Author: YSNews

Rahmanian an Antioch College academic leader

Longtime Antioch College faculty member and former Nonstop leader Hassan Rahmanian has been named the revived college’s new dean for curriculum, assessment, planning and interdisciplinary learning, according to a March 21 press release.

“As one of the College’s new academic leaders, Dr. Rahmanian will use his 25-year record of scholarship and leadership to help design curricular programs that deliver on our promise to prepare a new generation of Antiochians to make a positive contribution in our fast-changing world,” Antioch College President Mark Roosevelt stated in the release.

Rahmanian, who will report to the president, will have duties that include developing plans for faculty orientation and overseeing the Global Seminars, which is a new component of the college curriculum that provides for “community-wide examination of pressing world issues,” according to the release. In addition, Rahmanian will supervise financial aid and registration administration, refine and implement the institution’s assessment plan, contribute to searches for key positions at the college, and “ensure that faculty and staff help students learn deeply across traditional academic disciplines.”

Rahmanian will also teach political economy and public policy.

“It’s quite an exciting and at the same time, a challenging time for all of us,” Rahmanian said in an interview Monday, stating that the college is a “work in progress, incorporating the values of the past with a vision for a new Antioch.”

Being named to the new position is “a personally important continuation for me” as a longtime faculty member and former Nonstop leader, he said, stating that “it’s exciting to see some of the efforts we put in coming to fruition.”

Rahmanian also thanked the college’s current Morgan Fellows, who were largely responsible for developing its new curriculum, for creating “a good foundation in the curriculum. It makes my job easier.”

Rahmanian arrived at Antioch College in 1986 as an assistant professor of business and management, and earned tenure in 1991, at which time he became associate professor of business. His leadership at the college included terms on the Faculty Executive Committee, the Faculty Senate Steering Committee, and membership on the Administrative Council, or AdCil. He chaired the management program and coordinated the Department of Social and Global Studies for a four-year period beginning in 1998.

When the college closed in 2008, Rahmanian became a leader in the Nonstop movement, in which former college faculty continued to offer classes in village venues after the college was closed. From June 2009 to June 2010, he was senior director of institutional research and evaluation at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, Calif. Rahmanian returned to the area last fall. He starts his new job immediately.

Rahmanian earned his bachelors and masters degrees in economics at the University of Tehran, and a Ph.D in Public Policy Research and Analysis at the Univesity of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

Antioch College hires first faculty

Antioch College continues its forward motion toward admitting new students next fall, as leaders announced this week that the college’s first three tenure-track faculty positions have been filled, and that the college passed its first test on the road to gaining accreditation.

“This is very good news,” consultant Len Clark said, referring to the Ohio Board of Regents, or OBR, peer review team’s recommendation that the college be granted provisional approval as a degree-granting institution, pending the OBR chancellor’s official authorization.

The review team’s approval followed a January visit to Antioch during which team members interviewed college academic and administrative leaders, along with student support staff, regarding Antioch’s proposed curriculum and current financial status. While the review team could have required substantial changes to the curriculum that would have slowed the college’s momentum, they did not do so, according to Clark, the former provost and academic dean of Earlham College.

On Monday the college announced that the first three out of the college’s six tenure track positions have been filled. The new hires will begin July 18, according to Antioch College Communications Director Gariot Louima.

The new assistant professor of cultural anthropology is Kristin Adler, who will receive her Ph.D. in May from the University of New Mexico. Currently, Adler teaches parttime at that school. She is a Latin American specialist whose doctoral project focused on indigenous people in Mexico.

The college’s new assistant professor of philosophy will be Lewis Trelawny-Cassity, who will receive a Ph.D. from the University of Binghamton in May, and whose areas of interest include the history of philosophy, political philosophy and environmental ethics. He holds a bachelors in environmental policy from Warren Wilson College, a masters in political science from Boston University and a masters in philosophy from Binghamton.

The third position just filled is the associate professor of chemistry, who is David Kammler.  Kammler  taught at Antioch College for five years before the college closed in 2008, at which point he began teaching at Wilberforce University

The other remaining tenure-track positions, which are in Spanish, literature and 3-D art, should be filled by May, according to Louima.

For a more detailed article on the hirings and accreditation process, see the March 31 issue of the Yellow Springs News.

Antioch welcomes back Rahmanian

Antioch College will soon welcome Hassan Rahmanian, Ph.D. as its dean for curriculum, assessment, planning and interdisciplinary learning. Rahmanian, a former Antioch professor, will also teach political economy and public policy, and will contribute to searches for key positions at the college.

Rahmanian has held a long relationship with Antioch College, which began with Rahmanian as assistant professor of business and management in 1986, and continued as he was promoted to associate professor of business. Rahmanian was a fundamental part of the development of the Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute, which formed at the closing of the college.

For more on Rahmanian and his position at the new Antioch College, read the March 24 issue of the Yellow Springs News.

Manuel Martinez to read at final Antioch Fireside

Author Manuel Martinez will complete Antioch’s Fireside Readings series when he reads from three of his novels on Sunday, March 20, at 2 p.m.  at the Coretta Scott King Center on the Antioch campus.

Martinez will read from two published works, Drift (2003) and The Day of the Dead (2009) and from his forthcoming novel, Los Duros.


Martinez teaches contemporary U.S. and Chicano literature at the Ohio State University, and has authored one book of literary criticism, Countering the Counterculture: Rereading Postwar American Dissent, and three novels, beginning with Crossing (1998). His work has also appeared in the anthologies Hecho en Tejas and Latinos in Lotusland.

Sunday’s event is the fifth and final Fireside Reading organized by the Morgan Fellows, which has featured eight established and up-and-coming writers.

Cincinnati writers to read at this week’s Antioch Fireside

The fourth in a series of fireside readings at Antioch College features three young creative writers pursuing their PhDs at the University of Cincinnati — Rachel Steiger-Meister, Katherine Zlabek and Michelle Burke.

They will read on Sunday, March 6, at 2 p.m. at the Coretta Scott King Center on the Antioch campus.

Rachel Steiger-Meister recently moved from Yellow Springs, where her parents Mark Meister and Carla Steiger still reside. She is the recipient of awards for excellence in scholarship and creative writing from Brown and Wright State Universities and has read her fiction at literary events in Boston, Providence and Pittsburgh.

Steiger-Meister received an MA in Literature from Wright State University in 2010 and a BA in Gender Studies from Brown University, where she completed a creative thesis called, “Queer Fairy Tales,” a re-telling of fairy tales and folk tales for queer women readers. Steiger-Meister last month presented a critical literary paper at the 18th annual Lesbian Lives Conference in Brighton, England and is seeking her PhD in both creative writing and comparative literature from the University of Cincinnati.

Katherine Zlabek recently received her MFA from Western Michigan University. While there, she won the Frostic Fiction Award, judged by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, as well as an honorable mention for her poetry in a contest judged by David Dodd Lee. Her work has previously appeared in The Madison Review, JMWW, Oxford Magazine, SAGA, The Rectangle and the anthology World Lives, Prairie Living. Zlabek is currently working on two collections of short stories while pursuing her PhD at the University of  Cincinnati. She plans on reading a story titled, “Let The Rivers Clap Their Hands.”

Michelle Y. Burke is a scholar and poet currently pursuing her doctorate in English literature. Her poems have appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review, Hotel Amerika, Lake Effect, the New Orleans Review, and Yemassee. Her chapbook, Horse Loquela, was published by the Alabama School of Fine Arts (2008).

Antioch admits first students

James Russell first heard of Antioch College several years ago when, as a young man living in Texas, he read Colleges That Change Lives, in which author and education writer Loren Pope wrote of Antioch, “There is no college or university that makes a more profound difference in a young person’s life, or that creates more effective adults.”

Though Russell was unable at the time to attend Antioch, he still fantasized doing so, and kept close tabs on Antioch news.

So it was “devastating” when the college was closed and his hopes of someday being an Antiochian were dashed, Russell wrote in an e-mail this week. At that point, he moved to Yellow Springs to become a part of the Nonstop community, then later moved back to Texas, where he’s currently a freelance blogger and writer who works as an intern for the progressive news site Truthout. He plans soon to move to Chicago, where he will serve as communications co-ordinator for the peace group Voices for Creative Nonviolence.

And next year, Russell’s dream will become reality. He recently learned that he is one of the first students accepted into the revived Antioch College.

“I want to go to Antioch to support and sustain an institution that gave me so much through the past few years. I want to go to Antioch, too, to finally realize my only dream of the past few years, to be an Antiochian,” he wrote. “I want to go to Antioch, then, for what the college represents: not just the vital three C’s, that is co-op, classroom and community, but also the kind of person it creates.”

Russell is among the first four young people — two from Texas and two from Ohio — to be accepted by the college during its early admissions process, according to Special Assistant to the President for Enrollment Kristen Pett in a recent interview. The college received 17 early admissions applications, and accepted four, or 22 percent, Pett said. The college recently notified those chosen of their admission.

While not identifying the new students by name, Pett stated that the initial group is “strong, intellectually inquisitive and from a range of educational backgrounds.” They are also diverse in race, gender and background, she said.

Antioch plans to have 25 students in its first class next fall, college leaders have stated. The remaining 21 students will be selected during the regular admissions process, which has a March 1 deadline for applications. During March, Pett, President Mark Roosevelt and other members of the admissions staff will make final decisions, and prospective students will be notified by April 1. Students then have until May 1 to let the college know of their decision.

“Applications are coming in at a steady pace,” Pett said recently. She declined to give the exact numbers of applicants, as the process is ongoing. However, she said she feels excited by the quality of student that the new college is attracting. Applications are coming in from “all over,” she said, with about 20 percent of applicants from out of state, including especially strong representation from New York and California.

“We continue to attract some of the most talented and community-minded [high school] graduates,” Pett said.

The college’s initial 25 students will be attending college tuition-free during their four years, partly because these students will be taking a risk by attending a college that is so far not accredited. (Gaining accreditation is a multi-year process, with the catch-22 that before becoming accredited the college must first graduate a class of students, who will receive retroactive credits if the college becomes accredited.) Antioch College is making progress in moving forward in that process, accreditation consultant Len Clark stated at a recent college board pro tem meeting.

In recent weeks, Antioch leaders announced the establishment of Horace Mann Fellowships, which all members of the first class will receive. The fellowships will include additional opportunities for the first group of students, including mentoring by college alumni and the opportunity for grant money to cover college room and board costs, according to Pett.

In general, according to Communications Director Gariot Louima, it’s an exciting time to be at the college.

“We’ve been working toward something for many months,” he said. “Now it seems tangible.”

Antioch alumni volunteers are also working to help ready the campus for its first class next fall, according to Volunteer Coordinator Julian Sharp this week.

“Volunteers are playing a key role in a variety of ways in readying the campus for students,” he said.

A core group of both local and out-of-town alumni, who call themselves VAMP, or Volunteers for Antioch Maintenance Projects, have committed one week a month for work projects, beginning in January with creating a workshop in the former Maples building. This month they have been working in the McGregor building on campus, which will serve as the main academic building next fall, Sharp said, housing classes and academic offices. The first group of students will live in the Birch dormitory on Corry Street.

All six Antioch College tenure-track faculty positions have been advertised, according to Louima, who said the college has received about 200 applications for its position in philosophy, and a lower number for the other positions, which include literature, art (sculpture and drawing), anthropology, chemistry and Spanish. The college also recently began advertising for the new position of dean of community life. Advertisements have been placed in standard venues for higher education positions, including the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Education Web sites.

No finalists for the tenure-track positions have been chosen yet, according to Louima, who said that finalists will be interviewed on campus through March and April.