure. As one villager stated at your Cincinnati meeting, everyone had to ask the question, does Antioch matter? The answer, it seems, is a resounding yes. Antioch College matters because it offers young people a powerful experience of learning. Ask the alumni board leaders: it transformed their lives. (Probably it transformed your lives, too, since most of you are alumni.) Something about the combined visions of Horace Mann and Arthur Morgan, the potent mixture of intellectual inquiry, real-world experience and shared governance knocked the socks off Antioch students. Something about it worked. It still works. Antioch College creates adults who carry into the world a rich blend of idealism and practicality, of both dreams and deeds. They are creative, bright, confident and they won’t take no for an answer. They don’t understand that there are some things — things like raising millions of dollars to save their college — that ordinary people would not have the courage to do. These are not ordinary people. Ah, some say, those people attended Antioch in the good years, decades ago, but things have changed. That Antioch is gone, they say. And yes, the college has problems after years of neglect, serious problems that must be addressed. But here’s the good news: the college still attracts remarkable young people. Have you read the Antioch Record the past few months? These editors and writers are among the most passionate, capable and committed young people around. Over hundreds of other colleges, they chose Antioch. If it’s clear now that Antioch matters, it’s equally clear that, if the college closes and somehow reopens, the new Antioch will look nothing like the current college. The plan floated at your June meeting for the “revitalized” college called for fewer full-time faculty and no tenure, a less expensive system guaranteed to lessen academic excellence and faculty commitment. In the past few months the university chancellor has made clear her disdain for the Antioch system of shared governance; the new college will not have that. So that college, without the current outstanding faculty and governance system, will lack two of the three cornerstones of the Antioch model of education. And because the alumni have thrown their weight behind keeping the college open, the reopened college will also lack their financial support. It makes little sense to choose a vague vision of Antioch that comes with significant financial and academic problems over a real, dynamic place that comes with committed faculty, bright students and legions of passionate alumni. The revitalization of Antioch College has already begun. We ask you to let it live.
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