From the Print – Page 3 – Save Antioch College

Antioch Eco-Village— ‘Pioneers’ share vision, plans

The Antioch Eco-Village Pioneers includes a farmer, social worker, travel tour director and journalist, as well as people skilled in carpentry, music, graphic design and older adult fitness. It’s a mix of women and men active in Glen Helen, the Yellow Springs Arts Council and the library, and passionate about reading, writing, theater, food, travel, swimming, diversity and spirituality, among a host of other interests. One has a master’s in creative writing, another a master’s in social work. One member is certified as a master gardener, another as a grief counselor. And while the age range tilts older (most members are in their sixties through eighties), the group includes one family with children — and is actively seeking new members of all ages to explore options for creating a cohousing community on the Antioch campus.

“We want to be intergenerational,” said Pat Brown, one of the group’s 14 core members, in a recent interview. “We need diversity from the beginning, and so we’re hoping families and younger couples will join us. We need their vitality and ideas.”

To that end, the Eco-Village Pioneers are organizing an event on Sunday, May 1, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Senior Center for all villagers curious about cohousing and interested in learning about Yellow Springs’ cohousing group, which does not yet live in a cohousing community, but seeks to establish one on the Antioch campus as part of the college’s planned intergenerational housing development.

Cohousing is “an intentional community of private homes clustered around shared space,” according to the website of the Cohousing Association of the United States. The website lists 161 established cohousing communities around the country, as well as 123 that are in the process of forming. The Cohousing Association does not identify any active communities in Ohio, although it lists two, in Akron and Granville, as forming/reforming.

Many members of the local group have long been fascinated by cohousing, and have considerable knowledge and expertise on the social and environmental benefits of these communities and the various forms they can take. Some have visited cohousing communities; one member, Pat Gaskin, who is not currently active but plans to address interested villagers at the May meeting, lived in a cohousing community for many years.

“I’ve been reading about it since the 1970s,” said Jane Baker, another member. “It’s just always been interesting to me.”

The Eco-Village Pioneers got their start last spring, in tandem with Antioch College’s charrette, or public planning meeting, devoted to the concept of intergenerational housing on campus. Though the proposed Antioch College Village is a wider vision of on-campus residential community, it includes cohousing as one component, and shares the cohousing group’s commitment to ecologically sustainable and socially enriching living.

“Many of us went to the charrette, and from there we began to roll,” said cohousing group member Pat Stempfly. “We’re a wonderful group that’s building community together.”

The group has been meeting at least monthly, and has picked up a few new members since the charrette, in addition to deepening relationships among the core members. It has researched cohousing governance, and is inclining toward sociocracy, also called dynamic governance, a form of consent-based decision-making structured around committees.

“Everyone gets a vote and a voice,” said Stempfly, who is chair of the Community Life committee.

Cohousing communities around the country (and world) strike different balances between private and communal living, according to Brown and others. Brown said the local group envisions individual living spaces — likely a mix of houses and apartments that could be purchased or rented — complemented by indoor and outdoor common spaces. Indoor spaces could include a kitchen, laundry, meeting or community room and office; outdoor spaces could include a garden and composting and picnic areas.

A cohousing community is not a condominium association, which may also have shared amenities, said member Don Hollister, development director at Community Solutions. Its commitment to community goes deeper. The local cohousing group is collaboratively planning its common spaces “with the intent of ongoing social interaction — things like common meals,” he said. Unlike many suburban developments, the whole point of cohousing is to “see your neighbors,” he emphasized.

Environmental stewardship is another key aspect. Most older members of the group envision cohousing as a form of downsizing. “Everyone wants to live in a smaller footprint,” said Brown. In Stempfly’s view, “We’re not going to be able to sustain the planet living the way we do. Cohousing is about living more sustainably … with thought for future generations.”

As the group seeks new and diverse members, it also hopes to open the concept to people from different income levels. According to Brown, the group is in conversation with Home, Inc., about ways to incorporate an affordable housing component into the community’s plans.

And, for most of the group, locating their cohousing community on the Antioch campus and being part — perhaps a leading part — of the college’s intergenerational housing development is an important aspect of the vision.

“I think Antioch would be a wonderful place to do a pilot because the college is reviving itself,” said Stempfly. “The opportunity to live on campus is very appealing — there’s that mix of young and old, the energy of youth and the wisdom of the old.” Stempfly, like other members, expressed interest in volunteering on campus; she has a particular passion for mentoring, she said.

“We’d like to be a part of the college. The infrastructure is there, and we know that what they build is going to be quality,” said Brown. “The location is ideal,” added Baker.

Former Antioch president Mark Roosevelt was a champion of the intergenerational housing concept and saw cohousing as an element of it, according to Brown, who met with him on the subject even before the cohousing group formed. Roosevelt said in an interview last year that he believed the concept would appeal to Baby Boomers who are ready to downsize but not yet ready “to be put out to pasture.”

“These are people who don’t want to be isolated, who want to be valued for their knowledge, who want demands made of them,” he said in the previous interview. “I believe it’s a generational yearning.”

The new president, Tom Manley, signaled his strong support for the College Village as a way to raise revenue for Antioch — and carry out its commitment to finding “new and better ways of living,” he said.

“We’ve got to get it off the drawing board and into a more active phase of development,” he told the News in a recent interview.

Around the same time as Manley’s comments, Antioch’s board of trustees took a step toward that more active phase. According to Andi Adkins, vice president for finance and operations, the board affirmed its commitment to the College Village and the local cohousing group “as part of that project.” The board also announced the “first bit of funding” for the project, in the amount of $20,000, from a source Adkins declined to identify. That funding will be used to pay consultant Sandy Wiggins, who oversaw the charrette, to research and identify funding options for the project’s first phase, which is estimated to cost $2.2 million and will unfold over at least two years. The first phase will establish the legal structures, zoning and licensing and fee requirements that must be in place, Adkins said, “before we break ground.” The college is targeting “a little over 300 units” in the project’s current scope, she added.

The Eco-Village Pioneers acknowledged that there’s some “nitty gritty” — not to mention major financial hurdles — to overcome before their concept of living in a close, ecologically sustainable community becomes a reality. But they believe their activities of the past year have laid the foundation for that community.

“We’re not yet living in cohousing, but we’re already building community by caring for each other,” said Stempfly.

Other members agreed. Brown said she’s been “blessed to meet some wonderful people,” while Baker, a longtime villager, added, “It’s been interesting to get to know a whole new group of people.”

The benefits of cohousing for people of retirement age are obvious, members believe. There’s less isolation, more community involvement, less individual space and “stuff” to manage and more communal space and experiences to enjoy.

At the same time, members “don’t want to live in a community that’s just elderly,” said Brown, who believes that younger people and families also have much to gain from cohousing.

“As a society, we’ve become so isolated from each other. Cohousing offers younger people and older people the chance to learn from and lean on each other. It’s a chance to be connected to more than just your family, and to find the support you need,” said Brown.

Hollister sees cohousing as congruent with the “new urbanism” concept, which emphasizes the value — for collective and individual well-being — of “unplanned interactions” with neighbors.

For Stempfly, the benefits of cohousing are holistic. “It’s an opportunity to plant some visionary seeds to live in a community and care for the earth and each other,” she said. Given the time and money the project will likely require, fruition may be years away. But Stempfly was upbeat.

“We’re going to do it, by golly,” she said.

Groups striving for a local economy of resilience, equity

These are a few of the many ideas and projects that villagers will be discussing this month at a series of free events, organized by Community Solutions and the YS Resilience Network, that focus on the local economy. The goal, said Community Solutions Executive Director Susan Jennings on Monday, “is to build an economy that provides for as many goods and services locally as nationally — to move us to greater self-sufficiency, greater resilience and greater equity.”

The local economy events are part of a months-long series tackling topics ranging from local food to waste reduction to housing. Community Solutions and the YS Resilience Network are the organizers of the series, in collaboration with other local groups and with financial support from the Yellow Springs Community Foundation. Two more months remain in the series: April events will focus on renewable energy, and May will address transportation.

But in a sense, said Jennings, this month’s focus encompasses all the topics. “The emphasis on the local, and the impact of local initiatives in all these different areas on our local economy, really ties the whole series together,” she said.

There are lots of reasons why a local economy is a resilient economy, she added. “When you can meet your needs locally, you’re less susceptible to supply chain shocks or turmoil in the international financial system,” she said. And when you buy and invest locally, the impact of dollars spent and invested is concentrated.

“Studies have shown that if you shop locally, three times more of your money stays in the local community,” she said.

Local economic activity also builds a sense of community and people’s skill sets. “People working together have an opportunity to interact, to bond,” said Jennings. Not to mention the compelling environmental reasons for meeting a community’s needs within the community, rather than relying on goods and services from afar.

One example of an innovative local economy initiative that’s already underway is the Yellow Springs Time Exchange. Coordinated by villager Kat Walter, the time exchange, also known as a time bank, is a mechanism for connecting a community’s needs and skills without the exchange of money.

“These are just popping up all over the world,” Walter noted on Monday.

The local time bank was launched in November, following an earlier iteration developed by Antioch College students last June. The current Yellow Springs Time Exchange is a merge between the two groups, and currently has around 70 members. Services offered and requested range from piano lessons to dog walking to elder care to house weatherization to transportation to simple companionship, said Walter.

“We’re still getting off the ground, but we’ve seen more offers and requests in the past month,” she said. A potluck to bring together existing members and those interested in the time exchange was held on Wednesday, March 9, to kick off the local economy series.

Walter will discuss the time exchange in more detail this Thursday, March 10, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Antioch College Arts & Sciences Building, room 219, as part of a panel called “Regional Examples of the Sharing Economy.” The title refers to alternative forms of economic activity that rely on the sharing of access to goods and services, according to Jennings. The second panelist is Brett Joseph, a Cleveland-based educator and organizational systems consultant, speaking on the Cleveland Evergreen Cooperatives, a connected group of worker-owned cooperatives that provide goods and services to major Cleveland institutions. And the third panelist is Lisa Daris, chapter coordinator for Slow Money Central Ohio, an organization that connects local investors with local food systems.

Jennings said on Monday that there are many ideas bubbling up, locally and around the county, about new and more democratic forms of economy. The concept of a worker-owned cooperative food hub in Yellow Springs is one such idea, and it’s smart and doable, according to both Jennings and Walter.

“We already have a wonderful local food base,” said Jennings. We can expand this into a food hub.”

Such a hub could offer shared facilities (such as a commercial kitchen), shared services (such as distribution and marketing, perhaps even a “local brand”) and access to local financing and business consulting. Working groups at the YS Resilience Network and Antioch College are already deep in discussions of how such a hub would work, said Jennings.

Villagers interested in a food hub and other cooperative economic models are invited to attend a workshop tackling these topics, held Saturday, March 19, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the United Methodist Church. “Toward a Democratic Economy” will begin with a keynote from Peter Block of Cincinnati, an expert in community building and empowerment, and will feature sessions on developing local financing and investing, a cooperative entrepreneurial hub and a cooperative food hub.

Jennings noted that this month’s conversations build on earlier brainstorming and planning sessions. In 2009, Community Solutions brought local economy pioneer Michael Shuman to the village for a workshop on strengthening the local economy by capitalizing on local assets, including time, talent and money, and reducing “leakages” of investment and spending. A number of the ideas that got expressed during those discussions have borne fruit, Jennings said, highlighting Antioch’s Wellness Center, the construction of the Mills Park Hotel and the college’s solar array, as well as recent movement toward a municipal solar array on the Glass Farm property.

“It’s important that people know we have these conversations, and they have a long-term impact in terms of actions and projects in the community,” she said.

The final event of the month is a free screening of the documentary “Money and Life,” by director Katie Teague, on Sunday, March 20, at 1 p.m. at the Little Art Theatre. The film — a look at the origins and meanings of money and a call to revise our relationship to it — touches on some of the deepest implications of the term “local economy,” according to Jennings.

“We’ve been mesmerized into thinking wealth is the same thing as money,” she said, when in fact it is much more: the relationships in a community; the sharing of skills, time and talents; the physical forms a community takes. Underlying the many experiments in new and more democratic forms of economy is a fundamental shift in our concept of wealth and ownership.

“We’re moving away from a sense of abundance that comes from what we [individually] own to what we have in common as a community,” said Jennings.

All local economy events are free. See the Facebook pages of Community Solutions and YS Resilience Network for details.

Thomas Manley arrives on Antioch campus

New Antioch College President Thomas Manley began his position earlier this week and is now on campus. He is eager to get to work, according to a college press release.

“In my view, nothing is more imperative than the continued success of Antioch College at this time, and I am deeply committed to becoming part of this community and helping the College grow,” he said in the press statement. “The determined work of alumni, trustees, faculty, staff and students has been nothing less than inspirational since the decision to reopen. I am very much looking forward to contributing to this ongoing effort.”

Manley and his wife, Susanne Hashim, and their young daughter, Chedin, will be moving into the Folkmanis House on campus, which has formerly housed college presidents. Chedin will be attending Mills Lawn School.

Manley brings to the job more than 35 years of experience in education, most recently as president of Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Ore., since 2003. During his tenure there, he was credited with helping that college turn around and emerge as “Portland’s most well-rounded, diverse and established arts institution,” according to the release.

Manley is only the second president of the reborn Antioch College, succeeding Mark Roosevelt, who left at the end of December. Roosevelt is now president of St. John’s College in Santa Fe, N.M.

The college’s path since it reopened in 2009 has been “distinctive and brave,” Manley said in the release.

“No college I know of has been braver and more steadfast over time in delivering a liberal arts education aimed so squarely at making a difference in the world,” he said.

See Manley’s letter on page 4. An extended interview with Manley will be published in the March 17 News.

Dr. James Payson Dixon III

A peaceful, generous, insightful and humble man has completed his life on earth. He was a good friend, loving son and brother, devoted husband, wonderful and patient father and grandfather and great-grandfather. All who were fortunate to know and to love him will miss Jim/Dad/Grandpa Jim. He celebrated life through keen observation, perceptive commentary and most importantly actions informed by kindness. Even in his twilight days, he was grateful, charming and gracious to those who helped care for him.

Jim Dixon, a Harvard-educated physician and president of Antioch College from 1959 through 1975, died at his home in Haverford, Penn. on Feb. 27, 2016, at the age of 98. Born March 15, 1917, in Portsmouth, N.H., Jim was the second child of Mary Russell and James P. Dixon Jr.

As a boy he was curious about the world and had an enthusiasm for mechanical pursuits. Jim was always willing to use his intellect and compassion to contribute to the lives of those around him. At age 8, he repaired an engine by finding the right-sized piston by mail order, thus providing his family with a gas engine used to cut wood that provided heat for the winter. Prior to that it was all chopped by hand. The engine was used for years to do many tasks around the farm. As a child in the 1920s, he set up a shortwave radio in a chicken coop turned into a workshop using leftover telephone batteries, and managed to tune in Russia. Throughout his life, he enjoyed fixing and tinkering with clocks and vintage cars. He was an avid gardener as well as winemaker and woodworker. All of his life he was willing to experiment and to take risks in order to learn.

Prior to entering elementary school, Jim was schooled at home, along with his older sister, Dorcas, in Latin and Greek by his grandfather, James P. Dixon, Sr., and his Aunt Florence. He completed North Rochester High School at age 15 and worked in the Spaulding Mill and grew potatoes to earn money to attend college.

He attended Antioch College from 1934 to 1939 where he met Edla (Eddie) Denton Mills. They were married at the Mills Family Homestead near Middletown, N.Y., on Aug. 30, 1941, and their devoted partnership spanned 54 years, until Eddie’s death at age 76 on Dec. 17, 1995.

Jim was one of the first students at Harvard Medical School on academic scholarship and received his medical degree in 1943. A life-long pacifist, Jim registered as a conscientious objector during WWII. He completed his alternative military service with the National Institutes of Health. Jim earned a master’s degree in public health administration from Columbia University in 1947. After being a Kellogg Foundation fellow in public health and preventive medicine, he was a fellow in community medicine through the Rockefeller Foundation. Jim was drawn to the challenges and opportunities in the emerging field of public health. He first served the City and County of Denver, Colo., as manager of health and hospitals from 1948–1952. Jim went on to become the commissioner of health for the City and County of Philadelphia, Penn., from 1952–1959. Throughout his professional career, Jim participated in many national and international policy discussions regarding public health issues.

While serving on the board of trustees at Antioch, Jim was asked to consider and then accepted the role of president of the college. He led Antioch for 16 years, including the dynamic 1960s. As a lifelong champion of civil rights, Jim was especially pleased to bring Martin Luther King Jr. to campus as the 1965 college commencement speaker. Those interested in an expanded view of the years at Antioch are referred to the book “Antioch: The Dixon Era 1959–1975,” compiled and edited by Edla M. Dixon.

Eddie and Jim spent their last 20 years together in the Chapel Hill, N.C. area. They continued to enjoy worldwide travel and also became involved in their local community. Eddie worked as a public elementary school librarian and a realtor, and Jim was a professor of health administration at the University of North Carolina and interim president of Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va. He was a faculty member of Walden University and was active in local ACLU activities.

All who knew him, especially his children, were aware of his compassion, tolerance, patience and optimism regarding the vagaries of the human condition. He was gifted with an astounding intellect and was something of a verbal athlete in conversation. He spun spontaneous and fabulous tales to his children and grandchildren in the oral tradition of storytelling in which he was raised by his Irish mother. Jim’s profoundly peaceful and gentle nature recalled his father’s influence. Jim’s family and friends always found him ready to help them reflect on and clarify life’s challenges.

Jim (and Eddie) are survived by their six children: Linn Dixon Noble, of Iowa City, Iowa; Russell Mills Dixon (Janis), of Madison, Wis.; Pamela Dixon (Nicholas Seagraves,) of West Linn, Ore.; Deborah Dixon Nelson (Mark), of Pasadena, Calif.; Donna Dixon McKlindon (Edward), of Drexel Hill, Pa.; and Peter Carvill Dixon (Gary Dick), of San Diego, Calif.; and by 11 grandchildren: Timothy (Angelica), Julia (Michael), Delano, Matthew (Eva), Sibyl (Andrea), Baeti, Haven, Quinn (Ryan), Amy, Rachel and Edward; and by five great-grandchildren: Lucy, Pietro, Arya, Henry and Nina.

Four siblings are deceased: Dorcas Chaffee, Jonathan Dixon, Donald Dixon and June Hudis.

Jim is survived by his brother, David Dixon, of Farmington, Maine, and the following extended family members: Eddie’s twin sister, Grace Smith, of Peabody, Mass.; sisters-in-law Erna Dixon, of Riverside, Calif., Thelma Dixon, of Berkeley, Calif. and Sandra Dixon, of Farmington, Maine; and brother-in-law Jerome Hudis, of Arlington, Va.; as well as numerous nieces and nephews, grandnieces and nephews and great-grandnieces and nephews.

The family is deeply appreciative of the compassionate and loving care provided by Pauline Belgiovane, Dr. Michael Flanagan, Perlina Ffrench and the staffs of The Quadrangle’s Health Center and of Hospice Compassus in the final years of his long and well-lived life.

Services were private. Contributions in Jim’s name may be made to either of these charities: The Friends of The Wissahickon is a nonprofit group focused on the preservation of the Wissahickon Valley section of Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park system; this wooded park has been a favorite Dixon family destination for years. The American Civil Liberties Union chapter of North Carolina is an organization both Eddie and Jim strongly supported.

Improv workshop at Antioch College open to village

Yellow Springers have an opportunity to learn about how theater improvisation can enhance civic engagement in a free workshop this Saturday at Antioch College. The workshop, which is open to the public and funded by National Endowment of the Arts, will be led by Paul Zimet and Ellen Maddow, founders and members of The Talking Band, a cornerstone of the New York City avant garde theater, which was recently praised by Ben Brantley of the New York Times as “one of the boldest and most venerable politically minded companies in New York experimental theater.”

The workshop, titled “Devised Theater and Civic Engagement,” takes place at the Foundry Theater on Saturday, Feb. 13, from 1 to 4 p.m.

In an email this week, Zimet wrote that he hopes the workshop attracts “artists — theater, music, dance, writers, visual artists who have an interest in community based art, or collaborative creative process, or both. We will be sharing exercises that Talking Band uses in the creation of its own works — in movement, music, writing and the creation of characters and theatrical images.”

Those interested in attending the workshop are invited to simply show up to the event on Saturday afternoon, according to Antioch College Associate Professor of Performance Louise Smith.

The New York City artists will be on the Antioch College campus in residence for five days this week, as part of a project that also includes the production of their play, “Marcellus Shale,” which will take place Friday and Saturday, March 11 and 12, at 7:30 p.m., also at the Foundry Theater. The play focuses on how fracking affects a community, and the project includes a panel discussion on fracking on Saturday, March 12, from 3 to 5 p.m.

Directing the production will be Smith, a longtime friend and colleague of Zimet and Maddow. Smith, a graduate of the Antioch’s theater department in the late 1970s and former head of the college’s theater department, came out of the New York City avant garde theater movement herself, and has had long regard for the work of Zimet and Maddow.

Smith aims with this project to engage the Yellow Springs community in a discussion of the issue of fracking, which affects many Ohio communities, especially in the northeastern part of the state. She believes that theater, and especially this production, can help those on all sides of the issue listen to each other.

“This is meant to invite the audience into an aesthetic space where we can talk about the things that are important to each other,” she said in a recent interview. “We hope the project invites compassion from the audience, that the laughter, beauty and catharsis of the theater allows us to let down our guards.”

Zimet and Maddow wrote the play and its accompanying music (although it’s not a musical) after their own upstate New York community became involved in the fracking controversy. While the state currently has a ban on fracking, most of Zimet’s neighbors have signed contracts with oil and gas companies to use their land if the ban lifts, he said in a statement regarding the process of writing the play. And while he opposes fracking and has not signed such a contract for his own land, he interviewed his neighbors for the play. But he didn’t ask them about fracking; rather, he asked them about “What really matters to you? What would be the last thing you give up? What do you consider the good life?”

What Zimet hopes audience members leave with is a sense of “the humanity of the characters — an appreciation of the multi-dimensionality, the complexity of their lives, and the high stakes for everyone,” he wrote in the statement. “When audiences leave the show, I would be glad if they were moved to take action to avert the disaster that has fallen on the land and the people of the play, but I would be disappointed if they came away believing one side is good and one is evil. My wish is that the audiences will recognize how good and bad is entwined in the characters of this play, as it is in all of us.”

Collectively, the company and founders of The Talking Band have won 15 Obies (off-Broadway theater awards) and numerous other honors for their productions, according to a press release. The Talking Band has “created over 40 new works illuminating the extraordinary dimensions of ordinary life,” the press statement says, “each marked by a commitment to radical collaboration and a fusion of diverse theatrical styles and perspectives.”

Antioch, fate drew Snows to village

WHY YS?

This is the second article in an occasional series looking at why people choose to live in Yellow Springs. If you have a story that fits our theme, feel free to contact us at ysnews@ysnews.com.

• Click here to view all the articles the series

“It’s fate,” said Susan Snow, explaining how she and her daughter, Jumana, landed in Yellow Springs. Mother and daughter moved here in 2014, from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for Jumana to attend Antioch College. They share an apartment on Xenia Avenue, just adjacent to the college, where Jumana, 19, is a second-year student.

Fate — and an email Susan received years ago.

“I love to tell this story,” she said in a recent interview over plates of hummus, dates and pickled turnips. She was working in the counseling office at the American International School at Jeddah, she explained, when she learned, via email, that a little college in Ohio was offering full scholarships. Jumana was still a few years away from graduating high school, but the email stuck in Susan’s mind.
“I wanted my daughter to have some kind of education, but as a Jordanian girl in Saudi Arabia, that’s difficult to do,” she explained. Susan was born and raised in Vermont; in her twenties, she met and married a Jordanian man, Mahmoud Shetawi, and went to live with him and his family in Saudi Arabia. They raised a daughter there, and when it came time for college, Susan and her husband looked into schools in the United States.

Financing college was a problem. Jumana applied to, and was accepted by, several schools in Vermont, including the New England Culinary Institute, but the family wasn’t sure how to pay for Jumana to attend. Then Susan remembered the email.

“She applied, and a few months later had a Skype interview with Micah [Canal, the former dean of admission],” said Susan. On April 2, 2014, waking up after an obligatory mid-day nap in the Saudi heat, Jumana learned she’d been accepted. “We couldn’t believe it!” mother and daughter recalled.
Aside from the full scholarship, Jumana, who loves to paint and create, was drawn to Antioch because of its small size, diversity and strength in visual arts.

“I felt like there were lots of caring, loving people here,” she said. The fact that alumni had worked to reopen the school also impressed her. “I thought, maybe I could do something like that,” she said.

But Susan hadn’t lived in the States for 28 years, and Jumana never had, though both had visited Susan’s family in Vermont and California. Susan said she and her husband felt apprehensive about sending Jumana alone to live in the States. And they knew nothing about Ohio or Yellow Springs, Susan said.

“You read things online, you know, and it scares you,” she explained. So, in a move unusual by American standards, but perhaps less so by Arab ones (Susan described living with her in-laws for 20 years), mother and daughter came to Yellow Springs together. Jumana’s father remained in Saudi Arabia.
“When I was first accepted, I needed my mom,” said Jumana. “But I’ve gotten the hang of living in America.” She’s not sure she needs a parental presence now, she added.

“I want to be alone, to have that experience.” She’s looking forward to next year’s co-op abroad, probably in Spain.

Jumana said she feels safe and accepted at Antioch and within Yellow Springs. Susan agreed. “I feel safe here in this town,” Susan said. Beavercreek has a large Muslim community, she added, and people there don’t necessarily share her sense of safety. Susan currently tutors two Saudi Arabian women attending graduate school in Dayton; they were adamant about paying the small amount of money they owed her “in case something happened to them,” she said.

“Americans don’t know that much about Islam,” Susan said, emphasizing the warmth and graciousness she has encountered among Arab friends and relations.

“When you have guests in your house, they are more important than family members,” she said of the culture of profound hospitality she’s experienced during nearly three decades in Saudi Arabia, where she’s lived, and Jordan, where her husband’s family is from.

Susan said she preferred to keep her own religious beliefs and practices private. But she spoke a bit about her sense of cultural dislocation — of being American, yet also Arab.

“I feel like a baby here, having to learn everything again,” she said. The first year was tough. She felt isolated, and applied for many jobs but got few responses. Short-term stints washing dishes and selling jewelry didn’t work out, though she was glad to be given a chance to do something, she said. An administrative position at Layh and Associates opened up in September, and she got the job.
“It was such a relief,” she said.

Jumana said her own adjustment has been smooth. “It doesn’t feel that different than home,” she said of Antioch. “I hang out with friends, we go to the coffee shop, that kind of thing.”

She’s a soccer enthusiast — the afternoon she spoke with the News, she wore a soccer ball pendant around her neck — and plays soccer with an adult league in Dayton. A multi-sport athlete, she’s tried to revive sports like soccer, basketball and volleyball at Antioch, with mixed results so far.

Last year, Jumana was a Miller Fellow at the Yellow Springs Arts Council, where she also organized her own show of photographs and artifacts, “Captivating Jordan,” last spring. Cooking is another love, and she’s entered the YSAC cookie contest twice, winning second place both times (Susan won first last year). Both mother and daughter cook a mixture of Middle Eastern and American dishes.
One new dimension of Jumana’s life here is her exposure to social justice issues at Antioch. Last spring, she was part of a group of students who attended a Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration in Selma, Ala.

“It was really inspiring, all the people who came together,” she said.

This fall, she attended a leadership conference for people of color in Michigan. And just a few weeks ago, she and other Antioch students walked to express solidarity with their African-American peers at Mizzou.

“This is kind of new to me in the States, how different races are treated differently,” she said.
Jumana doesn’t know if she’ll stay in Yellow Springs, or even the United States, beyond graduation.
“I want to explore the world and find a place where I want to be and have a stable life,” she said. She envisions owning her own bakery or art gallery.

And Susan is not sure if she’ll return to Saudi Arabia, or if she and her husband will settle elsewhere. They have a house in Jordan, she said, in hills that remind her of Vermont.

Yellow Springs is likely a temporary stop. But one image of life here is unforgettable, Susan said: the Saturday morning peace activists.

“All those lovely people standing for peace,” she said. “I love those people.”