Category: Yellow Springs News

Antioch College to host Black History Month events

In honor of Black History Month, Antioch College will host several events focused on contemporary African American issues.

The first is a screening of the film “Life and Debt” this Saturday, Feb. 7, at 9:30 p.m. at the Coretta Scott King Center on campus. The 2001 documentary directed by Stephanie Black examines the economic and social issues that the International Monetary Fund’s economic policies have created in Jamaica. The narrative, told through the perspective of the island’s inhabitants, is based on the essay “A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid.

Shifting to a more local focus, on Tuesday, Feb. 10, the CSK Center will host a letter writing campaign to the U.S. Department of Justice whose attorneys are considering civil rights charges against the Beavercreek police officer who shot and killed John Crawford at a Walmart last August. The campaign is co-sponsored by Black Lives Matter Greene County and will take place from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Participants are also invited to join a sit-in at the Dayton U.S. Attorney’s office Thursday, Feb. 12, from 4–6 p.m. to deliver the letters and encourage investigating attorney Carter M. Stewart to file charges against the police officer. The attorney’s office is located in the Dayton Federal Building at 200 W. 2nd St. #602 in downtown Dayton. For those who can’t attend either event, letters can be emailed to lettersforcrawford@gmail.com.

On the evening of the sit-in, Feb. 12, Antioch College will host a presentation by multidisciplinary artist Chaun Webster, founder of Free Poet’s Press, a small publishing outfit dedicated to empowering Black and Brown artists. Through the press Webster has published collections such as “Haicoup: A Fieldguide in Guerrilla (Po)ethics” and “Ob-seen Diction.” Webster also co-founded and co-owns Ancestry Books, a Minneapolis-based literature exchange for indigenous authors and authors of color. The event, which begins at 7:30 p.m. at the CSK Center, is sponsored by Global Seminar on Education, the Writing Institute and the CSKC.

See transformation of Antioch College

Over the last four years since its re-opening, Antioch College has undergone dramatic changes, much of it to the campus itself. The college recently posted a video detailing the progress of the renovation to its physical infrastructure. Watch below to see how the campus has been transformed since the first class of the newly-independent Antioch College began classes.

Talk restorative justice at Wellness Center

On Saturday, Jan. 24, guest speaker Chris Ehrhart will lead a day-long workshop on restorative practices in higher education in the South Gym of the Wellness Center at Antioch College, 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m. Erhart, who is assistant director of community outreach and restorative practices at James Madison University, will begin the workshopwith an introduction of restorative justice practices. Participants will experience how such processes can be used in non-conflict situations to facilitate productive communication and understanding of others. The workshop will end with a role play activity, allowing participants to see how such processes can be used when there is a conflict.

 

Antioch College student organizes vigil for slain Mexican students

Last Friday, Dec. 3, several Antioch College students, faculty and townspeople participated in a candlelight vigil on Xenia Avenue, in a display of solidarity with Mexico for the disappearance and subsequent murder of 43 students on their way to protest discriminatory hiring and funding practices by the government. The students had been arrested by police and, allegedly upon approval by the region’s mayor, turned over to a drug cartel for disposal.

Antioch student Odette Chavez-Mayo organized the event after she found out about the murders. “I felt extremely frustrated…like there was nothing I could do to help,” she wrote in an email. 

“Although this wasn’t the first time that people in Mexico have gone missing (over 25,000 in the past 8 years and 100,000 murdered) it definitely caused an uproar and now people are out on the streets demanding justice.”

Chavez-Mayo wrote that she “reached out to #UStired2, an organization in the United States that was planning demonstrations all over the country… to spread awareness on the issues and to demand the U.S. government immediately stop the Merida Initiative,” a security cooperation agreement between the United States and Mexico, with the declared aim of combating the threats of drug trafficking, transnational organized crime and money laundering. Critics point out that the efficacy of the program is often thwarted because of corrupt government officials, police and military. 

“My purpose was to bring awareness on the injustices happening in Mexico, the extreme corruption of the government, and the police brutality,” Chavez-Mayo writes, “all of which, I think is not that different from everything that’s been happening in Ferguson lately, so I think it’s extremely important to stick together.”

The protesters handed out flyers, each with a picture of one of the 43 murdered students. They also placed 43 candles at the foot of a large tree, which were left to burn as the vigil waned and dusk descended, making the flames increasingly prominent.

Antioch College presents ‘Softcops’

Antioch College opens the surreal comic-drama “Softcops” by Caryl Churchill this weekend, Dec. 5 and 6, at 8 p.m., at the newly renovated Foundry Theater on Corry Street. 

The play was first presented in 1984 at the Barbican Pit in London and concerns itself with the evolution of the Western penal system, from the guillotine to the contemporary practice of surveillance. The play is loosely based on French philosopher Michel Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison,” written in 1975.

The Antioch production is directed by Louise Smith, her first since returning to the faculty as associate professor of performance at Antioch this fall. The production features original music and sound design by student Seth Kaplan ’15 and additional music by Meredith Monk. The cast includes students Sean Allen, Alli King, Kaplan, Gaerin Warman-Szvoboda, Cole Gentry, Spencer Glazer, Hannah Priscilla Craig and Alexander Campbell, who is also stage manager. 

Amanda Egloff is technical director, and Michael Casselli is the media designer. 

Tickets for “Softcops” are $7 for adults and $5 for seniors and students. Reservations can be made by calling 319-0200.