http://www.ysnews.com/stories/2009/07/070209_ACCCagreement.html
YELLOW SPRINGS NEWS July 2, 2009
Tentative deal reached for revived Antioch College
By Diane Chiddister
On Tuesday, June 30, the boards of Antioch University and the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, or ACCC, announced that each had unanimously voted in favor of a set of agreements that aim to create an independent Antioch College in Yellow Springs. The announcement took place on the deadline date of the year-long effort to create an independent college.
While the two groups both approved the agreements, the deal between the entities is not yet done. The target date for the final asset purchase agreement is August 31. At that point, if specific conditions are met, the ownership of the college will transfer from the university to the ACCC, which is made up of college alumni.
The leaders of the alumni effort feel optimistic that the conditions will be met and the final agreements legalized, they said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.
“As a group of people we have faced significant challenges, and we’re well positioned to deal with the challenging things remaining,” said ACCC Chief Transition Officer Matt Derr, referring to the university and ACCC representatives who have worked together this year to achieve agreement. “The challenges we face now are nothing compared to what we’ve been through.”
This is the the third alumni effort to create an independent college since the Antioch University trustees announced in June 2007 that the college would close the following year. The first two alumni efforts were not successful.
This effort has succeeded so far because of a “change in the tone and the kind of dialogue”, in the negotiations, Derr said in a conference call on Tuesday. That change in tone began when the Antioch University Board of Trustees took what Derr described as a “bold step” in June 2008 to ask the alumni to work with the trustees to create an independent college. A task force composed of Derr and ACCC Chair Lee Morgan, along with Antioch University Trustees Dan Fallon and Jack Merselis, met regularly throughout the year, along with Rick Detweiler of the Great Lakes Colleges Association, or GLCA, who acted as honest broker of the process.
The process was daunting, according to Antioch University Board of Governors Chair Art Zucker in the conference call. Initially, the alumni and university leaders faced about 100 issues to be resolved, and they worked their way through them.
“It was the willingness to sit down and labor constructively toward our common goals” that helped the effort succeed, Zucker said. “That commitment by the board and the alumni made it work.”
According to Morgan in the conference call, “There was never any question of a lack of good faith on either side.”
Three main areas remain to be resolved, according to Zucker. The first area is receiving approvals from external agencies, such as the Ohio attorney general. The second is looking at how the transfer of college assets, including the campus and the college endowment, from university to the alumni will affect the university bond holders, who hold bonds on university buildings at Antioch University Seattle, Antioch University New England and the new Antioch University McGregor building. The third area is reaching agreements between the university and the alumni on such collaborative efforts as sharing the Antioch College library and other resources.
Most of the remaining work to be done is legal and will be accomplished by attorneys, according to Morgan on Tuesday. In the next two months, he plans to continue fundraising efforts and Derr will focus on program issues for the new college.
If the conditions are met, the ACCC will at the end of the summer transfer $6,080,000 to the university. At that point, the ACCC’s financial obligation to the university will be complete, Morgan said. According to Antioch University Chancellor Toni Murdock in the conference call, a significant portion of that $6 million may go to the university bond holders.
While the ACCC will owe no more money to the university, it will continue to raise funds to refurbish the campus, Morgan said.
If the final agreement is reached, the ACCC will take control of the historic Antioch College campus, including Glen Helen and the Coretta Scott King Center. The university will retain ownership of WYSO Public Radio and Antioch Education Abroad.
While the ACCC does not yet have access to the college campus, it is working on finalizing details that will allow it to do so, according to Morgan, who said the ACCC hopes to have access before the August 31 deadline.
It’s likely the college will not be ready to receive new students for about two years, according to a GLCA press release on Tuesday.
If the effort to create a new college is successful, the exact relationship of the future Antioch College and Antioch University is still unclear, according to Zucker. However, what is clear is that the two institutions will have one.
“There will be a continuing relationship,” Zucker said. “We share many values.”
Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com