Wednesday, August 01, 2007, by Stephanie Irwin Gottschlich, Staff Writer, Dayton Daily News
YELLOW SPRINGS — Seven former Antioch University trustees are appealing to the current board to take a series of “bold” actions at an emergency board meeting later this month, including merging Antioch College with Antioch University McGregor and creating a separate board for the combined school.
In a July 28 letter to board members obtained by the Dayton Daily News, the former trustees said that the college will not successfully reopen unless the board demonstrates its commitment to doing so with “actions no less bold than those it has already taken.”
Those actions include:
Merge the college with Antioch University McGregor, the adult learning institution that offers mostly master’s degrees, also
located in Yellow Springs.
Create a separate board of trustees, with one university trustee appointed as chair, responsible for both the college and McGregor. Ensure that it has representatives for alumni, faculty, staff, Yellow Springs, students, alumni, major donors and include “luminaries in higher education.”
Empowering the new college board to meet specific fundraising and planning goals for the college’s reopening, and to hire and fire the college President.
Launch a development campaign sufficient to cover major capital improvements and competitive faculty wages and establish an endowment of at least $100 million for the college.
Explore viable alternatives to closing the college through consulting turnaround experts in higher education.
Outline plans over the next six months for reopening the college and sustaining it.
Other actions the former trustees requested include putting alumni on the new institution’s board who could immediately and publicly pledge large sums to the college.
“The main point is ‘Go ahead and do something that everyone thinks should happen,’ ” said Dan Kaplan, one of the trustees who signed the letter, in a separate interview Tuesday.
Kaplan served on the university board from 1995 until 2006, and as chair from 2002 until 2005. “There’s an upside to taking a kind of bold step that’s really an act of good faith with all the stakeholders,” he said.
In a response letter on Wednesday, current board chair Arthur J. Zucker said the board will carefully evaluate the letter’s “creative suggestions” while “also considering the financial implications.”
“We will continue our due diligence through careful review and deliberation, balanced with the need for urgency of all issues around the suspension of operations at the College, including those related to governance,” Zucker wrote.
Zucker added the board voted in June to create a governance committee to look at the governance issue, and it will report to the board in October.
“That we have expedited this process speaks to the board’s commitment to tackle the governance issue,” Zucker wrote. “It is important that everyone also understands that (university Chancellor) Toni (Murdock) and I are both strongly committed to resolving the issue of governance honestly and realistically and professionally.”
Kaplan and former trustees Barbara Winslow and Laura Markham wrote the letter. Since then, at least four more have added their names to it – including two additional previous board chairs – and others are planning to sign it, according to Winslow. Winslow, the longest-serving board member at 12 years of service, stepped down a month ago following the board’s June 12 decision to close the college in 2008. Winslow had reached the maximum term limit allowed for trustees.
The letter joins a movement to make Antioch College autonomous—either outside the university system, or within it–in order for it to survive.
The Antioch College Alumni Association, hoping to negotiate with the trustees for many of the items in the July 28 petition letter, is serving as an agent for $625,000 in cash and pledges called the College Revival Fund targeted at keeping the college open.
Rick Daily, treasurer for the fund and for the alumni association, said “in addition there are expressions of interest in contributing to a revived, self-governed Antioch College that are in excess of $2 million.”
College President Steve Lawry, who announced last week he will resign at year-end, meanwhile has increased his call for a separate board responsible for advocating sand raising money solely for the college.
“And we’re saying [Lawry’s] actually right,” Kaplan said. “Let’s bite the bullet and do it. Time is of the essence here. Move forward boldly here or wake up in five years to nothing.”
Zucker told the former trustees in his letter the board must fulfill its fiduciary responsibility to the entire university, but has a related commitment “to ensure that our college students receive the education and undergraduate experience they deserve.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7404 or
sgottschlich@DaytonDailyNews.com.