Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors
Antioch College Alumni/ae Association
By dial-in conference call
4:00 p.m. EDT July 10, 2007
Committee members present
Nancy Crow, President
Ina Frank, Vice President
Rick Daily, Treasurer
Mike Brower, Chapters Committee
Ellen Borgersen, Governance Committee
Athena Frederick, Communications Committee
I. Reports from the President
A. John Feinberg is still on an airplane, and can’t serve as Recording Secretary. At Nancy’s request, Rick will serve for this meeting. The minutes of this meeting, once corrected by the group, should be sent to “webeditors@antiochians.org.” for public posting.
B. Nancy has a letter from Steve Lawry, labeled “confidential” which merits discussion among a larger body. She will ask Steve for permission to expand its reach.
C. A special meeting of the Antioch University Board of Trustees will be held on August 24-26; location is likely to be Chicago.
D. Reunion Committee: Nancy has reappointed Bradley Wilburn to serve as Committee Chair, and asked him to make sure that we have a strong, dramatic reunion in 2008.
E. Nominating Committee – Nancy has a call in to Susan Opotow to ask whether she will serve as chair of the Nominating Committee.
F. Anecdote: Nancy reported that at Denver’s Cherry Creek Arts Festival – a ceramicist from YSO was in attendance. When asked what will happen to Antioch, the ceramicist replied: “The Alumni are going to save the College!”
II. Nancy Crow letter to Art Zucker
A. Addressees: The sense of the Committee is that Nancy should talk with Art, and ask who else should get this letter.
B. How detailed should it be?
1. Offer to work with various task forces vs. presentation of an alternative plan
2. Nancy thinks we should come into the August Board Meeting with as detailed a proposal as we can possibly get. The consensus is that we should be working on this detailed plan.
C. Ellen: Our plan needs to take into account moving parts that work together:
1. Plan for an interim period of reduced operations; relaunch of full operations, and sustained operations. we work with faculty.
a) Faculty (E. Miller) have been focused on legal plans and negotiations, and not on curriculum.
D. Nancy: Board of Trustees has concluded that suspension is required.
E. Ellen: There are documents out there that are being used to plan the “new Antioch”
F. Should we demand transparency from the Board of Trustees? Better message: We need to be where decisions are being discussed and made, which we believe means more participation than having our Chair serve ex officio on the Board of Trustees.
G. Specific fundraising targets: we avoid specificity for now; plan to have a good number by late August.
H. Communicate the sense of urgency among the alumni/ae.
1. E.g., Faculty Layoff notices: We don’t yet know what the terms of the layoff notices are, how much notice is being given and what rehiring rights or preferential rights any current faculty members may have if the College is shut and reopened.
I. The Business Plan and the Curriculum Plan are two separate issues, and need to be treated as such.
J. “Closing” vs. continuing operations. We can’t tie ourselves into a position that we’re going to guarantee that the College will not close.
III. Committee Assignments.
A. Nancy has sent out a full list of Committee and task group assignments, and will republish it.
IV. § 501(c)(3) status. Motion to create separate corporation to become a § 501(c)(3) organization, which will take the money, and serve as the College Revival Fund. The mission of the College Revival Fund is to develop a business plan for the College, build a separate governing board for the College, and to raise funds for the continued operation of the College.
V. Treasurer’s Report. Rick reported that the total of pledges and donations is still roughly $525,000. He is busy doing data entry, cross-referencing donations with pledges.
VI. Chapters. Mike Brower reported that before the BOT announced suspending Antioch College we had 7 Alumni/ae Chapters around the country each of which had held at least one meeting. Today, the web page “chapters@antiochians.org” lists 16 Chapters, which means we more than doubled the number of Chapters in one month. Mike reported that he has a list of another half a dozen or more cities in which organizers are working and planning for their first meeting. Very soon we should have over 2 dozen active chapters — or even more if we count the separate Chapters being formed in various boroughs of New York City, probably soon to be followed by separate locations in greater LA. By a month from now we could easily have 30 active chapters in the US and also in Paris and London!
VII. Fundraising (Ina). Ina reported that at last night’s meeting, a donor announced his intention to relocate his pledge to the Revival Fund from the Annual Fund. People are incredibly motivated to act now to raise funds, to capture the momentum on the fundraising front.
A. Foundations. On the foundation front, we need two years minimum of “in the black” balance sheets. We have begun research done on the likely donors. The Alumni/Individual piece is critical to credibility.
B. Corporate relations. Terry Blackhawk has taken on Corporate Relations.
C. Marketing Sub-Committee. We need someone whose job is marketing, media relations, mini-DVD concept. Mike will ask the Chapters to identify a seasoned marketing professional to come on board.
D. Fundraising Plan. Ina will send out a summary fundraising plan within the next day.
VIII. Public Relations. Athena described her efforts to coordinate media relations issues.
IX. Governance. Ellen sent her committee list around via e-mail. Everyone likes the “Antioch 3.0” concept. She will put together a concept paper on this topic for immediate circulation.
X. Association Board Meeting. Brief discussion of whether there should be a meeting of the ACAA Board before our scheduled November Meeting. Rick moved that we have a conference call meeting of the full Board within 2-3 weeks. The motion was seconded and adopted by all voting. Nancy will look at rescheduling the Fall Alumni/ae Board Meeting to coincide with the Board of Trustees meeting.