As deadline nears, Antioch College faculty keep hanging on

Part two in a 2-part series on how students and faculty are responding to the uncertainty of Antioch College’s future.

By Diane Chiddister

The past nine months have offered Antioch College faculty members a roller coaster of emotions, including anger, hope, despair and confusion. And yet the group of 36 full-timers, mostly long-term tenured professors and associate professors, continue to do their jobs. Perhaps most surprising, while a few have found new jobs and others are looking, a majority of the eight faculty members recently interviewed report that they are not now actively seeking other work.

“I think that most people have invested so much in Antioch College that, if there’s a possibility that the college could be healthy again, they want to be a part of it,” said Chris Hill, who has taught film and communications for 11 years.

Starting a search for a new job now would make him feel “divided,” said Hassan Rahmanian, who has taught management at Antioch for 22 years.

“I have been postponing this,” he said in a recent interview. “If I’m actively searching, it affects the level of activism I have for the college.”

And some said they choose to focus on teaching in what could be their final year at the college.

“I’m trying to provide as much normalcy as possible for myself and my students, and that means to enjoy teaching,” said Dennie Eagleson, who has taught photography for 17 years. “My sense is that students need to have a sense that their lives are not exploding. We’re all living on two levels of reality, and it’s a kind of denial but it’s a necessary act.”

Faculty members were blindsided on June 12, 2007, when Antioch University trustees announced that they had voted to suspend college operations in July 2008, with the possibility of reopening in four years. At that time, all faculty were told they would lose their jobs. Faculty, who at Antioch have a tradition of intense involvement in decision-making through its shared governance system, were stunned that such a monumental decision came about without their being consulted.

The college alumni board’s Herculean campaign to keep the college open brought hope, but that hope was soon followed by despair when the November agreement between the alumni board and the trustees reversed the suspension. Within a few weeks after the initial euphoria of that announcement, faculty were informed by Interim College President Andrzej Bloch that their jobs were still on the line.

And while the efforts of the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, or AC3, to gain independence for the college again have raised hopes, the outcome of that effort is by no means clear. The AC3 and Antioch University trustees have not disclosed the content of their talks, which are supposed to culminate in a decision regarding college independence by this weekend’s trustee meeting in Los Angeles. Even if the college does gain independence, AC3 representatives, in a recent visit, could not say for sure when faculty would know their jobs were secure.

“It’s probably wise for faculty to have a Plan B,” Bloch said in an interview last week.

Making Plan B
According to Bloch, three faculty members have told him they were offered new jobs, but he could not identify them by name. One who took a new job is Chris Smith, who has taught psychology for five years, and who will move to the University of Wisconsin. Longtime associate professor of management Cathy LaPalombara has accepted the position of director of finance and business services beginning this summer at the Ohio University, where her husband, David, who taught art at Antioch for many years, is now head of the art department.

Some faculty members are looking for job possibilities. Associate Professor of Anthropology Beverly Rodgers is engaged in as much of a job search as she can handle while still teaching fulltime. Her husband recently retired, Rodgers said, and so she must work to support her family. And she finds the search itself to be helpful, because it gives her a sense of power in a situation in which she has had little control.

“At some point it becomes therapy,” she said. “It’s the only action I can take that can solve my problems.”

While some faculty members are engaged in an active job search and others are not, on campus people respect one another’s privacy and do not pry into each others’ plans, according to Chris Hill, who said she believes that faculty members do not want to put pressure on each other and that they feel compassion for each others’ dilemma.

All eight of the faculty members interviewed for this article agreed that they believe most Antioch faculty don’t really want to leave, despite low pay and declining resources. Most of all, they said, they would miss the Antioch College students.

At Antioch, Rodgers uses in undergraduate courses a text she used in grad courses at Ohio State, and the Antioch students have no problems. And Antioch first-year students come to class with critical thinking abilities that she has only found in older students in other schools. Antioch College students also embrace questions and engage regularly in meaningful class discussions that are the exception at other schools, according to Rodgers.

“It’s a different learning atmosphere,” she said. “I find it exhilarating.”

For Anne Bohlen, who has taught communications and filmmaking for 15 years, Antioch students “are interesting and interested, they’re committed, and they want to do something bigger than just themselves. The students are why most people are here.”

According to Rahmanian, his research methods class has allowed him to work with students — some of whom have become Fulbright scholars — as they pursue the “big ideas” of their research papers.

“Every one of them has opened a new line of inquiry to me,” he said. “I’ve made a lot of growth along with my students.”

And while many faculty have stayed at the college due to the intellectual challenge of engaging with Antioch students, they have also stayed due to their colleagues.

“This faculty amazes me all the time,” Rodgers said. “How hard they work, how brilliant they are, how willing to sacrifice for this institution.”

Working at Antioch College is more than a job, according to Rahmanian.

“Searching for another job doesn’t replace what you get from Antioch,” he said. “It’s also a home for me. Something in it gives you a strong sense of identity. It’s a phenomenon that defines you and embraces you.”

Costs of uncertainty
Faculty member Scott Warren, who teaches philosophy, said he feels that the mood on campus has been upbeat the past few months, mainly due to faculty and students’ faith in the efforts of the AC3, the nonprofit corporation of former Antioch University trustees and major donors.

“My sense is that most of us are hanging in because we’re optimistic,” he said. “We feel the spirit of this historical legacy is on our side.”

But the struggles of the past year have weighed on everyone, several said, and it is becoming increasingly more difficult to keep going.

“My anxiety is getting higher by the day,” Rodgers said. She strives to maintain a “positive state of being,” for her students, at least during class times. “It’s like working on stage. You put on a face and leave everything outside the door.”

Anne Bohlen also feels worn down by the uncertainty.

“Creative uncertainty, philosophical uncertainty — I love those. But financial uncertainty is difficult,” she said. “It takes away energy and makes me feel a little bit crazy.”

Added to the anxiety is the anger that many faculty members feel toward the university trustees and administrators for never engaging faculty in the process of the past year, and also for their seeming lack of concern for the welfare of college faculty, many of whom are in their 50s and who have worked at the college for decades.

“There’s the sense of unjust treatment, especially given Antioch’s historical values of democracy, equality and human dignity,” Rahmanian said.

While the university immediately last June established an office to help Antioch College students transition to other colleges, there has been no such effort for the faculty. While Bloch initially said that he would help faculty members to find other jobs, he never followed through, according to LaPalombara.

“They have done essentially nothing for the faculty who want to move on and I think that’s unconscionable,” she said. “I’m dumbfounded at the lack of consideration given to folks who have spent their entire professional lives here. It’s beyond me.”

Over the years Antioch College faculty have been very generous in making concessions to university officials during times of financial difficulty, according to Bohlen, who said that perhaps those concessions have led the university administrators to respect faculty less.

“We have been very accommodating and that has bred a certain level of disrespect,” she said. “But we looked at it as an investment in our future.”

Added to the perceived disrespect from university administrators is the feeling that many villagers somehow blame the faculty for the college’s woes, according to Bohlen, who said villagers sometimes seem to compare the college’s abundant programs of the 1970s, when the school had 2,000 students and many more faculty, with the reduced options provided by the 36 faculty members today.

“They think it’s our fault” that the college has suffered continued financial troubles, she said. “That is very, very painful.”

Given the difficult circumstances and the uncertainty, it’s amazing that Antioch faculty members have done as well as they have the past several months, according to Eagleson.

“It’s commendable that we haven’t gotten knocked off base,” she said. “We’re involved in doing what we do well, which is to teach. We’re all invested in helping to support the students.”

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com