Category: news

ANTIOCH COLLEGE CONTINUATION CORPORATION

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Lyn Chamberlin

Yellow Springs, Ohio—May 9, 2008  —  The Antioch University Board of Trustees today rejected an offer by a group of major donors and educational leaders to contribute nearly $16 million to keep the doors of Antioch College open.

The Antioch College Continuation Corporation, which was formed by prominent alumni to save the 150-year-old campus, had offered the contributions in return for ten seats on the University board. The current trustees have collectively given less than $25,000 in the current fiscal year.

The ACCC has been engaged in talks with Antioch University over the past five months to reach an agreement over the fate of the college, which is scheduled to close on June 30. The offer by the group would have enabled the College to continue operating until the details of a separation from the University could be finalized.

“It almost defies belief that the trustees could reject this extraordinarily generous offer by a group of major donors,” said Eric Bates, co-chair of the ACCC. “We were not only prepared to make an immediate contribution of $9.5 million for Antioch College, we offered to make an additional contribution of $6 million for the direct benefit of the University’s five other campuses. This was a win-win opportunity for the entire University, and the trustees squandered it.”

In addition to its $6 million contribution to the University, the ACCC offered a host of guarantees to protect the other campuses. The key commitments of the proposal included:

* Ensuring that the eventual separation of Antioch College would be done in a manner that protects the University’s accreditation and    financial security;
* Ending the annual subsidies each campus currently pays to the College;
* Guaranteeing that funds from other campuses would not be used to offset any operating expense or deficits incurred by the College;
* Implementing an existing plan to create separate governing boards for each of the campuses;
* Creating a new board committee to directly address the needs of each campus;
* Initiating an ambitious fundraising campaign to raise an additional $100 million for the College and assist the other Antioch campuses in their fundraising efforts.

“We are deeply disappointed that the trustees did not take advantage of this historic opportunity,” said Lee Morgan, a director of the ACCC whose grandfather, Arthur Morgan, presided over Antioch’s acclaimed rebirth in the 1920s. “Under this agreement, the University would have gained a number of experienced trustees who bring tremendous resources – not just finances, but expertise and energy – on behalf of the entire University.”

To encourage the trustees to accept the ACCC’s offer, Morgan had volunteered to work half-time – for no charge – to raise money for the College beginning in June. In addition, Frances Degen Horowitz, co-chair of the ACCC and president emerita of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, had offered to volunteer full-time during the summer to serve as chief transition officer while the College got back on its feet.

“This is a sad day not only for Antioch, but for everyone who cares about progressive education in this country,” said Horowitz. “This was a remarkably generous and well-intentioned offer by an experienced and supportive group of alumni, seven of whom are former University trustees. Our proposal was not only a brilliant solution to save Antioch College – it would also have provided Antioch University with critical resources and expertise. We are all at a loss to understand why the University board rejected a plan that would have served both the College and the University so well.”

At one point toward the end of negotiations, the University suddenly offered to accept the ACCC’s earlier offer to pay $12.2 million to immediately separate the College from the University. “This was virtually the same plan the University had rejected only a month earlier, and almost identical to the offer they refused to even consider back in February,” Bates noted. “Now, all of their earlier objections had magically vanished. Out of the blue, they were prepared to accept all of our terms, without any of the conditions on securing payments or retaining ownership of WYSO that they had previously insisted were deal breakers. They were also willing to delegate full authority to a completely autonomous College board of trustees that would operate under the University’s accreditation – a position that they themselves had previously said flat-out was legally impossible when we first sat down with them back in November.”

Bates said the sudden reversal revealed that the University had not been negotiating in good faith. “It is telling that they offered to accept this plan only after it was clear to everyone that it was too late for such an arrangement to succeed,” he said. “And it would still have required us to negotiate the myriad details of final separation with no guarantee that we would reach an agreement.”

“It was truly shocking and sad to realize that our earlier offer, which could have saved the College months ago, was rejected because of the University lacked the leadership it needed to see it through this crisis,” said Horowitz, who has more than four decades of successful experience as an administrator in higher education. “Throughout months of negotiations, the leaders of the University and the Board to Trustees repeatedly stood in the way of opportunities that would have prevented the demise of the College while also safeguarding the fortunes of the rest of the University campuses.”