Save Antioch College - The Portal

See video:
Part One
Part Two

Speakers: Matthew Derr, Lee Morgan, Beverly Rodgers, Aimee Maruyama, Julian Sharp

using arts & sciences
testing academic plan with high school students

Beverly:
a week to ten days in between each term
no summers off
flipped educational model upside down
begin forming relationships with faculty in first year 1:5 teacher ratio

lee: target to have tuition equal or below state school out of state, do it in 3 years.
we just lost a work quarter
seven academic quarters, five coops

the question is can a human being develop properly in 3 years. I don’t have a good answer.

sandy macnab: do you have entering class in back pocket?

lee: we can just about offer a free ride to the first 25 students
recruitment will be more about finding the proper diversity mix

beverly: want alumni chapters to help interview prospective students
in last year school closing had 62 students

susan greene: similar calendar took me five years.

three years may only attract more sophisticated students than our target diversity

kathy huff: how’s annual fund going?
aimee: it’s 2.8 million. we’re just over half way
kathy huff: wouldn’t it be wise to keep the endowment?

11.4% currently giving (aimee)

lee: since announced closure 16 million raised
2 million in the bank
4-5 million in outstanding pledges

lee: operating budget 400k/month $5 million/year
2 million to rehab gym

south gym will accommodate 250 seat black box theater shared facility with village

beverly level out at 600 students half on campus half remote

tour of building at antiochcollege.org

howard cort: is there enough flexibility in the program?

beverly: we’re presenting program for three years it may take four

derr: first class planned to come in at 100% discount
reduced discount rate to about 30%
hover around 20% after received accreditation
26,000 tuition and 10,000 in fees first year

beverly: not negating governance but having a director of community

jim hobart: what if this design doesn’t work?
I never would have made it through this program
where’s the fun?

derr: it works according to credits and math.
we have to invest in student life, gym, glen to have rich experience
we have to look at this empirically at how it plays to 17 year olds

we have to decide what our admission criteria are. works better when students have had work experience

first entering class 25 second 50 third 75

involve community mangers in year long curriculum in community
give new community agency of its own
have to plan for governance on campus or they’ll rebel against it

roger: where would you recruit transfer students?

derr: public university students who want liberal arts education but don’t have access
start hosting prospective students this fall

lee: if this doesn’t work we’re going to go down in a blaze of glory. we’re not going to do something half-ass

prexy: our legacy is risk taking. when I say antioch lives people say “are you serious? you came back again?” this is our legacy.

susan: I take you at your word student body won’t be all white.
the first year is where we must recruit the class that looks different. must have working class students.

prexy: we’ve begun going places antioch never went to (in terms of diverse recruitment).
lee: we’re devoting a day to this subject at our may board meeting

beverly: I’m chair of morgan fellows

julian: eight OSU students came on spring break to do work
4/24-25 big volunteer weekend on campus

derr: we need you to talk to disconnected and angry alumni and turn them around

note: the fundamental academic subjects- it’s unclear to some alumni how they fit in.

derr: board meeting will be in yellow springs may 24-25. Details to come.

On Dec. 5, at Columbia College, about 45 Antioch College alumni (including Jeanne Kay, who happened to be in town on business for her law firm internship while studying at the Sorbonne) met with four representatives of the newly independent college:

Beverly Rodgers and Jean Gregorek, two of the five Morgan Scholars tasked with building the curriculum
board chair Lee Morgan
and advancement director Risa Grimes

The presenters shared plans for the rebuilding of the college, and invited alumni to share their own ideas about the process.

See video of the meeting:
Part one
Part two

See photos

Audio will be posted here

Here are some notes from the meeting:

Lee Morgan: The college’s capital campaign has raised $15 million of its $50 million five-year-goal.
$2 million is in the bank
$9 million is in outstanding pledges
The college is spending at a rate of $4 million per year, and has spent $4 million to date

Lee believes all the major leaks in campus buildings have been repaired. Preservation and repair of the campus is projected to cost significantly less than the $40 million originally projected.

The plan is to admit 70-120 students in fall 2011, with a small faculty and relatively narrow curriculum. The college is considering a program in which alumni could teach short (6 week) segments in their field of expertise at the college, under the supervision of faculty.

Accreditation could take up to 5 years, though provisional accreditation could be available sooner. The college is exploring ways to assure graduates can gain accepted into graduate programs during the interim.

Federal financial aid requires accreditation, but the college is looking at other forms of financial aid to assure the it can be made affordable for lower income students.

Currently plan for tuition is to stay competitive with the cost of out of state tuition at state schools, or about $30,000. Average student of the Great Lakes Colleges Association pays 46% of their institution’s full tuition.

11 of 15 positions on the board have been filled.

Curriculum will be narrower when the college first reopens, with a relatively small faculty serving the small student body.

Jean Gregorek: The college held its first symposium on immigration. Upcoming symposiums are planned to cover Native American identity, restorative justice as an alternative to imprisonment, green innovations, and issues facing contemporary liberal arts colleges.

Beverly Rodgers: Plans for the college are in flux. Alumni feedback will be substantially incorporated into planning in the coming months.

Part of the challenge in recruiting students is to demonstrate Antioch’s value to potential employers in thinking critically and unconventionally.

Plans are to more fully integrate identity-based studies (such as women’s studies, African American studies, queer theory) throughout the curriculum

Jeanne Kay: shared governance needs affect real decision making in order to have real educational value. Should be integrated into the curriculum.

Beverly Rodgers: the college is considering hiring a dean of community
(This idea was met with skepticism by some, particularly younger, alumni, who feared it could disempower community government)

Ian McPhaden: Are there plans to offer degree completion programs, targeting the many Antiochians who didn’t graduate?

Lee Morgan: College will focus on traditional age students. Continuing students should consider attending Antioch University.

Judy Spock: It would be valuable to gather a repository of Alumni experiences. (This idea is reiterated throughout the meeting).

Susan Greene: College should hire young faculty and focus on making Antioch accessible to minority students.

Prexy Nesbitt (board member): Need to make Antioch accessible also to students from developing countries, who can apply their education to addressing specific problems at home. Need to look at recruiting students who demonstrate non-traditional aptitudes, such as gang leaders.

David Nekimken: Integrate peace into the curriculum.

Robin Sheerer: Focus on social entrepreneurship.

Claudia Hommel: Don’t think about what employers need, thin about what the working class needs. Don’t limit co-op job to preprofessional. Give students real life work experiences like American sweat shops. Better integrate students with staff/union.

Jon Baker: Think about where we want students to end up: organizers, critical thinkers, change agents. Don’t send them to work in sweat shops. Send them to work in sweat shops. Students from working class backgrounds need to see real job prospects.

Meghan Pergrem: Diversity also includes transgender students and students with disabilities. Also must focus on diversity within faculty and staff. 30,000 is a lot of money. Be careful about letting full-tuition international students fulfill diversity requirements at the expense of lower-income domestic students. If identity studies are integrated into curriculum, how do we preserve dedicated spaces for these groups? Co-op should focus on community. Need curriculum on community organizing, harm reduction, seeking justice from a place of love.

Bill Jaggard: Need to retain focus on core liberal arts curriculum.

John Edgar: Antioch needs to focus on less hubristic goals than saving the world.

Risa Grimes: Alumni participation in this fiscal year, begun in July, is 5%. Need to get it up. Even small donations can raise the rate and improve the college’s prospects to secure grants.

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