Higher Education – Save Antioch College

Tea pavilion construction continues

Construction of a tea pavilion began on the Antioch College campus last year. The project will continue on Saturday and Sunday, May 4 and 5, as volunteers work to complete a cordwood and mortar wall and realize the rain harvesting system.

The process began last April with a design charrette, in which students developed an innovative design for the structure developed around the ritual process of building; the event of harvesting, steeping and drinking tea inspired by many cultures and the importance of water on the farm. Students and community members in Yellow Springs, along with the grounds crew at Antioch College, took down and salvaged material from an existing structure built in the 1970s, poured footings for the new structure, pulled up the concrete from the non-functioning pond, placed a stone “foot print” using stones harvested by hand from a nearby limestone quarry, constructed and roofed the renewed Tea Shelter structure and partially constructed a cordwood and mortar wall.

Volunteers are invited to join in from 9 a.m.–5 p.m. each day, with a one-hour lunch break. Those interested should RSVP to Sara Black at sblack {at} antiochcollege(.)org.

AUM, Antioch College collaborate on education conference

An upcoming education conference at Antioch University MIdwest and Antioch College seeks to address topics of critical interest to local parents and educators. Klm John Payne, an international expert on school climate and Dr. Lowell Monke, a Wittenberg specialist on the effects of technology on children, will be featured.

The “Safe School Climate: Making the Invisible Visible” education conference will kick off Wednesday, May 8, with a half-day session at Antioch College featuring Payne, the author of Simplicity Parenting and founder of the Center for Social Sustainability. Payne has been featured as an expert on school climate on ABC, NBC and CBS, along with Time Magazine, the Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times.

That evening, he will give a free talk to the community.

The conference continues with a daylong series of workshops with Payne on Thursday, May 9, to take place at Antioch University Midwest. Cost for the workshop is $125 for both days, and $75 for one day only. Interested persons may register by going online to http://midwest.antioch.edu/education-conference.

A related event is a free talk to the community by Dr. Lowell Monke of Wittenberg University, to take place Thursday, April 18, at 7 p.m. at Antioch University Midwest. Monke, who has focused on the effects of technology on children, will speak on “Unplugging Narcissus: Why a High Tech Society Needs a High-Touch Childhood.” The event will include a dialogue with audience members, who are encouraged to share their own stories and concerns.

The education conference is a collaboration between Antioch College and Antioch University.

The year in review 2012: Antioch College moves forward

College moves forward

Two years after gaining its independence and one year after welcoming its first class, the revived Antioch College seemed to be moving forward according to plan, as college leaders appeared to successfully meet the huge challenges inherent in launching a new liberal arts college.

Antioch goes viral

Antioch College faced a “happy crisis” in winter 2011 when news of its tuition-free Horace Mann fellowships went viral, several weeks after the college trustees agreed to extend the fellowships to its first four classes. Within hours the news spread on the Internet, and on Friday, January 27, the college Website had 53,000 visitors in a day, compared to its usual 500. Soon the college received more than 3,100 applications for the 75 spots available. College leaders and staff rose to the challenge of vetting the applications and in its second year, the revived college became the country’s most selective school in the nation, accepting just 5.2 percent of students who applied.

New faculty hired

The college also enjoyed a robust response to its second round of faculty hiring, receiving many applicants for its six tenure-track jobs. In the spring Antioch announced it had hired faculty in environmental science, biomedical sciences, psychology, history and co-op education, bringing its tenure-track faculty to 12.

In June Admissions Director Cesar Mesquita announced that he would be leaving his job for personal reasons. He had been in that position for a year.

At the end of the school year for the college’s first group of students, most gave the college high marks for their education. While many agreed that the combined workload of classes, co-op jobs and community meetings was huge, 31 of the first-year second semester group of 33 returned in the fall.

North Hall both old/new

During the summer, renovation continued for the $6 million refurbishing of North Hall, one of the college’s oldest buildings. The renovation, which aimed at making the building the oldest in the country to win a coveted LEED environmental certification, added a geothermal heating system and solar panels on the building’s roof facing south. The project was completed by the time new students arrived in the fall.

Second class arrives

The college met its goal of attracting 75 high-achieving students from diverse backgrounds for its second class. When the students arrived in October, they ranged in age from 17 to 25, and came from 31 states, with an average GPA of 3.69. With its 12 full-time faculty and additional adjunct faculty, the college was offering 44 courses.

College buys WYSO back

In December college leaders announced they had reached agreement with Antioch University to pay $8 million to regain WYSO Public Radio and to nullify the university’s remaining claims to the campus. The university had gained control over WYSO, begun by Antioch College students in the 1950s, in the 2009 agreement between the college and university that led to the college becoming independent.

In a public meeting, President Roosevelt explained the need for freeing the college from the “reversal clauses” in the 2009 agreement, which stated that if the college had not achieved accreditation by 2016, the campus would revert back to the university. While Roosevelt emphasized that the college is on track to achieve accreditation by that date, he said college leaders agreed that the reversal clauses had been inhibiting the college’s progress.

In March Antioch University named Felice Nudelman as its new chancellor, following Toni Murdock, who retired in July. (News archive photo by Lauren Heaton)

New university leadership

In March Antioch University announced that it would hire Felice Nudelman as its new chancellor. Nudelman would follow Toni Murdock, who retired in July.

Nudelman was most recently the executive director of education for the New York Times company, with responsibility for that company’s Knowledge Network. She had previously been the associate dean of academic affairs at Bloomfield College, and had received a master of fine arts degree from the Pratt Institute.

Nudelman said she accepted the job because she was attracted to the university’s mission and values.

In the fall the university announced that it would begin offering MOOCs, or massive open online courses, to broaden its educational offerings. The classes, taught by well-known professors at leading universities, are typically offered for free, but students at Antioch University will pay a fee and receive credit for them. University faculty will work with students taking the classes, acting as mentors and evaluating the students’ performance.

Ellen Hall, formerly provost at Antioch University Midwest, was named that school’s interim president in summer 2012. (Submitted photo)

Upheaval at AUM

Antioch University Midwest had a year of upheaval in 2012, beginning in February when President Michael Fishbein was. according to several AUM sources, told not to return to campus although he remains under contract until summer 2013. Former AUM provost Ellen Hall became the acting leader on campus.

At that time Antioch University announced to AUM staff that it had implemented “Project Turnaround” for the campus, aimed at fixing budget problems

In July Hall was named the interim president of AUM. In an interview she stated that enrollment at the campus had declined since the beginning of the recession, and before that had been flat for several years. Due to the enrollment decline, and growing debt linked to the new $15 million campus, the school was going through a difficult time.

In November, 12 AUM union employees brought in a mediator since they had gone without a contract for a year due to the school’s financial difficulties. At that time the school announced that it would cut about $208,000 in personnel costs.

In the fall AUM announced that it had hired a new enrollment director, and was planning to offer new courses.

Wingard to lecture tonight

Leslie Wingard will present “Black Men and the Crisis of Faith in Literature and Film” tonight at 7 p.m. in Olive Kettering Library at Antioch College. Wingard is assistant professor of English at the College of Wooster, where her primary research includes African-American literature, black visual culture, religion and literature, ethnic studies and women’s and gender studies. Her article, “As Seen Through Stained Glass: Religion, Politics, and Aesthetics in Alice Walker’s Meridian,” is forthcoming in Religion & Literature.

The following video, produced by the College of Wooster, provides a brief introduction to Wingard, her interests and her teaching philosophy:

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For more information on the lecture, contact Geneva Gano at 937-479-9346 or ggano {at} antiochcollege(.)org.

Antioch welcomes back Rahmanian

Antioch College will soon welcome Hassan Rahmanian, Ph.D. as its dean for curriculum, assessment, planning and interdisciplinary learning. Rahmanian, a former Antioch professor, will also teach political economy and public policy, and will contribute to searches for key positions at the college.

Rahmanian has held a long relationship with Antioch College, which began with Rahmanian as assistant professor of business and management in 1986, and continued as he was promoted to associate professor of business. Rahmanian was a fundamental part of the development of the Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute, which formed at the closing of the college.

For more on Rahmanian and his position at the new Antioch College, read the March 24 issue of the Yellow Springs News.

Antioch adds new leaders

Ron Napal is the new interim director of advancement for Antioch College.

Along with incoming president Mark Roosevelt, who began his tenure January 1, Antioch College recently announced three other new leaders at the revived college.

Ron Napal, a 1966 Antioch College graduate with a long history of fundraising and public relations experience, last week began his position as interim director of advancement. He will continue in this position until June, as the college seeks a permanent leader of the advancement office. In an interview this week, Napal said he is not a candidate for the permanent position.

Retired last year after 20 years with United Cerebral Palsy of New York City, Napal came back to work because “I’m committed to the success of the newly independent Antioch,” he said.

Napal feels commited to his alma mater, he said, because “Antioch transformed my life,” when he was a young man. “It trained me to be an entrepreneur before I knew the word, trained me to be flexible, a problem solver.”

After graduation, Napal went on to found his first business, an arts management firm, at the age of 27. After that, he founded a second company, a niche marketing and public relations firm. Later Napal went on to serve as vice-president and chief development officer for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America, where in four years he oversaw growth in revenues from $17.5 million to $34 million annually, followed by his work with the United Cerebral Palsy organization, where he served in a variety of positions, including chief development officer, director for corporate development and special advisor to the CEO and board of directors.

In his new position as interim director of advancement at Antioch College, Napal will oversee a staff of 10 employees who are engaged in fundraising and alumni relations. His specific goal is to assure that the general fundraising campaign, with a goal of $2.2 million, is concluded successfully by the end of the fiscal year in June, along with working on the ongoing capital campaign goal of raising $50 million in five years. So far, the college has raised $22 million, he said.

Born and raised in New York City, Napal will continue his residency there, but plans to be on campus three days a week when not on fundraising trips.

His lifelong work in nonprofits was also informed by his Antioch College experience, Napal said, stating that, “I take Horace Mann’s mandate very seriously.”

Raised in a traditional middle-class home, Napal retained the values he was raised with when he came to Antioch but his experience here “opened up another world to me, gave me a broader social palette.”

New board members

The college also announced last week that David Goodman and Gregory Avis will join the college’s pro tem board. The new members will join other board members at a meeting on campus this weekend, Jan. 21–23. Open sessions of the board will begin at 1:30 on Saturday, Jan. 22, in Herndon Gallery.

“David Goodman and Greg Avis will bring to the work of rebuilding Antioch College their skills, their experience and their wisdom,” according to Board Vice-chair Francis Horowitz in a press statement last week. “We are fortunate to have their commitment to our common purposes.”

Goodman, a 1969 graduate of the college, was a lead negotiator, along with alumnus Eric Bates, of the college alumni’s first attempt to gain independence from Antioch University. During the two years after the university announced in June 2007 that the college would close the following year, alumni mounted several intensive efforts to save the college. Those efforts were successful in September 2009, when the college became independent from Antioch University after more than 20 years in the university system, and became once again a free-standing liberal arts school.

Goodman is a principal of North Arrows LLC, which specializes in power and energy investments. He is also a founding partner and principal of e-Solar Properties LLC. In 1980 he founded United American Energy Corporation, and led it up to its sale in 2003. He is also president of the Andrew Goodman Foundation for Human Dignity and Civil Rights, a nonprofit that honors his brother Andrew, who, with James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, was murdered in 1964 while pursuing voter registraton for African Americans in Mississippi.

After graduating from Antioch, Goodman received an MBA from Stanford University. He has written and lectured on civil rights, alternative fuels and green building and general business matters in his areas of expertise.

Avis is the first member of the college’s governing board who is not a graduate of the college. He co-founded Summit Partners in 1984, and has worked as a director of many public and private companies, including Digital Link Corporation, IMPAC Medical Systems, Integrated Systems RightNow Technologies and TGV Software. He holds a bachelors in political economy from Williams College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is currently chair of the Williams College Board of Trustees.