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Antioch board chooses Roosevelt as new president

Mark Roosevelt is the new president of Antioch College, following a vote by the college pro tem board of trustees on Sunday, Oct. 17.

“The board voted unanimously to appoint Mr. Roosevelt to the college presidency. He has spent his career as an advocate and an agent of institutional change,” said Lee Morgan, chair of the pro tem board, in a college press statement.  “The board is confident it has selected a strong leader who will guide the College on its road to revival.”

Roosevelt, currently superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools, has already resigned his Pittsburgh job effective Dec. 31. He will start his new position at the beginning of the year, according to Antioch College Communications Director Gariot Louima. Roosevelt, his wife, Dorothy, and their 4-year-old daughter will move to Yellow Springs.

“I am honored to become the next president of Antioch College and inspired by its history and the many people who made the College such a remarkable place to learn and work,” Roosevelt said in the statement.

Interim President Matthew Derr will continue as the college’s chief executive officer until Roosevelt begins his job, according to the statement. In January, Derr will begin a new position as visiting fellow at the Great Lakes College Association, or GLCA, in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The board vote came at the end of the college’s Founders Day weekend, a three-day celebration of the college’s 160-year history and its first year as an independent  liberal arts college since being closed in 2008 by Antioch University. The revival followed a two-year effort by alumni to resurrect the closed college.

The Antioch College Alumni Board and the Antioch College Board of Trustees both met in Yellow Springs during Founders Day weekend.

Roosevelt, who visited campus last week, was one of two finalists for the presidential position, but the second finalist dropped out due to that finalist’s discomfort with the public nature of the last stage of the process, according to Louima. Last Wednesday, Oct. 13, Roosevelt gave a presentation and answered questions at a well-attended public forum on campus.

At that event, Roosevelt described as “awkward” the call he received from the college’s search firm months ago, when the firm asked if Roosevelt would consider being a candidate for the presidency of a college that was at the time closed.

“You kind of absorb the words,” he said, speaking of his surprise. “Then they told me it was Antioch. Those words had power to me.”

The week before coming to campus, Roosevelt had resigned his job as the Pittsburgh schools superintendent, which he held for five years. During that time, he led the schools through an ambitious reform effort. When he resigned from that position, Roosevelt stated that he was a finalist for the Antioch College presidency, and that, if offered the position of president, he would accept it.

For a more detailed story on the board decision, see the Oct. 21 News.

Founders Day events celebrate Antioch College

Antioch College will celebrate its first year since revival and the 160 years since its founding during Founders Day this weekend, which includes a series of events.

The finalist for the position of college president, Mark Roosevelt, will be on campus today, Wednesday, Oct. 13, and tomorrow, Oct. 14, for a series of interviews with college stakeholders. Roosevelt will meet villagers and Antioch College community members at a public forum Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at Herndon Gallery.

The Antioch College Board of Trustees is also meeting on campus this weekend and is expected to vote on the hiring of Roosevelt by Sunday, Oct. 17, according to Board President Lee Morgan.

Other public Founders Day events include a community potluck on Friday, Oct. 15, at 6:30 p.m. at the college art building and amphitheater. Participants are asked to bring a side dish; chicken and macaroni and cheese will be provided by CJs Restaurant. The Corndaddies will perform.

At 8:15 p.m., the Twilight Zone episode, “The Changing of the Guard,” will be shown outdoors at the amphitheater, to be followed by a dance with DJ Dr. Falafel beginning at 9 p.m.

Events on Saturday include the ringing of the bell at 12:45 p.m. at the Horace Mann obelisk on campus, weather permitting, and the State of the College address by Antioch College Interim President Matthew Derr, also at the obelisk.

An opening reception for the art exhibit “Emergent Visions” will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Herndon Gallery.?

 

Antioch College presidential candidate to visit

Mark Roosevelt, currently the superintendent of the Pittsburgh public schools, will visit the Antioch College campus next week as one of two finalists for the position of Antioch College president.

Roosevelt will visit campus on Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 13–14, for tours, a public forum, and meetings with staff and college leaders. The public forum will take place at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 13, in Herndon Gallery in South Hall.

According to today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Roosevelt resigned from his job yesterday at a press conference. The article identifies Roosevelt as the only finalist for the job as Antioch College president.

According to Antioch College Communications Director Gariot Louima, the job has not yet been offered to Roosevelt. The Antioch College Board of Trustees will meet next weekend following Roosevelt’s campus visit, and may make a decision at that time.

Roosevelt is the great grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt.

According to a press statement released Oct. 6, the presidential search committee invited two finalists to campus, but one candidate withdrew late in the process for personal reasons. The committee, led by Antioch College Board Member Francis Degen Horowitz, has been meeting for six months and along with the search firm Isaacson, Miller, vetted numerous applicants, the statement said.

“We are all excited to have traveled this far and to see the talented and experienced people who have come before us,” said Lee Morgan, chair of the college trustees. “We have great hopes for the successful conclusion of our search for our next president. Our work will continue until we have accomplished this aim.”

A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Roosevelt has taught political science at Brandeis University, where he directed the Gordon Public Policy Center. He currently teaches a course at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz Graduate School of Public Policy.

Roosevelt is a former Massachusetts state representative who guided passage of the Education Reform Act of 1993 and was the lead sponsor of the 1989 Gay Rights Bill. In 1994 he was the Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts.

The superintendent of Pittsburgh schools since 2005, Roosevelt has pursued an aggressive reform agenda, “Excellence for All,” and is the founder of the Pittsburgh Promise, a ground-breaking initiative that guarantees as much as $10,000 per year in college scholarship dollars for Pittsburgh public school graduates who earn grades of 2.5 or better. The program now provides scholarships to over 1,800 graduates.

Alum brings innovative theater

The Faux-Real Theatre Company hosts the “Oedipus Rex” theater workshop from Friday, Aug. 13 through Thursday, Aug. 19. Mask by Linda White; Jamie Carrillo and William Runnels (in mask).

As an Antioch student in the mid-1980s, Mark Greenfield staged theater productions on the college golf course, inside the mail room, and during board of trustees’ meetings. Now Greenfield returns to Yellow Springs to teach a workshop on producing theater in non-traditional and outdoor settings and put on Oedipus Rex in the Antioch amphitheater.

Organized in collaboration with Antioch College and Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute, the week-long workshop, “Make Theatre Anywhere,” runs from 6 to 8 nightly starting Friday, Aug. 13, and ending Thursday, Aug. 19.

Greenfield and other workshop presenters will teach how to use movement and vocal techniques, mask work, chorus involvement, group improvisation methods and stage choreography in an outdoor setting for $35 for the entire week or $7 for each individual night.

Having directed plays in public parks, abandoned buildings and boats, the New York City director is an expert in putting on shows in unexpected places.

“Part of what I have to offer is to show people how, if you have an idea and you have the people, you can find a place to make [theater] happen — and you don’t need a lot of funding to do it,” Greenfield said of the workshop, which is open to theater artists of all ages and experiences levels. “For people who have a lot of theater experience but they’ve done it in a traditional environment — it can expand their milieu in terms of where theater can happen and what it can be.”

Workshop participants will create their own 15-minute short play, which will be performed in conjunction with the staging of Oedipus Rex by Greenfield’s production company, Faux-Real Theatre, on Aug. 20, Aug. 21 and Aug. 22 at the Antioch amphitheater.

Rehearsals for the all-male production of the Sophocles classic start Aug. 13. Six parts will be cast to local actors, who will join eight New York City-based actors of the Faux-Real Theatre Company.

“We wanted to do a traditional play and apply our untraditional aesthetic,” Greenfield said of his vision for Oedipus Rex, which uses masks, ecstatic dancing and simultaneous action in an outdoor setting. The fantastical, transcendent experience Greenfield aims to create incorporates many elements of traditional Greek theater.

“We say we do it as Sophocles intended,” Greenfield said.

Greenfield came up with the idea when attending an Antioch alumni event in New York City while he was searching for an outdoor amphitheater for his Oedipus Rex production.

“It struck me that it would be nice to have something going on in the Antioch amphitheater in looking to revitalize the college,” he said.

Greenfield decided to offer the workshop as a way to give back to a college and community that helped launch his theater career.

“I wanted to do something that really involved both the town and the college,” Greenfield said. “I was very close with community members. For me, the whole Antioch experience was a Yellow Springs experience.”

He also wanted to provide local actors the opportunity to partake in the production.

“I know there is a very active, artistic community [in Yellow Springs] so I thought it would be great to include them,” he said.

Antioch College Interim President Matthew Derr hailed the cooperative effort, remembering Greenfield, his Antioch classmate, as a “real creative force as a student.”

“It’s an interesting collaboration for the college to sponsor something and work with such an innovative company from out-of-town as well as this great local resource in the village,” Derr said.

Nonstop’s participation in the workshop and production includes assisting with marketing and logistics as well as several of the artistic components of the show.

“We’re interested in working collaboratively with the college in areas we can lend our expertise,” said Michael Casselli, a Nonstop executive collective member and performance artist who will help Greenfield, his former Antioch classmate, with the workshop and the set design for the Oedipus Rex production.

“We can work with each other in mutually supportive ways,” Casselli said of the collaboration between Nonstop and the college. “We don’t want to be in competition with each other, so if we can assist or support relationships between us, it would be beneficial to everyone involved.”

Greenfield has decided that a portion of the production and workshop’s proceeds will go to support Nonstop and to Antioch.

“I got so much in my time at Antioch as a person and everything I’ve done afterward is because of what I learned while I was there,” Greenfield said.

To audition for the production or register for the workshop, contact Greenfield at fauxrealtheatre@aol.com or at 917-687-4998. For general information, contact Jill Becker of Nonstop at jillbecker1@gmail.com or 937-767-2646.

Antioch alum presents theater workshop, Oedipus Rex

Antioch alum Mark Greenfield returns to Yellow Springs to host a workshop on putting on theater productions in outdoor and non-traditional venues and to stage his rendition of “Oedipus Rex” in the Antioch amphitheater.

Director Mark Greenfield posed for an impromtu photo in the New York City subway shoot wearing a mask from his Oedipus Rex production. (Submitted photo by Jeff Wood)

Director Mark Greenfield posed for an impromtu photo in the New York City subway wearing a mask from his Oedipus Rex production. (Submitted photo by Jeff Wood)

Organized in collaboration with Antioch College and Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute, the week-long workshop, “Make Theatre Anywhere,” runs from 6 to 8 nightly starting Friday, Aug. 13, and ending Thursday, Aug. 19.

Greenfield and other workshop presenters will teach how to use movement and vocal techniques, mask work, chorus involvement, group improvisation methods and stage choreography in an outdoor setting for $35 for the entire week or $7 for each individual night.

Workshop participants will create their own 15-minute short play, which will be performed in conjunction with the staging of “Oedipus Rex” by Greenfield’s production company, Faux-Real Theatre, on Aug. 20, Aug. 21 Aug. 22 at the Antioch amphitheater.

To audition for the all-male production of the Sophocles classic or to register for the workshop, contact Greenfield at fauxrealtheatre@aol.com or at 917-687-4998. For general information, contact Jill Becker of Nonstop at jillbecker1@gmail.com or 937-767-2646.

See the August 12 edition of the News for a full article on Greenfield’s innovative approach to theater.