Category: Yellow Springs News

Pioneers. Risk takers. Antioch’s poster children. “The chosen ones.”

There are many names for the revived Antioch College’s first graduating class, and much to be said about them. They laid the foundation of the new Antioch. They were constantly under a microscope. They endlessly championed Antioch to potential donors and prospective students. They relit the flame of activism at the college. And they diminished; from the initial 35 students who entered in fall 2011 they are down to 22, 21 of whom are graduating.

Far from the typical college experience, the inaugural class of Horace Mann Fellows received an education in how to rebuild a college. It wasn’t easy, but it was formative.

“Antioch was definitely a formative experience, but in the most challenging way possible,” explained Sara Brooks, who graduates with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy. “The opportunities for student leadership, the grassroots nature of the project we stepped into, made us have to grow … We had to do things we wouldn’t have had to anywhere else.”

The first class restructured a community governance model that wasn’t working, pushed to overhaul the block course schedule, successfully lobbied for transgender bathrooms, amended family leave policies, set up recycling programs, pushed for disability services, molded majors, shaped the food offered and more — all while taking classes, working co-ops, setting up clubs and sitting on committees.

To Guy “Jack” Matthews, who studied anthropology and political economy, the Antioch experience centered around recon­ciling differing ideas for the institution. Antiochians, Matthews now believes, can change the world.

“We have seen that individual Antioch students are devastatingly effective, but when we work together we are even more effective than that,” Matthews said. “Even in the small numbers we have, we can change the world.”

The achievements of Antioch’s first class after reopening will be celebrated at a commencement ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 20, on the campus lawn between North Hall and Main Building. U.S. Congressman John Lewis will give the commencement address congruent with the theme of reunion weekend, “From Civil Rights to Social Justice.” In addition, six students in the Class of 2015 will speak to their college experience, followed by the traditional walk over the mound.

The historical moment for Antioch, which hasn’t held a commencement ceremony in seven years, is pivotal, according to Vice President of Academic Affairs Lori Collins-Hall. The first class did a lot of heavy lifting in rebuilding the college, took a risk on an unaccredited upstart institution and didn’t have many resources or facilities at their disposal, but nevertheless showed a lot of perseverance and patience, Collins-Hall said. They shaped, and were shaped by, the nascent college.

“They were a phenomenal group in the sense that they took a chance on us, they came in and invested a lot of their own time and energy to co-create a lot,” Collins-Hall said, adding, “I don’t know how empowered they felt. There was a feeling they had to fight for everything.”

When the first class arrived in 2011, there were just six tenure-track professors, one dormitory — where students slept, studied and ate — and one classroom building. For the first quarter they ate only take-out food. The class waited three years for a Wellness Center and three years for an Arts and Science Building, taking science classes out of a trailer until it opened. By the end of the first year, four students had left, and by last fall, another eight had departed.

Students graduating this year may be the only ones who will leave Antioch with a degree from an unaccredited institution. They will still receive Bachelor’s degrees in art or science. By next year’s graduation, the college will have received word about its accreditation.

Speaking of the challenges, and the Class of 2015’s ability to overcome them, Ryann Patrus, who is deaf, found some difficulties accessing her courses in the first two years.

“There were a lot of roadblocks to accessing my courses and it took a long time of me voicing that I needed certain things,” Patrus said.

But Patrus went on to pave the way for others with hearing disabilities by working with the Center for Academic Success to set up disability services for them (there is currently another hearing-impaired student). Last Thursday, a campus-wide action organized by another student to show how many buildings are not accessible to those with physical disabilities made Patrus feel like others are picking up the torch as she departs.

“I felt like I was the only one talking about these issues, so seeing other people rally around a student action was powerful,” Patrus said. “I feel comfortable leaving knowing there are people coming up behind me who are equally passionate. It gives me the warm fuzzies.”

Patrus, who is receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology, plans to go on to graduate school after a year break to further pursue disability studies.

Brooks also said Antioch influenced her life direction. She is continuing this summer as the assistant food services coordinator, and it was her time in the Antioch kitchen that made her want to be a cook. After the summer Brooks plans on looking for a cooking position, perhaps at a collectively-owned restaurant. She also wants to be involved in union organizing and admits that, as a first-generation college student, she likely wouldn’t have earned a college degree had she not attended Antioch.
At the same time, Brooks has had her share of challenges at Antioch. The initial dearth of resources for students, including health services and student success services, was frustrating.

“It was bare bones,” Brooks said.

Brooks was told that Antioch is essentially “Fight the Man 101” and indeed many students spoke of clashes with administration. While miscommunication played a role, Brooks said that the real issue between them and among students was the differences in interpreting Antioch’s history, and visions about its future.

“Everyone wants something different from Antioch now,” Brooks said. “People in my class had a vision of what to expect when they got here, and the people who were here already had their own visions.”

Brooks said she learned that it is easy to point out the negatives of an institution to improve it, but it’s more useful to do the hard work in fixing the problems. As for the legacy of the Class of 2015, Brooks believes it is in “bringing forward the history of Antiochians in activism and social justice.”

Ethan Kellaway, who is graduating with a Bachelor of Science in environmental science, found it difficult to study science at an institution without a true lab, and struggled to keep up with a year-round schedule without breaks between academic terms and co-ops, which he likened to a “slow burn down.” For Kellaway, the most enriching part of the experience was simply the conversations with other students, particularly on the issue of identity.

“The conversations I’ve had helped me think more about myself and the world,” Kellaway said. “I came from a non-racially diverse community and so I have explored how I was exposed to prejudice growing up.”

Matthews was mostly encouraged by the change in community governance the Class of 2015 enacted, which was “an enlightening experience in how a school can be run with first-year students and the administration acting on equal terms.” Matthews even went on to form his first political party at Antioch. The former chair of the Council of Conveners is looking to get a job as a paralegal for a year before going on to law school. After a co-op at a law firm specializing in labor law in New York, Matthews found the type of law he wanted to practice.

In fact, several students cited their four co-op experiences and other experiential learning as a highlight of their time at Antioch. Diana Zavala-Lopez had an “eye-opening” experience teaching English and sports in India, and she affirmed her desire to work in criminal justice as a forensic psychologist after an “Inside Out” class where Antioch students learned alongside prison inmates. Kellaway co-oped at EnviroFlight, where he will work after graduating, and also spent co-ops at a sled dog kennel and glass blowing shop after being encouraged to choose co-op jobs not just on career aspirations but to “explore a passion.” Students went on four co-ops during their time at Antioch.

According to Richard Kraince, Dean of Cooperative, Experiential, and International Education, in total there have been 540 co-op placements since the Class of 2015 arrived, including 54 international experiences. Students in the Class of 2015 went to Japan, Nicaragua, France and Mexico. Kraince is now working with graduating students to write their co-op experience on an online blog and update their résumés. Some students are staying in Yellow Springs and Antioch, working in documentary filmmaking and on the Antioch farm. Others are departing for graduate school, art school or to organize large progressive events. The Class of 2015, who Kraince said is “older, more articulate and more argumentative” than the other classes, will be missed.

“It’s a huge loss of talent,” Kraince said. “They founded this institution and whatever difficulties we’ve gone through, we’ve gone through together.”

To Dean of Admissions Micah Canal, who was among the graduates at Antioch’s last graduation in 2008, the first graduation of the reborn Antioch feels “a bit bizarre” because it doesn’t seem that long ago that he walked across the stage. In the meantime, Canal, one of the original founders of the new Antioch, has helped the college grow from a “total embryo to something graduating students and raising $20 million per year,” he said, adding, “and we’ve only just begun.” Asked to describe the Class of 2015, Canal said “they were brave,” and many were transformed by their times at Antioch, including the difficult ones.

“The skill set of facing imperfection and drawing out a more perfect solution is one that is going to serve them well for their lives, and one the world is in dire need of,” Canal said.

Students said that at times they haven’t been appreciated for their hard work in remaking the college, citing a line in an external survey report that said a few students and staff thought that the campus climate would improve with their departure. Zavala-Lopez remarked of the comment, likely made by just one or two people, “But there wouldn’t be a college without us.”

Looking at the future of the institution they invested in so heavily, and now depart, students are optimistic. Matthews said the most recent demonstration around accessibility issues showed him “this school is going to go on making the same difference it always has, both on and off campus.” Zavala-Lopez said she hopes that Antiochians remember that even though they are passionate about their beliefs, they should stay open-minded and not “bully” each other. Patrus urged future classes of Antiochians to be gentle with one another, since everyone is growing and changing so fast in their college years, and also to not get too discouraged about slow progress towards change on campus.

“It gets discouraging when you can’t mold this place to what you want it to be when you come in thinking you’re going to have all this power,” Patrus said. “But you pay attention, and work diligently your four years here, you will see the change … You’re not going to change everything, but learn to appreciate those little things you can change.”

Paths of chalked blue dots appeared all over Antioch College campus on Friday, June 5, leading from easy-access front-door entrances to obscure back-door entrances to many of the buildings. Because many of the older buildings on campus do not go out of their way to be friendly to those with physical disabilities, for at least one day last week, campus community members were forced to go out of their way to empathize with those less physically able than they.

Student Cleo van der Veen’s “The Go! Accessibility Project” was conceived to give those who take their ambulation for granted a peek at how some get around campus without front-door access. By locking all the doors that were not accessible and leading people instead to the handicapped-accessible entries and exits, van der Veen invited the campus to see that simply because a building is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act standards, doesn’t mean it is “accessible” or friendly to those with physical impairments. Many of the ADA-compliant entrances are around the back of the buildings, in dark or obscure places near service doors and sometimes waste containers.

“A lot of people reported being late to class, meetings and appointments today!” van der Veen said near the end of the day Friday. “I’m really kind of excited about how much I’ve messed with people’s days.”

While most of the buildings on campus were built before the current ADA standards were established, even the newly renovated ones, such as North Hall, have problems with electric doors not opening long enough. The library, with a full flight of stairs to the front door and a dingy back entrance to the lift, is the worst of all, in van der Veen’s opinion.

“I love that library so much — you just kind of wish it was more accessible.”

Van der Veen’s parents helped to increase accessibility in their professional work, and Van der Veen hopes that the college will incorporate accessibility into the renovation plans from the start, which is more cost-effective than adding it later.

“There hasn’t been a consciousness about it because it costs so much more to make it accessible,” she said. “But we have to remember that accessibility is something we have to start now. You can’t go back and do it later.”

At the Antioch College dining hall last week, the kitchen was serving turkey melts with pasture-raised poultry from New Carlisle, eggs from a family-owned farm in Xenia and organic salad from the college farm about 500 yards from the kitchen. In the world of institutional dining, and in particular in institutions of higher education, food considered “real,” meaning sourced from locally owned, ecologically sound, humane farms with fair employment practices, is apparently quite difficult to obtain. That’s why a national student group is challenging campuses across the country to commit to serving at least 20 percent real food by 2020.

The standards of the so-called Real Food Challenge are ones Antioch College has built its campus culture around since rebooting in 2010. And the college is already well beyond the minimum needed to meet the challenge goals.

According to Antioch Food Service Coordinator Isaac Delamatre, 56 percent of Antioch’s food is considered “real” by the Challenge standards, which is second in the nation only to Sterling College in Vermont, which consumes 74 percent real food. For the challenge, Antioch has committed to 60 percent real food by 2020.

By comparison, Oberlin and UC Santa Cruz committed to 40 percent real food by 2020, while other campuses such as University of Massachussetts Amherst, George Washington University and 21 others signed on to the minimum 20 percent — out of just 35 schools that made a commitment at all.

The Antioch farm, currently producing the kitchen’s kale, greens, onions and asparagus, has something to do with the college’s high real food score. Of the campus’s total food purchases, 28 percent comes from the farm. That makes that portion not only “real” by Challenge standards (grown within 150 miles of the institution), but grown 1,500 feet from where it is consumed. Students work and help manage the farm, a fair employer, and grow and raise the vegetables, fruit trees, chickens and ducks organically and humanely, surpassing USDA organic and Animal Welfare Institute standards.

Delamatre is the other reason for Antioch’s high real food score. Instead of hiring a food service provider, such as Sodexo, a multi-billion dollar global corporation, when it opened in 2011, the college hired Delamatre, who has always sourced local foods from growers he knows and whose farms he visits regularly.

“My main objective is to buy directly from the producer because then they dictate the price, it holds them accountable for their products and it supports the local infrastructure and economy,” he said.

In addition to what comes off the campus farm, 13 of the college’s 14 food suppliers are within 30 miles of Yellow Springs, including Buck-I-Hillz and Flying Mouse farms in Yellow Springs, Ed Hill chicken farm in Xenia and Keener pork and beef farm in Dayton. Instead of having produce, meat and grains from across the country trucked to campus by an industrial supplier, Delamatre and fourth-year student Sara Brooks drive the Antioch truck to make their own pickups.

“It’s a lot of driving,” said Brooks, who learned about sustainable farming when she came to Antioch and committed to it early because it was consistent with the principles of social and environmental justice that the college was built on. As the college’s assistant food service coordinator, Brooks is totally convinced that a self-operated local food service is right for college campuses.

“Once you include the educational aspects, it’s a no-brainer,” she said.

Sustainability is part of the global seminar that every student takes at Antioch because it touches all the academic disciplines and is a world-wide problem that will need solutions. According to Delamatre, having students involved on the farm and in the kitchen enables them to apply their classroom learning in the tradition of the Antioch College co-op to start solving some of those issues.

“If you just started serving real food, you’d miss the opportunity to have a grassroots push where a lot of education happens,” he said. “You don’t want to move too fast because you miss out on the meat of it — it’s a natural progression to learn about it and then ask, ‘why aren’t we doing it?’”

At Antioch people are doing it, and setting higher standards for peer institutions.

“Our goal is to push the model and to act as a catalyst for others,” Delamatre said of the sustainable food movement.

The college has a Food Committee with both college, village and agricultural representatives to guide food policy and sponsor food-related educational films and events on campus, according to Brooks. The campus also has initiated partnerships with the local school district and the local food pantry and has several community projects in the works, she said.

For Antioch the real food challenge will be to keep growing its real food content as it grows in size from the current 250 students to an interim size of about 600 within the next several years, according to Antioch Communications Director Matt Desjardins.

“For a school this size, Antioch is punching above its weight — partly because it had a chance to start from scratch,” Desjardins said. “But people have to care about [sustainability] too,” as college leaders do, he said.