THE ANTIOCH RECORD

“An Evolving Piece of Work”: Joe Foley on his role as Vice President, the Nonstop budget, and the Alumni Board’s upcoming challenges.

The Record: My first question is for you to introduce yourself, in terms of your experience at Antioch: when did you graduate, what was your major, what was your Antiochian experience, what was your relationship to Antioch since you left?

Joe Foley: I’m Joe Foley and I graduated in ’64 with a B.S., I had a major in philosophy and a minor in math, and my primary interest at that time in my life was documentary film production which I did largely through co-op jobs because there weren’t any real courses on campus related to that. [...] I worked a number of times with a documentary film company in DC and Antioch kept wanting me to take a wider variety of jobs and I kept saying but I’m doing a different things there every time so it came out my way as these things tend to at Antioch and it was very good. I also did a stand at a hospital as nurse’s aide and several odds and ends of things. After Antioch I did my graduate work at the University of Iowa, which turned out to be an excellent experience though Iowa city was a place I never thought I would go. And did my graduate work in communication, I was in speech and dramatic art and worked as a teaching assistant and ultimately as an instructor there largely teaching television production and running the instructional television studio that they had on the campus. After that I taught for a year at America University in DC and then went to what I thought was a temporary job at Ohio State University where I ended up staying 25 years. At Ohio State I was teaching some production classes, largely on the television side at that point, some social science research classes dealing with impact of media on audiences, and over the years my interest evolved and I became primarily focused on telecommunication policy things, first amendment issues, media and society issues, and issues that were developing in the 70s, 80s, 90s, as information was becoming a commodity rather than a kind of free good like it had been previously.

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Op-Ed: Collegiality, Creativity and Fortitude, by Tim Klass ’71

Here is a letter to the Record:

Not being much of a Charles Dickens fan, I would say these are neither the best of times nor the worst of times, but we may soon find ourselves close to one extreme or the other with the approaching deadline for transferring Antioch College to the Board Pro Tem.

That does make these the most stressful of times for many of us in Nonstop, the College Revival Fund and the Alumni Board.

Perhaps it’s thus an apt time to turn to some fragments from the poem “If” by another Brit who is not one of my favorites, Rudyard Kipling and conclude with a bit of paraphrase to fit our circumstances:

“If you can keep your head when all about you
“Are losing theirs …

“If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
“Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies…

“If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
“If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim…

“Yours is the legacy and all that’s in it,
“And — which is more — you’ll be an Antiochian.”

Knowingly or not, that old colonial racist was explicating a principle attributed to the pre-Christian sage Hillel (cited here in a slightly interpretive translation) in the Talmud:

“Where there are no human beings, strive to be a human being.”

Collegiality, creativity and fortitude, especially now, are among our most treasured assets.

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Letter to the Community: Exponentially More, by Lincoln Alpern ’11

Dear Community,

I want to take this opportunity to thank you profusely for my experience of these past six months. My one year at Antioch changed my life, expanded my horizons, deepened my understanding of the world we live in, and facilitated my growth as a human being. My experience at Nonstop has done exponentially more.

Since beginning my course of studies at Nonstop, I have sat on ComCil and the Diversity Committee. I have attended meetings of the Yellow Springs Human Relations Committee and the YS youth council. I have helped draft and implement policies and community agreements, painted walls, worked sound systems and microphones, attended numerous presentations and even participated in a few myself, and I have participated in countless powerful, emotional community discussion. I’ve also sat in classes that absolutely blew my mind, had innumerable meaningful discussions with unbelievably intelligent people both in and out of class, and worked myself to death to complete assignments.

And I’ve had the great pleasure and great honor to socialize with some of the most intelligent, most caring, dedicated, and inspiring people on the face of the planet.

In some ways, I think the uncertainty we find ourselves with now is the greatest we have ever faced. The definitive agreements are likely, but not certain, and if they are implemented, we’ve no guarantee that the living spirit of Antioch College-the heart, mind, energy and values which make us unique among institutions of higher education-no guarantee that these strengths will be carried over to the new Antioch College in the form of the current Nonstop Community.

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Letter to the Editor: Nonstop is a Laboratory, by Andrew Oswald ’92

Hello All,

It is my understanding that there is a meeting to decide the fate
of Nonstop, and how it fits into the scheme of resurrecting the
college.

One of the powerful aspects of Antioch was that it is a laboratory
for education where learning by experience. All of the times I
have had access to such a program, I have learned much much more
than I would have if I has just “taken a class”, or even “got a
degree”. An Antioch education was never about taking a test,
instead — from the time I was a perspective student, to reunion
two years ago — Antioch is about a ambitious project, a cause, a
mission. This is the essence of learning by doing. I believe that
this is one of the aspects that sets an Antioch education apart and
above any other higher education institution that I have attended.

There are many alumni, faculty, staff, and friends that want to
help. Especially in the current economy, we are not all are in a
position to contribute piles of cash to save the college. But
Antioch has created many creative, ingenious people with many
skills and diverse influences — and many want to help, if they can
figure out how.

Nonstop is a laboratory. Nonstop is another way that we can
contribute. Nonstop can be a prototype platform for ideas for the
future college.

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See you in Exile

On a night in January, I was looking at myself in the mirror of my bathroom at 4 a.m. I couldn’t sleep. Everything was theoretically okay though: I was safely escaping the winding down of Antioch, I was being reasonable and attentive to my feelings and health. I had taken a sound decision considering the circumstances, the little hope, the dimming down, the bruises, and I was supported in it by virtually everyone I knew. Until then, this rational discourse had satisfied and comforted me.

But at 4 a.m. in that cold empty bathroom, it was suddenly different. Maybe because of the insomnia that had turned my nights into atrociously agitated marathons for the past three weeks. Or maybe it came from the thought that classes would be starting soon at Antioch, and that I wouldn’t be there.

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