Author: ACAN

Letter to UBoT from Nancy R. Crow, President of the Antioch College Alumni Association

By Nancy R. Crow, President of the Antioch College Alumni Association. Tuesday, August 7, 2007

To: Chairperson Art Zucker, Members of the Antioch University Board of Trustees and Members of the University Leadership Council

From: Nancy R. Crow, President of the Antioch College Alumni Association

Date: August 7, 2007

I write to you on behalf of the Antioch College Alumni Association Board, the elected representative body of the 17, 000 or so Antioch College alums. We are looking forward to the August 16th webcast and of course to the August 25th special Board of Trustees meeting. Many of us have received our notices and have responded and are making our travel plans. Like you, we want this meeting to be productive, to move the agenda of rebuilding our Antioch College forward, and to find ways to raise funds and other support for our alma mater. We also agree wholeheartedly with your statement published in the Yellow Springs News that “it is critical that we have the participation and support of Antioch College’s key stakeholders in this process.”

However, we believe in order to garner the support and participation of the “key stakeholders in this process,” “key stakeholders” have to be both invited and allowed to participate in every step of the process, and as of now this has not taken place. Therefore we propose the following:

1) A conference call should be scheduled between now and the 19th of August to review and refashion the agenda that the Antioch University Board of Trustees has proposed. In addition to the Antioch University Board of Trustees Executive Committee, which sets the University Board of Trustees agenda, both the Executive Committee of the Alumni Board and representatives from the key stakeholder groups you have identified, that is, faculty, staff and students and Yellow Springs Community, should be invited to this discussion. If you want stakeholders’ participation and support, the agenda must reflect the interests of all the stakeholders and not just one group.

2) In order for the August 25th meeting to have a positive outcome, we strongly urge you to rethink a number of your statements and agenda items:

a) It is not conducive for a productive meeting to begin by saying in advance that any position taken by this Board of Trustees is “irreversible,” and to warn invited participants that only certain discussions at this meeting will be allowed. Why not let all the stakeholders discuss the parameters of the Board agenda before the August meeting begins?

b) The two hour open mic does not seem likely to lead to a positive outcome. Two hours, with five-minute time limits allows for 24 speakers, that is, if there are no pauses, time between speakers, technical glitches, people going over their time allotment and so forth. An open mic, with board members listening to one speaker after another, with no organization and no coherence will just lead to greater frustration and alienation. Furthermore, Mary Lou LaPierre’s remarks about the possibility of “disruptive and disrespectful” participants did not set the best tone. Perhaps we could think of other ways to use this two-hour framework. For example, why not allow the alumni representatives to present their ideas? Why not allow a former board chair or former trustees to present a proposal? Why not allow the faculty and the student representatives some time to present their points of view as well? And if there are other stakeholders who have presented you with proposals, have them be invited as well. In this way there can be a range of proposals for all of us to discuss in the afternoon session.

c) Finally we urge you to rethink the idea of a closed meeting. It is our heartfelt belief that had this board notified all stakeholders, alums, major donors, faculty, staff, former college presidents, former trustees and board chairs, the Yellow Springs community last fall, when there was the first realization of the depth of the financial crisis, and called upon all of us to work together to find a solution, there would be greater unity, participation and most important solutions to solving the college’s problems. The more the University Board shrouds itself in secrecy, the greater the alienation from the very stakeholders it needs for the future of the college.

We look forward to working with you. We want a positive outcome at the August 25th meeting, as well as at the October joint University Board of Trustees and Antioch College Alumni Board meetings.

Yellow Springs Council Ponders What to Do About Impending Closure of College

By Aaron Keith Harris, Staff Writer, Xenia Gazette. Tuesday, August 7, 2007

YELLOW SPRINGS — Antioch College alumni urged the Yellow Springs Village Council Monday night to join their fight to halt the planned closing of Antioch College next year, while council members discussed how the village should approach an upcoming meeting with the Antioch University Board of Trustees.

Village Manager Erik Swansen and Council President Karen Wintrow were invited to and plan to attend a “stakeholder discussion session” with the university board in Cincinnati on Aug. 25.

The session will be closed to the media and the public and will include only those invited by the university. Earlier the same day, the board plans to have a town-hall style meeting, which is open to
the public.

“I want to find out exactly what it is that’s going to happen and get a handle on the community impact it’s going to have,” said Village Manager Erik Swansen.

Wintrow said she would take the “discouragement of the village” to the Cincinnati meeting, but that the university’s finances, governance and operations “are not issues for Yellow Springs village government.”

Council member Judith Hempfling criticized the Cincinnati meeting as undemocratic, saying village council should have been asked to choose which members to attend. Hempfling also said she was concerned about
the transparency of the process since the stakeholder meeting would be held “in secret.”

Don Wallace, of the Antioch College Alumni Association, presented a letter from his group to council urging them to act to keep the college open and stop the loss of jobs, including those held by tenured faculty.

“If the college is your number one employer, how is that not an issue for council that those jobs continue to exist?” said Rory Adams-Cheatham, a recent Antioch college graduate and current community manager.

Yellow Springs Expects a Tax Loss of $140,000 with Antioch Closing

By Christopher Magan, Staff Writer, Dayton Daily News, Tuesday, August 07, 2007

YELLOW SPRINGS — Village and school officials expect about $140,000 of income tax revenue to disappear when Antioch College closes next year.

The village government will see the biggest loss. Village Administrator Eric Swansen said he expects to lose $100,000 in income tax collections when the college closes its doors next spring and 160 jobs and 300 students leave town.

Yellow Springs raises about $1.25 million each year from a 1.5 percent income tax. The village general fund budget is about $1.5 million.

“It’s obviously a concern that is going to have to be addressed,” said councilwoman Karen Wintrow.

Villagers barely passed an 8.4-mill property tax levy in November 2006 to help the government keep up with growing expenses and aging infrastructure.

Wintrow worries some village amenities could suffer because of the loss of revenue.

“For a community our size we offer a lot of services,” Wintrow said, citing a large park system and one of the area’s few public pools as an example.

The Yellow Springs Exempted Village School District won’t feel the same impact as the municipal government while the college is shut down.

The district, which has a $7.3 million operating budget, raises about $1.2 million a year from a 1 percent income tax.

Superintendent Norm Glismann said the district may only lose $40,000 of income taxes when the college closes.

“That’s if everyone lost their job and moved out of the area,” Glismann said.

Antioch College Alumni Association Agenda for University Board of Trustees Meeting on 8/25/07

Approved by the Alumni Board on its August 2, 2007 Conference Call

We will ask the University Board of Trustees to cooperate with us in good faith on the following:

1. Maintain the on-going operation of Antioch College past June of 2008, even at a reduced level.

2. Keep the College facilities in use, halt steps to shut the College and suspend all consideration of liquidating Antioch College assets

3. Establish a self-governing, independent College Board of Trustees with members initially selected by the Alumni Board in collaboration with the College President and other key stakeholders.

4. Give full consideration to the business plan that the Alumni Board will develop through a planning process and with the assistance of experts in the field, which will be presented in advance of the October University Board of Trustees meeting.

5. Hold a joint Alumni / University BOT meeting in October to discuss the implementation of the business plan and set timelines, tasks and a reporting calendar to assure the robust operation of Antioch College for the next 100 years.

We will also ask that the University Board of Trustees give full consideration to these issues:

* The maintenance and use of College buildings and other facilities
* Potential McGregor bond default if the College is closed
* Impact on College and University accreditation if the College is closed
* Moral, ethical and legal commitment to the Coretta Scott King Center as a core function to be maintained in any reduced level of College operations

Former Trustees of Antioch Propose a Governance Shake-Up to Save College

From the Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog

August 2, 2007
by Paul Fain

Momentum appears to be building among Antioch College alumni and other supporters for the creation of a separate Board of Trustees for the soon-to-be-shuttered campus. The latest push comes from a group of seven former members of Antioch University’s Board of Trustees, who have sent a letter to the current board calling for a governance overhaul at the six-campus system.

The trustees want Antioch College, whose closing was announced nearly two months ago, to be merged with the adjacent McGregor campus, which is part of the university. A new board and one chief executive should oversee the merged campus, they write. The group asks the board to make those moves at its meeting this month.

“Whether the decision to close Antioch College goes down in history as bold leadership or a precipitous blunder will depend, ultimately, on whether the college successfully reopens,” the former trustees said.

An ally in their effort to create an autonomous board is Steven W. Lawry, the Antioch College president, who announced last week that he was stepping down. In a resignation letter, Mr. Lawry said he hoped the college would reopen in 2012, after a period of planning and fund raising.

“I believe that these efforts will succeed to the extent that the college once again has its own Board of Trustees,” Mr. Lawry said.

Joni Rabinowitz ‘64 talks about Horace Mann and Antioch College

Published by Joni Rabinowitz, August 2, 2007

Joni ’64 was awarded the Antioch College Alumni Association’s Horace Mann Award in 2002. The Horace Mann Award recognizes a contribution by alumni of Antioch College who have won some victory for humanity. She is co-director of Just Harvest, an organization that works to eliminate hunger and poverty by eliminating root causes and changing government politics.

Be Ashamed to Die….

I’m reflecting on the significance of this day — August 2– when one of the leading educators of modern times, Horace Mann, died in 1859. I’m angry that Antioch College, the unique, forward-looking college of which he was the first president, is trying to close its doors.

I attended and graduated from Antioch in the 60’s. During my years there, in addition to receiving a rigorous and stimulating formal education, I had extensive training in “life experience.” I was challenged to live as an adult in this complex world, and not simply to be a cog in somebody’s wheel.

Antioch College has a first-class co-op program which integrates “life experience” — not only job preparation — into the educational mix. I worked in a law firm in San Francisco, a camp for disabled children in Michigan, a hospital in New York, a factory in Ohio, an office for a social work agency in Chicago, and a voter registration effort in Southwest Georgia, as part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. (SNCC).

At each of these placements I was expected to do the same job other people did, to interact maturely with others in my environment, and to write a thoughtful paper about the experience.

There’s no question: I would not be the person I am today, had I not gone to Antioch College.

During the early 1800’s, when Horace Mann was the president, Antioch faced financial troubles because it was one of the nation’s first co-educational and interracial colleges, as well as being non-sectarian. Mann employed the first female faculty member to be paid on an equal basis with men.

Horace Mann, a believer in free public education for all, advocated for education of the whole person; he challenged students to act on their values, not simply their intellect.

The current Board of Trustees has made a hasty decision to close — without much internal discussion and no discussion whatever with the rest of the Antioch “community”. It seems to me they ares buying into the trend towards corporatization of education. It seems they want to retain the Antioch name so they can recruit to the University’s 6 other campuses, and give up a commitment to the College and the traditions which define Antioch. They are also joining the nationwide movement to eliminate tenure for professors. Many of the Antioch faculty have labored long and hard at relatively low pay, in order to teach at Antioch.

In the many years since my graduation, I’ve heard that the college was having financial problems, but I’ve never been told that it was ready to close. I’ve never been asked to contribute to keep the college open. I know many of my fellow alums agree.

We may not all have been big contributors — since our education prepared us to “win a victory for humanity,” rather than to become millionaires– but nobody knew anything about this closing.

We can’t let Antioch close.

Today, more than ever, we need the robust and creative thinkers that Antioch College trains, in order to save our civilization. Today the world needs the diverse and multi-disciplinary thinking Antioch instills in its students. Horace Mann’s motto, and the motto of the college, is “Be ashamed to die until you have won a victory for humanity.” Today, more than ever, we need to train students to win these victories.