Category: news

YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio – October 14, 2010 – Mark Roosevelt, the finalist for the presidency of Antioch College, spoke October 13 to a room of alumni, former and retired faculty, staff and community members about his work as a legislator and education administrator, and about his desire to lead the college to full revival.

Roosevelt, the superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools system, told the audience of 125 gathered in South Hall's Herndon Gallery that he believed “something pretty wonderful” is possible with the reopening of the College. But he warned expectations must be realistic and not simply aspirational.

“A large part of our work will be in defining the new Antioch,” Roosevelt said. “Honoring Antioch’s incredible history and legacy, but defining Antioch’s competitive place. What is the niche?”

Roosevelt said Antioch must “reassert its absolute dedication to excellence in every single way.”

That is not to suggest that that has not always been Antioch’s sense of its self, he said, but the reopening, the rebuilding allows for a “rededication to the goal of excellence.”

After a six month search led by a Board-appointed committee of alumni and the hired search firm Isaacson, Miller, Roosevelt emerged as the sole finalist when a second candidate withdrew from the process. His public meeting came after a full day of meetings with key College staff, including: Interim President Matthew A. Derr, who he could succeed as CEO of the college; the Director of Work and the Morgan E. Fellows, former college faculty who are working with Derr to write a curriculum for the independent college; advancement staff, and others.

“I enjoyed interacting with the alumni, former faculty and employees of the college,” Roosevelt said following the one-hour forum at which he fielded a series of questions about his interest in the position, his work experience, and his plans for the college's future. “The interchange was insightful and engaging. Should I be appointed, I look forward to engaging this community as we work toward rebuilding this college.”

The Pro Tem Board of Trustees has asked Antioch College alumni and other members of the community to provide feedback by completing a survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Antioch-College-presidential-feedback.

Roosevelt holds a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College. He is a graduate of the Broad Urban Superintendent's Academy, an intensive executive management program designed to prepare educators and professionals from other fields to lead large city school systems. He has taught political science at Brandeis University, where he was also the director of the Gordon Public Policy Center, and currently teaches a course on the intersection of American history and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz Graduate School of Public Policy.

As a Massachusetts state representative, Roosevelt chaired the Education Committee, where he guided passage of the Education Reform Act of 1993, a landmark legislation providing the equitable resources and accountability measures necessary for school improvement. Roosevelt was also the lead sponsor of the 1989 Massachusetts Gay Rights Bill. In 1994, Roosevelt was the Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts.

After leading Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives, a publicly and privately funded nonprofit economic development agency, and acting as the managing director for the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, Roosevelt was appointed the superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) in August of 2005.

Since that time he has pursued an aggressive reform agenda called "Excellence for All." Four years later, the district has a comprehensive plan to maximize effective teaching that is one of only four such efforts to win support through a highly competitive $40 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; a nationally recognized program to recruit, train, support and compensate principals as instructional leaders; a new, more rigorous curriculum; and several new school models, including eight "Accelerated Learning Academies" for many of the district's most underserved students.

He is also the founder of The Pittsburgh Promise, a ground-breaking initiative that has already raised $150 million to guarantee as much as $10,000 per year in college scholarship dollars for PPS graduates who earn a GPA of 2.5 or better. The Promise now provides scholarships to over 1800 PPS graduates from the 2008 and 2009 graduating classes.

About Antioch College
Originally founded in 1850, Antioch College redefined liberal arts education in the 20th century by initiating an entrepreneurial and experiential curriculum through the development of its hallmark cooperative work program. Many of the now-common elements of today's liberal arts education – self-designed majors, study abroad, interdisciplinary study, and portfolio evaluation – had an early start at Antioch College. Ownership of Antioch College was transferred from Antioch University to the Antioch College Continuation Corporation in September 2009. The newly independent College will admit its first class in the fall of 2011.

MEDIA CONTACT
Gariot P. Louima
Director of Communications
937-581-8201
glouima@antiochcollege.org

YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio – October 13, 2010 – Emergent Visions: Antiochians Make Art, features paintings, prints, and works on paper and tile produced by six alumni artists with strikingly distinctive visual imaginations and original visions for the 21st century.

The featured artists graduated from Antioch College between 1996 and 2002, and they are now pursuing or have received MFA graduate degrees, and are developing their visual arts careers. Five of the artists will attend the artists’ reception at 6:00 p.m., Saturday, October 16.

The exhibition is curated by Arthur E. Morgan Fellows Anne Bohlen and Jean Gregorek.

The Artists:

Asha Canalos received her BA in Visual Arts in 1999. Since then she has been living in Brooklyn, New York. In 2008, Canalos completed a dual degree at Pratt Institute, receiving a MFA in Painting, and a MS in Theory, History, and Criticism of Design, Art and Architecture. Asha’s work has been exhibited at prominent art venues such as the PULSE Miami Art Fair and the Bronx Museum of Art; her work has also been shown at college and university galleries, including Antioch College, Pratt Institute, and Pace University. In 2009 Asha was the recipient of the Dyson Artist’s Residency at Pace University and in 2008 she received the Juror’s Pick Award at GEISAI, Miami and was awarded the Pratt Circle Award of Distinction. She has published articles on artists and the arts in the AIM 29 (Catalogue) at The Bronx Museum of Art, the Collector Circle Review, The Luxury Lifestyle Resource and Art Daily. Her work has been featured in articles in The New York Times Style Magazine, Artopic & Arcademi, Decayenne/Whitewall Magazine, The Miami Sun Post and Artinfo.com, and has been included in collections in Yellow Springs, and in the Elisabeth and Henrik Von Dehn Collection in Munich, Germany.

Karsten Creightney received his BA from Antioch in 2000. Post graduation Karsten returned to his hometown, Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he completed the Professional Printer Training Program at The Tamarind Institute of Lithography in 2001. He received his MFA from the University of New Mexico, where he also teaches drawing. There have been exhibitions of his work in Albuquerque, NM, Kyoto, Japan, Kansas City, KS, and Yellow Springs, OH. Karsten’s work is included in the collections of the Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield MO, The Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI, the Beach Museum of Art in Manhattan, KS, the Belger Art Center in Kansas City, MO and the Tama University Art Museum in Kyoto, Japan.

Beatrix*Jar is a conceptual electronic music duo with sound artists Antioch alumna, Bianca Pettis, and Jacob Aaron Roske. Since 2005, in over 230 conceptual art sound performances and hands-on Circuit Bending workshops, Beatrix*Jar have traveled extensively spreading the message of DIY (Do It Yourself) with electronics and experimentation. The duo have been featured in art museums, nightclubs, universities, libraries, hacker spaces and art galleries worldwide including the Walker Art Center, The Wexner Center for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Arts in San Diego, The High Art Museum, and The American Visionary Museum. The duo has been featured on MAKE TV (PBS) and on ABC’s Nightline. They have also collaborated on a series of collage art projects that will be included in the show. As part of the exhibit, The Herndon Gallery will also sponsor a Circuit Bending workshop with the duo while the show is on exhibit.

Emily Noelle Lambert received a B.A. Visual Art from Antioch College in 1997 and an MFA in Painting from Hunter College in 2007. Her work has been included in group exhibitions in New York, Chicago, Anchorage, Washington DC, Roanoke, and Pittsburgh, and she has had four solo exhibitions in New York, Seoul, Korea, Chicago and Wageningen, The Netherlands. She has been an Artist –in Residence at the Fountainhead Artist Residency, the Santa Fe Art Institute, the Platte Clove Artist Residency, the Yaddo Foundation, the Woodstock/Byrdcliffe AIR , the Anderson Ranch Art Center, the Vermont Studio Center, and Penland Center for Craft. Emily has also taught at has taught at Fordham University, Parsons School of Design, the Pratt School of Art and the Guggenheim’s Learning Through Art program. Her work has been written about in New City Chicago, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Art USA and New York Magazine and artforum.com.

Kelly Medford is a traditionally trained oil painter who specializes in landscapes but loves to experiment with a wide range of subject matter including still lives and interiors. She has lived in Florence, Italy for the past 5 years and has traveled extensively through the United States and Europe painting. Kelly has studied and shown in both Italy and the United States and has completed a number of private commissions this year. She has placed in the top 3 for plein air paint outs in Italy over the past 4 years and has shown with the Florence Academy of Art for 2 consecutive summers. She is currently preparing for a show of Alaskan landscapes with The Gallery in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Jules Rochon graduated from Antioch in 2002 with a BA in Painting. He also studied drawing at the NY Studio School. He received an MFA in Painting from The University of North Carolina, where he received the Holderness Fellowship and both the Helen Thrush and Howard scholarships. Jules’ teaching career began at Antioch where he was an assistant instructor in art history, museums and painting. At the University of North Carolina- Greensboro, Jules was an assistant instructor in Painting, Drawing, and 3D Foundations, and he also served as a Foundry, Woodshop and Printshop Technician, and was a Preparator at the Maud Gatewood Gallery. Jules’ awards also include the Madonna Daniel Award from the Harwood Emerging Artist Fund and recent nomination for a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant. This year Jules was an Artist-in-Residence at The Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT. Past Exhibitions include galleries throughout North Carolina, Ohio, New York, Vermont and New Mexico, and his work has been included in private collections across the country.

MEDIA CONTACT  
Gariot P. Louima
Director of Communications
937-581-8201
glouima@antiochcollege.org