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Here is video from the 11/14 Chicago alumni meeting in three parts:

Antioch College Chicago Alumni 11/14/10 part 1/3 Community

Antioch College Chicago Alumni 11/14/10 part 2/3 Mark Roosevelt

Antioch College Chicago Alumni 11/14/10 part 3/3 Volunteering

Mark Reynolds ’80, alumni board communications chair, introduces Stacey Wirrig, new alumni relations director

Stacey: I graduated Antioch in 98
been volunteering at the college for a year
job became available
really excited about the opportunity to represent the college and the alumni

Community Task Force:

Jennifer Berman, our charge is to adjust community to fit population of 60 the first year. Stick around for follow through for year after college opens to provide continuity.
We have CMS spanning from 49 Edie Seashore first women non-wartime CM, worked with National Training Institute. Levi Cowperthwait CM 06-07, John Knox Worked with JD Dawson and Wally Sykes, works in sustainable education. Steve Schwerner 60. Chelsea Martens 08, CM at Antioch and Nonstop. Wally Sykes coop in 50, leader at National Training Labs. Jewel Graham mid 60s taught social work and law at Antioch, facilitated issues on race and gender. Karen Mulhauser ’65 founder of progressive political alliances, director NARAL, founder citizens against nuclear war, senior advisor to Obama campaign. Tendaji Ganges ’70 Board member

We’re hoping to go to chapters and hear what worked at Antioch. Also creating Google docs sites where can share task force work and capture your stories.

We’d like to have orientation to intensely bond community together. Perhaps Algonquin like experience in Glen with faculty, students, administrators. Do people know entering class will be 25 students? How to bond together? Get Glen staff more connected with community. At Algonquin they came back glowing and cohesive through graduation. Karl and Maggie Mahle, Karle taught gym at Antioch for a long time.

While we want the community to create its own shared governance model, we want something on the ground when students arrive. How do you capture the Honor Code, the Leg Code, the Sexual Offence Prevention Policy, Racial Discrimination Prevention Policy, all tenets we believe should follow us into the new Antioch.

Shared governance needs to be infused as well as community, need to figure out how to make community part of the curriculum. Talking to Morgan Fellows about how to make community the third leg of the stool

The trustees have to be more involved in the campus community. It’s been a problem with the staff keeping them connected with the college.

College has benefited by involving students even though involvement takes more time. Each member of community knows writes that go along with co-creating the college.

Shift the culture from waiting to get it to asking for it. Embrace differences.

Cheryl Keen put together study on community governance in collaboration with CMPS in early 2000s.

Glen staff has been marginalized. We want to bring them in.

We’re talking to Christian Feuerstein about reviving the record.

Susan Greene ’77: Would town hall meeting be substitute for CG and Adcil. Where will decisions be made?

Jennifer: We’ll be so small it wouldn’t make sense to have ComCil and Adcil. All of the students will be incoming. No upper class students to mentor them. We’re hoping if we’re all in the same room, and recent alumni I hear will be coming back to live in the dorms with the students, students will have an exciting opportunity to build their own governance.

Susan: I’ve never been part of an institution the way they were valued at Antioch. I hope that will happen in the new Antioch.

Jennifer: That’s our goal. We want students to understand what goes into creating a college. Staff are a part of that. Students will feel more responsibility for the grounds.

David Nekimken: I value community over everything. I’m glad to hear an even greater emphasis, including admin, staff, faculty, even work project involve not just students, everybody. I hear expanded importance of community.

Ed Koziarski ’97: I’m still wanting to hear an assurance of how the students, faculty and staff will have meaningful participation in the decision making of the college. That’s what those structures ensured (AdCil, ComCil, CG)

Jennifer: We want to assure that students have that participation, tenure decisions, learning about the budget, we haven’t figured out the mechanisms yet. Everyone on the committee is clear that real student participation is an important part of the college. Can’t have two parallel systems where one is play and one is real.

Ed: Will those structures be put back in place when community is larger?

Jennifer: My preference is to ramp back up to those structure but we’re an advisory body. We want to have a bare bones structure so the students can build their own.

Howard Cort ’55: With a small group of 25 new forms are coming out. We don’t need to transmit a lot of detailed info from the past. The group itself will develop these ideas. They’ll have creative ideas themselves. Leave room and time for it. We’re all going to be surprised.

Jon Baker ’72: Who makes the final decision?

Prexy Nesbitt ’67 (BPT): President in conjunction with the board.

Mike Spock ’58: We can’t count until the mechanisms are in place on it going in the right direction. For the first years the decision making will be with president and the board. They should look at question how quickly they can make it clear to everybody where their roots are of participation. We can’t expect it to take care of itself.

Jon: I don’t have problem with president and board making decisions. It’s a question of how well they listen to the stakeholders. In the 60s everybody listened to us and then made their own decisions.

Mike Spock: We had these structures in place. They need to be put back into place in formal way.

Prexy: We have a very listening board. Look at the past five or six months, last year, one thing we’ve done is a lot of listening and opening out the doors. Sometimes it drives me crazy we do so much opening up the doors. When we say some decisions will have to be taken by the board and the president it often has to do requirements we have to work with in order to keep alive as a college. We’re getting our membership in North Central. We have to be accredited.

We’re all people that came from the same axe of rebellion and taking it back that you all represent. We hope to keep that democratic tradition. We have to raise 50-100 million to make this baby float. We don’t have it right now. We have to do more to reach out to other Antiochians. A lot are still living the pain of the past?

Paul Vega ’88: What plans are in place now?

Prexy: Reaching out to alums.

Paul: What’s condition of the endowment?

Micah Canal ’08, director of annual fund: endowment is $26 million. Much earmarked for scholarships. A lot of that will bring in entering class and subsequent classes with a lower financial burden.

Prexy: I’m probably the brokest one in this room. Everyone in the board had to give a substantive amount of money. I had to borrow money to make my pledge. It’s a measure foundations look at.

Robin Sheerer ’63, Chicago chapter organizer: I just learned this. Morgan Fellows had idea to have current alumni who can live in the dorms and provide guidance and support to students in lieu of upper class students who aren’t going to be there.

Judy Spock ’58: Board and president need to be included in the conversations with first class and the faculty about the future direction for the college. I hope some people are documenting this process. There’s so many bad ideas in education. Dewey and his philosophy should be prevailing. Hope somebody make it their PhD thesis. Or several people.

BEGIN MARK ROOSEVELT TELECONFERENCE:

Mark Reynolds ‘81: Welcome Mark Roosevelt. Want to pull you into sense of community. I know you’re getting ready to move to Yellow Springs. What’s your sense of Antioch community? What are you initial impressions of this thing you’re in the middle in of?

Mark Roosevelt: I sense Antiochians are passionate about their college. Sometimes they have divergent views about history. I still have a stressful job in Pittsburgh. I’ve sensed the commitment that alums have to the college.

Susan Greene ’77: I saw on YouTube presentation you made to parents on Gates Foundation Grant. I was impressed how you leveraged that competitive process. The ability to follow the students through college. To be able to identify what’s manageable. What are the key factors for us to do as alumni to raise money? In terms of large foundations what leverage might we have to attract dollars.

Roosevelt: Over time we have quite a bit of opportunity with foundations including Gates foundation. Not in the first 12-18 months. We have to prove we can get the college restarted. Once we have that done we will be able to attract supportive funds. We’ll need to outline individual efforts for those funds to support. Need to define the mission well enough and go after the funds.

Ed Koziarski: Two questions one from Callie Carrie: What is your experience working collaboratively with 18-25 year old students? How would you navigate a student movement against administrative decision?

Roosevelt: I teach for 15 years at Brandeis and Carnegie Melon on American History. I deal with students who are passionate about politics. Neither have the rich tradition of governance that Antioch has. I’m not scared of happy conflict. Sometimes difficult to discern productive and unproductive decision. I’ve dealt with a lot of protests in Pittsburgh. We’ve been very communicative with students. We’ve organized opportunity for students to voice views. Unusual in K-12 school district. It’s important part of education. It doesn’t make me nervous.

Koziarski: We’ve heard entering class limited to 25 students. Do you see circumstances under which entering class might be larger than 25.

Roosevelt: I’ve had those same wonderings you’re articulating. I have to be careful a lot of work has been done. I’ve heard tendency to say one thing and do another has been historic problem at Antioch. The opportunity to enlarge the class will be down the road once applications have been received. Since students are given free tuition this is in part driven by finances.

Prexy: What can we do to help you in the transition to Yellow Springs and the leadership of Antioch? I heard in Pittsburgh there are challenges with you making transition out. How can we welcome you into our community?

Roosevelt: I‘m pretty optimistic about my exit. I intend to get out earlier than I expected. I’d most appreciate communication, the opportunity to hear from folks about what they value about Antioch and what they’re willing to contribute. I’d also like flexibility. I asked Alumni Board not to draw lines in the sand or assume positions that don’t allow for flexibility over time. This won’t be easy. It’s going to be especially hard if we’re not going in the same direction. In recognition of how complicated this is we can do it with generous spirit and open heart. My wife and I and my four year old are looking forward to living in that community and building life for ourselves there. Contribute what we can to make Antioch a great place to go to school.

Craig Johnson ’91: What do you see for academic support for 25 17-19 year olds without older kids around, huge challenge for them to get involved in community, also huge challenge to success academically in a new environment. I’d hate to see the first generation walk in and feel responsible for making it all happen.

Roosevelt: I hope everyone working there will adopt that class. You can have a deep understanding of each of those students and what they hope to achieve and how they can have an impact. There are attractive advantages in how much attention each student might receive. I see a small community clearly.

Kelly Connolly ’03, chapter organizer: Many of us who graduated from the college have formed very strong relationships with the faculty that we’ve sustained after leaving. The faculty have worked so hard to bring the college back, and they’re been treated so disrespectfully. If they’re not treated with more respect, the college is going to lose alumni who graduated in the 80s, 90s and 00s. If the faculty are not part of the college, we’re going to sustain a relationship with them, and not with the college.

Roosevelt: I understand there are complex legal and ethical issues around faculty hiring, and there are very strong opinions from people who take very different positions on the issue. It hurts to hear you say they’ve been treated disrespectfully. I hope we can come to a resolution, but it’s never going to fully please everybody.

Howard Cort ’55: What if we announced or put out a publication with the projects we’re working on? We could help each other. Maybe come up with things useful to the students.

Roosevelt: That would be fantastic.

Christelle Evans ’94, CM ’95: What’s your understanding of community governance? How do you see yourself working within it?

Roosevelt: I met with Jennifer and Al and Wally who are crafting vision for community governance structure. Students need to be involved in decision making to change the college and build skills. I start with that as a commitment to do something comparable to what the community has been doing. I look forward to getting a proposal. It will be integral part of Antioch’s future.

Evans: What does it mean for you personally?

I think it means to be transparent, open, needs to have real input from faculty, students, alums, that needs to be real, Part of my job is to make it real in a concrete not just symbolic.

Dave Palmer ’03: You come from huge organizational structure, going to smaller one. You’re probably good to operational stuff, vision, managing large structure. Antioch’s very different. How would you make that transition fluidly?

Roosevelt: This is a huge change for me. This is a huge organization $750 million budget. I love startups. I define myself as a nonprofit entrepreneur and innovator. This is an incredible opportunity. It’s a phenomenal thing. It’s a startup with a history I identify with incredibly. In my class I say there’s many different Americas. Antioch is part of American past I feel very at home in. To take this institution and be a part of rebuilding it, maybe even more wonderful than it was before, is just incredibly. There will be lots of differences, but this opportunity is right in my sweet spot. I long to get going with it.

Greene: Tell us a little about yourself. Are you single malt scotch drinker? Red wine? What do you do in spare time? It’s great your wife teaches yoga.

Roosevelt: I’m 54 spent most of my life in politics. I grew up in DC incredibly exciting time. Civil rights and Vietnam. Thoughts I’d be in politics. Went to Harvard. I was campaign manager to first black man elected to Boston City Council while still in college. Sponsored second gay civil rights bill in US in Massachusetts legislature. I was democratic nominee for Massachusetts governor in 94, lost, changed me, decided I didn’t want to be in elected politics. I want to make sure all students who graduate from Antioch has a sense of where they fit in America. I mostly read history. I’m a bourbon drinker now doing liver cleanse. I’m lost in today’s America. Find it difficult and frustrating. I’m amazed my generation ended up where we are, we thought it would be very different. Want to help students learn how idealism impacts with real world and help them make their idealism as impactful as possible. Each of our visits to Yellow Springs it seems cooler, never thought I’d live in a small town in Ohio. I look forward to being part of a cool community.

Reynolds: When this opportunity presented itself to you, what did you know about Antioch

Roosevelt: My sister almost went to Antioch, went to New School. I was almost the type of student who went to Antioch, but not quite. Known a lot of people graduated, or attended and didn’t graduate. I’ve read a lot about it. When I got the call from search agent calling about college had closed I was rather quizzical. Antioch evokes something to somebody of my generation who’s saddened by the directions we didn’t take and the successes we didn’t have. One of my colleagues in Massachusetts state politics was an Antioch grad.

Greene: Chet Atkins? I worked on his first campaign as my first co-op. It was his senior project and he won.

Jon Baker: Wanted to increase ranks of people you know went to Antioch didn’t graduate. The fact I’m here I hope imparts to you the impact Antioch had on people besides granting a degree. Just got back from work project at Pennell house. We set up volunteer maintenance crew. Going back second week in January.

Mike Spock ’59: I dropped out three different times. Want to talk about community and this task force. One of our best professors was Basil Hilliard. Community can be misconstrued, that it’s the same as student government. That would be a tremendous loss. We need to think about governance and operations. People suggested it is Yellow Springs, this wonderful new health center at the gym. This is an opportunity we can enhance. Make sure the third C is more broadly conceived and contribute to the business of how we interact with the trustees, alumni and all those people.

Roosevelt: I agree.

Koziarski: What do excellence and diversity mean to you?

Roosevelt: After I said that, he said a former president said we don’t need Swarthmore, Haverford, Wesleyan. Antioch is different. My depiction didn’t do enough to encompass that difference. I don’t just mean academic excellence. Quality of inquiry is important in academic undertaking. We mean excellence of experience. That encompasses diversity. Not just diverse students and faculty. Diversity of students in coop, experience with people from other countries so students broaden their understanding. People have a broader definition of what excellence in Antioch means.

Robin Sheerer ’63, chapter organizer: I’m excited about your coming to college. Thank you for your generosity. I feel really listened to. Thank you very much for being with us today.

Roosevelt: Thank you for saying that. That’s extremely kind. People have been saying how difficult this will be. This is ten times more exciting than it is upsetting. I want to encourage people. It’s fine to have different points of view and opinions. I hope we all share an overwhelming commitment to see Antioch on its feet again and contributing to American life in a profound way. I need your help. I want your input. Listening is fun. Antioch folks are fun. Quirky but capable.

Evans: When you spoke about diversity, one aspect didn’t hear, important part of my experience, something new to me. My experience was widened regarding LGBT community when I went to Antioch. What’s your experience working with that community?

Roosevelt: I represented district with large gay and lesbian community. I passed gay civil rights bill, became immersed in the community, had an ongoing relationship. Did some things in Pittsburgh to give gay and lesbian people who work for us more confidence to be open. I see it as part of the word diversity.

Thank you very much. This is my first Skype experience.

Kelly Connolly: I’ve been doing interviews with local alums. The project is ongoing. All the videos will be archived with Scott Sanders with admissions. We need to tell the Antioch story through Antioch’s own words. I go in with eight questions about what you experience is like. It’s cool to see the differences and similarities.

Reynolds: I did an interview. It was a good experience for me to verbalize for myself my Antioch adventure.

Jennifer Berman: The Antiochian should take a more active role in networking.

Reynolds: You’ll get a new Antiochian by Thanksgiving. We’re launching a new column by the alumni board president. Some information about the board meeting in October. The question of Nonstop and the faculty is still and open issue. The board has worked throughout the summer with Patrick Masterson ‘99’s consulting company. We learned how to broach issues of disagreement so we can get past them as we transition from role of activist board to advisory board not a governing board. We formed a task force to address issues of the faculty. After the retreat the tension I expected was not there. We may have turned a corner in the play nice with others department. There will remain differences of opinion. In the next week or two you may have received first e-blast from alumni association. We’ll do that more regularly. We want to make sure you here from alumni association, not just from the college. The college alumni web page is about to be relaunched. It’s a good source. More information. There will be room for all kinds of stuff as it goes forward.

Greene: We thought we’d be engaged in chapters in recruitment. It’s not clear to me how chapters will sustain themselves.

Baker: Just came back from working on Pennell house. Met with CFO Tom Brookey, architect and Julian Sharp. We want to have projects on monthly basis until first students arrive. We’ve been promised Maples firehouse as maintenance shop. We want to refurbish all the cabinetry in Birch. There’s a ton of work to be done. Need more volunteers. While I was there I saw me first perspective student. We saw four.

Susan: We want to have confidence building can be restored. We need to keep up to date on the campus comeback.

Judy Spock: Marsha Baum was a principal investor in Pennell House.

Berman: Volunteer list includes where we people can stay.

Robin: Some of us trying to work on admissions.