Tag: news

As Progressive Education Fades, Vermonters Mobilize

by Kevin J. Kelley for Seven Days, Wednesday, November 28, 2007

VERMONT — Throughout its 150-year existence, Ohio’s Antioch College has produced an eclectic group of graduates. The college’s best-known alum is Coretta Scott King, widow of slain civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Antioch is also the alma mater of “Twilight Zone” creator Rod Serling. Then there are lesser-known names, such as Robert Manry, who sailed a 13-foot sailboat across the Atlantic Ocean.

But in the Green Mountain State, we’re more familiar with names such as Jeb Spaulding, the state treasurer; Elizabeth Skarie wife of Ben & Jerry’s Jerry Greenfield; and Casey Murrow, son of famed newsman Edward R. Murrow. These and other dedicated Vermonters who attended Antioch College are taking part in a national campaign to save the 155-year-old Yellow Springs-based school from closing, due to declining enrollment and an insufficient endowment. Two hundred thirty students attend today’s Antioch, compared to more than 2000 in the 1960s.

Local Antioch alums and dropouts alike say they’re moved to help rescue the college because of what they see as congruence between Vermont’s ethic of neighborliness and town meeting-style democracy, and Antioch’s commitment to participatory governance. They also say the school’s pending end marks a disturbing trend in progressive college closings.

“Antioch has an amazing spirit of community,” says Jill Wolcott, a member of the Class of ’74 and co-organizer of the Vermont/Upstate New York Chapter of Antioch Alumni. The Shelburne resident says her current involvement with Charlotte’s co-housing movement and with the Waldorf School in Shelburne can be traced to her experience at the unconventional college.

“Antioch does give people a belief in their own self-determination and their responsibility for their lives,” she adds.

Skarie says the college forms “part of my identity I’ll never shed” — even though she left Antioch in 1971 only a year and a half after enrolling. “I went because it’s a politically active school,” the Williston resident and philanthropist explains. Skarie runs a foundation with Greenfield. She eventually received a nursing degree from Cornell — and returned to Antioch for a Master’s in counseling.Robin Lloyd

At an October 18 meeting at the Burlington home of Robin Lloyd — a former Antioch student who is known in Vermont as a longtime peace activist, filmmaker and publisher of the progressive online journal Toward Freedom — local supporters mapped plans for fundraising on behalf of the college. Lloyd didn’t end up graduating from Antioch, but some of the roughly 160 Vermonters who did already have contributed to an $18 million pledge drive. Wolcott, head of the local alumni chapter, says she can’t specify the sum of these private donations.

The fundraising effort was enough to persuade Antioch’s trustees to shelve their June decision to close the school next year. But the trustees also warned earlier this month that at least an additional $45 million must be raised by 2010 if the college is to remain open. The college also operates a New England graduate school in Keene, N.H., as well as campuses in Seattle, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.

Fundraising poses special challenges for a school whose graduates practice its ideal of social justice, Skarie notes. “It’s hard for Antioch to be financially viable because the students who become lawyers tend to work for Legal Aid and the doctors end up treating a lot of patients for free,” she notes.

Amanda CalderIt’s vital that the school continue to operate as “a bastion of progressive education,” says Amanda Calder, a Shelburne resident who graduated from Antioch earlier this year. The termination in 2002 of Goddard College’s residential undergraduate program acted as a “motivator” for her involvement in the save-Antioch campaign, says Calder. “We can’t keep losing these progressive institutions,” she adds, noting that New Hampshire’s Franconia College — a school with a similar philosophy — has been shuttered as well.

Lloyd says her life has been strongly influenced by Antioch’s pioneering co-op program, through which students leave campus to work in a variety of settings while continuing their studies. She recalls traveling to Africa with her father, anti-colonialist campaigner William Lloyd, as part of the co-op program while she was enrolled at Antioch in 1957 and 1958. She transferred to Brandeis University in Massachusetts after marrying a student there. She still remembers learning the Horah, an Israeli folk dance, in an Antioch campus gathering spot affectionately known as Red Square.

http://7dvt.com/2007/progressive-education-fades-vermonters-mobilize

Antioch College to Remain Open!

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YELLOW SPRINGS, OH – The Antioch Board of Trustees – in historic collaboration with the Alumni Board – passed a resolution today to lift the suspension of operations of Antioch College scheduled for June 30, 2008. This decision which follows intensive discussions between Trustees and members of the Alumni Board, enables the College to continue offering academic credits and degrees to current students, subject to approval by accrediting bodies.

At the same time, the declaration of financial exigency will remain in effect given the serious financial challenges facing the College.

“The decision of the Trustees is only possible because of the substantial changes that have occurred since the June ’07 Trustees’ meeting”, said Board Chair Art Zucker.

“These new developments,” Zucker continued, “included recognition by the Alumni Board of the need for financial exigency declared by the Trustees in June ’07. Other developments included: the open and cooperative relationship that developed between the Trustees and the Alumni Board; the resurgence of Alumni support; and the alumni’s ability to raise more than $18 million in cash and pledges in just a few short months. The alumni’s success in fund-raising is a fantastic and unprecedented accomplishment – particularly because it includes a large number of first-time donors.”

Nancy Crow, president of the Alumni Association, called the fund-raising effort “a magnificent start. This effort to raise a significant amount of money will preserve the very special and unique aspect of Antioch College. We are overwhelmed with the outpouring of support from the Antioch College community, but we have much, much work ahead. With everyone working together, we will be successful.”

Continued operations of Antioch College will require the closing of some facilities, a reduction of faculty and staff, and the curtailment of some student services that are currently offered to give the College the necessary time to address the facilities and curriculum.

Furthermore, the Trustees action is dependent on the Alumni Board meeting these specific financial benchmarks:

Raising and transferring to the College the following:

10 days from the date of this agreement: at least $2 million
No later than December 15, 2007: at least $4.6 million
For a total of $6.6 million by December 15, 2007.

In addition and, with the support and full cooperation of the Antioch University Board of Trustees, to raise $12 million by May 31, 2008; $26 million by June 30, 2009; and, $19 million by June 30, 2010, for the support of Antioch College.

The Board of Trustees passed two additional resolutions: one, expressing overwhelming support of Toni Murdock in her leadership as Chancellor and two, appointing Andrzej Bloch, current COO and Chief Academic Officer, to the position of Interim President for Antioch College.

During the joint deliberations, the following agreements and understandings between Trustees and the Alumni Board were reached:

  • The College will remain a residential liberal arts college committed to the principles of academic freedom and tenure;The rationale for the declaration of financial exigency was sound;
  • There must be continued Alumni support—it is critical for the survival of Antioch College long term;
  • The College will continue, and it will be rooted in its historic core values and mission;
  • Accreditation is crucial to the future of the institution; nothing will be done to threaten Antioch University’s accreditation, or create an event of default in any existing bond, lease or other legal obligations of the University.
  • The financial model must be sustainable;
  • There must be a vibrant Antioch University, with fully explored opportunities for inter-campus collaboration and programs;
  • The state of financial exigency will remain in place.

Trustees and the Alumni Board agreed on a series of action steps to move forward collaboratively, including:

1) A commitment to further develop the plans for a separate Board of Trustees for the College, which was recommended by the Trustees’ Governance Committee and during the interim to put into place a College Advisory Body. Members of this advisory body will be appointed jointly by the President of the Alumni Association and the Chair of the University Board of Trustees.

2) The Alumni Board and the Antioch University Board of Trustees will continue to raise funds to meet the benchmarks, thus ensuring that the College can continue to remain open.

3) The Board of Trustees authorized the Chancellor, in consultation with the Office of the President and other appropriate stakeholders including the President of the College Alumni Board, to establish a team to design the planning process for ensuring Antioch College’s future as a distinguished institution of higher education rooted in the College’s historic educational mission and values.

4) The Trustees also authorized the Chancellor to initiate a building assessment study and recommend appropriate actions for building refurbishment– with the intent that said construction be “green,” environmentally friendly.

5) A long term effort will be developed to ensure academic excellence, the hallmark of the College.

Chairman Zucker noted that the newfound, unprecedented collaboration among members of Trustees and the Alumni Board is “essential to the future of Antioch. I am most pleased at the transparency and openness developed over the last few weeks and months.”

Following the June vote by Trustees to declare financial exigency, the Board worked with the Alumni Board to conduct a Town Hall meeting in Cincinnati so all interested Antiochians could voice their thoughts on the suspension of operation which laid the foundation for working together.

Early in October a few Trustees and members of the administration met with a subset of the Alumni Board to review progress on their business plan and share essential financial and academic benchmarks.

“An enormous amount of work remains to be done,” said Alumni Board President Crow, “but we are energized and ready to rise to this challenge. Our goal is nothing less than the regeneration of Antioch College as a leader and innovator in liberal arts education. Antioch’s unique blend of academic excellence, real-world experience, and shared governance will continue to produce engaged global citizens trained to lead in the 21st century, just as it has for the past 155 years.”