Author: ACAN

Community Meeting Minutes

Minutes taken and submitted by Corri Frohlich
Operations Manager/Community Manager

cfrohlich@antioch-college.edu

Tuesday July 3rd, 2007

Welcome
Chelsea welcomed everyone to the 3rd community meeting of the summer. She explained that the purpose of this meeting is to regroup after Reunion and
to foster transparency of operations and information within the College.

Announcements
Rory, the CG Events Manager, announced she is looking for suggestions for activities/events for faculty and staff this summer.
Milt Thompson will now be overseeing Physical Plant due to recent lay-offs.

Department Updates:

CG: CG held a community meeting this past Saturday during Reunion weekend. The Community Meeting broke into 3 break-out groups (Governance/Legal, Communications, and Finance) designated by a group of past and present CMs. From the Community Meeting the CMs created an Action Items document. From this document, The Alumni Board created 3 committees: Governance, Communications and Development. The Action Items document produced from Community Meeting is available on first class. Governance Committee Update: Chelsea, the CG Liaison, reported that this committee is currently looking into the possibility of creating a new governance board for the College and researching the history of the governance structure between the College and the University.

Communication Committee Update: Rory, the CG Liaison, reported that she would send out weekly updates to alumni about campus happenings via www.Antiochioans.org. CG is delivering pledge cards to local businesses in Yellow Springs for the revival fund. The committee is also working on a possible alumni music festival in conjunction with some sort of fundraising event. Dennie Eagleson is working on a testimonials project with alumni about their time
here at Antioch. CG is also working on bringing alumni back to campus to participate in themed panel discussions, such as past Record Editors, SOPP and RDPP advocates. The committee is also discussing a possible welcome back committee for when students return to campus. This welcome back committee could use the alumni music festival to do this.

Development Committee Update: As of Monday (July 2nd, 2007) evening the efforts of the Antioch community members raised $525,000.00 for the Antioch Revival Fund. Corri, the CG Liaison, reported that this committee is functioning in a few subcommittees including Individual Giving Subcommittee and
Foundation Raising Subcommittee. Alumni are participating in several phone conferences to brainstorm their connections to foundations and
potential donors to Antioch College and in the process of soliciting donations.

Office of Transition: John Smith, of the Academic Support Center, reported on the newly formed Office of Transition (OT). This is a new
office put together quickly after the announcement of the suspension of operations. The OT has ended up overlapping with already existing offices
including Admissions, Housing, Dean of faculty, etc. It started out as a help-line via a cell phone which Janice Kinghorn staffs from 10am-10pm 7
days a week. The number for the OT is (937) 681-5924. There is now an OT first class conference under Community Forum. You can email the
conference directly at transition@antioch-college.edu. John confirmed that all of the incoming first years have been contacted. Angie Glukov from Admissions reported that the number of confirmed first years entering Antioch this fall changes daily. All current and incoming students have now been contacted. Students should now know what their options are and be in the process of making these decisions. OT is currently figuring out who can graduate due to the changes in the Walker Petition requirements. More information concerning this can be located on the official OT webpage which can be found via the main college website, www.antioch-college.edu. Admissions is working very hard to connect Antioch students with the consortia of colleges to which students can transfer. The OT will work with students one on one for the rest of the year. Eli Nettles is the point lady for this undertaking. The OT is aided by John Smith, Janice Kinghorn, Joyce Morrissey, Angie Glukov and Jen Rhyner in Admissions, Robin Heise in Financial Aid and many other College employees who are offering their services on a daily basis. The
best estimate of total numbers of students here in the fall is roughly 175-228. Admissions is currently monitoring Facebook as a channel for communication about Antioch. John also reported that there would be one learning community this fall. Classes for fall semester will be posted next week, so students can start registering as soon as next week. Students might want to be on campus before registering for courses online and talk with their advisors about the courses they need. New students are scheduled to arrive on August 23rd and returning students on August 26th.

Financial Aid: Robin Heise reported that Financial Aid is currently trying to find out who’s coming back and which students they have to package for financial aid. All returning students need to let a College administrator know whether or not they are returning in the fall and the administrator will see that this information gets passed on to the appropriate offices.

Admissions: Angie informed the community that the first College Fair would be Friday afternoon September 14th. Presently, Admissions is working on an announcement for the Community regarding the College Fair.

Yellow Springs Residents in Support of the Antioch College Revival Resolution:
Judy Wolert-Maldonado, a representative from the Yellow Springs group, reported on their recent meetings. The Yellow Springs residents started organizing after the community meeting during reunion and have had ongoing meetings since then. They are currently organizing an emergency town meeting for this Tuesday, July 10th at 7:30pm in the
Presbyterian Church in Yellow Springs. They are presently contacting different constituencies in the College to have representation from the entire Antioch and Yellow Springs community at the meeting. Antioch College President Steve Lawry and University Chancellor Toni Murdock will be out of town and Antioch College Public Relations representative Lynda Sirk will be sent in Toni Murdock’s place. The meeting is open to all and the media will be there. Currently, they are forming an agenda. There is also a letter writing committee that came out of the Yellow Springs group. So far there are 155 signatures.

Development: Aimee Maruyama, Associate Director of Alumni Relations, reported on the Alumni Office’s recent activities. They are working on establishing new alumni chapters. They are currently putting alumni lists together for 30-40 chapters all over the country. Aimee will get a list out of the new chapters as soon as they are finalized.

President’s Office: Steve Lawry could not make the meeting today due to a scheduling conflict. Corri, the Operations Manager, briefed the community on CG’s recent meeting with Steve. Steve attended two alumni
events recently, one in Boston and the other in DC. A BOT member was also present for each of these meetings to field questions about their decision to close Antioch.

Pulse:

Survival Guide: Due to the very specific nature of this year, a typical Survival Guide won’t necessarily be the best way to serve the community. CG will meet with Departments individually to discuss what information they want in the Survival Guide. CG will also move this discussion onto Pulse online next week so students and other community members off campus have a chance to discuss what they want/need from this year’s Survival Guide.

Lay-Offs: Many concerns were raised about the recent lay-offs. CG will be posting the positions that were cut later this week. Questions were raised about who made the decisions on the positions that were cut, the
challenges that different categories of employees are facing (specifically in regards to non-union staff), and in general how the College will function with the lack of support and work due to the recent lay-offs.

“Antioch College Alumni Seek Split Between College and University” –Chronicle News Blog

From the Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog:

“Antioch College alumni are circulating a resolution that calls for splitting the college away from Antioch University, which operates five nonresidential campuses from Seattle to New Hampshire…”

Our resolution has received more notice.

Antioch College Alumni Fight to Keep the College Open

by Margaret Kamara, for Issues in Diverse Education, July 6, 2007

Antioch College alumni have come up with a plan to keep the college open by having it sever ties with the Antioch University system and stand on its own.

Separating the Yellow Springs, Ohio, college from the larger system would free the college from the authority of the system’s board of trustees, says Rick Daily, the alumni board treasurer. The trustees recently decided to suspend the private liberal arts school until 2012.

Instead, the college would form a separate board, overseen by current president Steven Lawry. While the idea has been promoted before, Daily says he hopes this time they will reach an agreement, given the pending closure of the college. The Antioch University system consists of six colleges and universities, located in California, New Hampshire, Ohio and Washington.

Trustees issued a “declaration of financial exigency” and cited declining student enrollment and subsequent loss of tuition revenue as the primary factor behind its decision to suspend the college.

Lynda Sirk, director of public relations and communications for the system, says the college relies on income from the other five institutions.

“From the very moment [Antioch College] was founded on the principle that it would be able to succeed based on tuition and not endowment, it has struggled financially,” she says. “At the current state of education today, [this principle] doesn’t work.”

The four-year suspension is necessary, Sirk says, to ensure that Antioch College is able to reopen as a stronger and improved institution.

More than 700 Antioch College alumni attended a reunion last month, which turned into “Operation Save Antioch.” Daily says he challenged his fellow alumni to raise $40,000 at the event. Within 18 hours, they had raised 10 times that amount; $424,000. The alumni also launched the College Revival Fund and created a Web site, www.antiochians.org. As of Tuesday, the group had raised $525,000 to help save the school.

According to Sirk, the college needs $50 million by this fall to overturn the suspension

Since the reunion meeting, alumni have also been hosting meetings in their home towns.

Karen Mulhauser, the former president of the alumni board and a former trustee, hosted one such meeting last Sunday in her Washington, D.C., home. More than 80 alumni attended, including Lawry. The attendees reflected the sentiments of Antioch alumni around the country, expressing frustration about the late notification to alumni about the school’s financial troubles.

The suspension is to start June 1, 2008 and it will be the fourth time that the college has closed.

Antioch College was found by the Christian Connexion in 1852. It was the first college within the Antioch university system, built under the sentiment of equality for all.

Some of the college’s noteworthy alumni include the late civil rights activist Coretta Scott King, women’s right activist Olympia Brown, Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy and Washington, D.C.’s Congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton.

– Margaret Kamara

Letters respond to LA Times Op-Ed: “Womyn killed Antioch”

Letters in response to “Who killed Antioch? Womyn.” by Meghan Daum,

There’s more to Antioch
July 6, 2007

Re “Who killed Antioch? Womyn,” Opinion, June 30

Well, women have been blamed for ruining the human race since one of us sought knowledge and ate an apple, so why not lay the death of Antioch College at our feet as well? Antioch’s admittedly lamebrained attempt at a “please ask and I may say yes” date-touch policy was developed in response to some instances at the college of male hormonal overenthusiasm. Better this policy, however, than instances of rape and worse like those at other U.S. universities.

Antioch is hardly obscure, nor a laughingstock. And don’t count on reports of its premature death. If the outpouring of e-mails calling alums to arms and half a million dollars raised in less than 24 hours are any measure of an institution’s heartbeat, Antioch is alive and well. Absent that, it will exist always in those who take seriously the college’s famed motto: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” Not a bad way to lead a life. Or run a school. Eve would have been a graduate, for sure. And we would have been thrilled to have her.

VICTORIA HOCHBERG

Antioch College alumna

Hollywood

•

For 18 years, my wife has taught biology at Antioch College. During those years, I have met hundreds of students, and almost to the last one, they were respectful, mannerly, curious almost to a fault, intelligent and never boring. Their maturity and independence — founded partially, I am sure, in their worldwide co-op experiences — in my experience exceeds that of their contemporaries. Then, these committed students leave to become respected in many fields. In other words, the same cross-section of America emerges from Antioch that other colleges send out into the world every year.

When Antioch’s sexual-offense prevention policy (now adopted by other unmentioned universities) and the foolish claim that independent thinking is absent receive more attention than the contribution its graduates make to our society, I can only conclude that Meghan Daum is more interested in maligning Antioch than enlightening us about the remarkable legacy this college and its graduates have left.

WILLIAM V. DYER

Dayton, Ohio

Chicago Alumni Chapter demands Summer 2007 Open BOT meeting

On June 30th, forty Antioch alums, former students and supporters met in Chicago to discuss the announced “suspension of activities” of Antioch College from 2008-2012. We unanimously decided that such a “suspension of activities” of Antioch College would lead to its permanent closure as an innovative leader in liberal arts education. We find this unacceptable.

The purpose of the meeting was both to inform people of the current events and to discuss ways in which the 17,000 Antioch alums, along with other supporters of Antioch College, could support the faculty, staff and students of Antioch College to:

  • Remain operational;
  • Promote the autonomy of Antioch College;
  • Become financially sustainable.


Based on the fact that Antioch University announced its decision in June 2007 without prior consultation of the faculty, students, staff or alumni and such an announcement has been met by nearly universal opposition and a flood of promised support for Antioch College, we, Antioch alums, former students and supporters based in the Chicago-area, unanimously demand that the Board of Trustees of Antioch University hold an emergency meeting during the summer of 2007 to reverse its decision to close Antioch College.

The Antioch community of alums, former students and supporters recognizes that Antioch College is facing serious financial difficulties and is eager to work proactively to assuage such difficulties. It is our belief, however, that closing Antioch College will have the opposite effect and we are universally opposed to the measure. We expect that the Board of Trustees of Antioch University will respond to those whom it is tasked to represent and will inform all interested parties (faculty, students, alums, staff and CG) of the emergency meeting. We also expect that this meeting, in the spirit of community government and transparency, will be open to representatives of said interested parties.

Press Release in advance of July 10’s Emergency YS Village Meeting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contacts:
Lori Askeland, (937) 767-8116, laskeland@sbcglobal.net
Judith Wolert-Maldonado, (937) 767-0118, juju70@msn.com
Group: Yellow Springs Residents in Support of the
Antioch College Revival Resolution,
Website Affiliation: antiochians.org provides more information about the Antioch College Revival Resolution. Antioch College alumni are responsible for its content.

Yellow Springs Residents Organize Emergency Town Meeting to
Ensure the Future of Antioch College

Yellow Springs, Ohio, July 3, 2007 – A newly-formed group of citizen organizers, calling themselves, “Yellow Springs Residents in Support of the Antioch College Revival Resolution,” will facilitate an emergency town meeting, open to the public, on Tuesday, July 10, 2007, at 7:30 pm in the First Presbyterian Church at 314 Xenia Avenue in Yellow Springs.

In the truest spirit of grassroots organizing, this group of about 40 residents from in and around the Southwestern Ohio college town of Yellow Springs, quickly came together in response to the recent news of the possible temporary closing of Antioch College. As Antioch College is the major employer and vital cultural hub in the small town, these residents followed the example of Antioch College alums currently organizing themselves across the world, to keep their beloved, 154 year-old liberal-arts college open and vibrant.

The town meeting will include speakers representing various groups from Antioch College, town residents and business owners. Alumni will present their Antioch College Revival Resolution as proof of their commitment to keep the college alive. A question and answer period will follow the presentations.

Note: Presenters from the representing alumni board, alumniand the University Board of Trustees are still being sought. If you can fulfill one of these roles, please use the contact information above to get involved ASAP.