By John Hempfling and Jeanne Kay

Steve Schwerner’s Report on Visiting Team

The first Alumni Board meeting of the year opened morning of Friday the 6th with a presentation by Antioch Emeritus Professor Steve Schwerner, who was representing the delegation if educators who came to Nonstop and reported on their visit to the Board Pro Tempore. [link to Record article on visit] Schwerner said he expected that everyone had already read the eight-page report, [Link to the Report] and preferred to answer questions from the floor rather than reiterate the points made on paper. He specified that he would be unable to answer “questions of speculative nature,” since he was not in a position to answer them, and stipulated that he could only speak for himself.

Schwerner, however, stated that the Visiting Team was “impressed on every level; we were impressed by the seriousness of the faculty, by the excitement of the students, the innovations, the ability to make something out of nothing.” Yet he emphasized that despite the unquestionable value of Nonstop, it was too early to assess how it would be reintegrated into the new college; “to lose everything that Nonstop has done seems foolish, to incorporate everything is impossible.”

By Jeanne Kay

“A sense of deja vu” is how Lincoln Alpern, Nonstop returning student and Antioch class of 2011, describes the uncertainty regarding the future of his education in Yellow Springs. After the publication of the Letter of Intent (LOI) paved the way for the reopening of an independent college, many questions remain about the near future of the former Antioch faculty, staff and students.

The Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute (NLAI), a project of the College Revival Fund (CRF) to keep the DNA of Antioch alive until the college reopens as an independent institution, is guaranteed funding until June 30th, 2009. According to CRF Acting President Ellen Borgersen, the decision to provide funding past this date will be taken at the March 6th/7th Alumni Board meeting, but she specified that this could change; “It’s really gonna come down to the money,” Borgersen emphasized, “Raising money for Nonstop outside of Yellow Springs has been difficult.”

Meanwhile, the Nonstop community remains in a precarious situation. Borgersen enjoined faculty and staff to get a plan B: “I am not in a position to ask anyone to delay doing what they need to do to protect their careers, their families, their livelihoods;” she said, “I deeply regret that that’s the case but ethically, I couldn’t possibly ask people to make decisions about their lives based on the assumption that we’re going to be continue Nonstop.”

Staff and Faculty in Limbo

By Eva Erickson & Diana Starkweather

Antioch’s campus was left a ghost town, last Saturday, as students filed in to a historical community meeting in McGregor 113. After impatiently waiting for a week, students, faculty, staff, and other community members anxiously gathered in the one room on campus had signs of life, to hear Antioch’s fate after a week long deliberation between College alumni and University trustees.

After a quiet build up of suspense with small interjections of applause, Andrzej Bloch, the newly-dubbed interim president, announced that the Alumni Board and the Board of Trustees had agreed upon a resolution in principle, and that the BOT “officially rescinds the suspension of operations of Antioch College.” The announcement of decision caused an immediate outburst of cheers, happy-tears, and applause that could be heard from outside the building. It was like popping a zit that had been festering on your forehead for a week.

Fight Our Own Battles

Thanks to the historic Nov. 2 agreement between the Antioch College Alumni Board and the Antioch University Board of Trustees, the Alumni Board is now an official part of the college’s power structure. That’s a very good thing. The college has desperately needed someone with real authority in its corner these past years, as it has weathered neglect, autocratic mismanagement, and the bleeding of its resources, at the hands of the University administration and Board of Trustees. Now that the Alumni Board has bought its $18 million place at the table, the fox will no longer be guarding the henhouse. But the Alumni Board made some serious concessions to persuade the trustees to lift the suspension of operations.

“Lifting the suspension has bought us some time, but we have to fight hard or they will kill the college by slow suffocation. “

November 5, 2007
(Guy Fawkes Day)

For the sake of all current Antioch students, I am pleased to hear that the planned suspension of operations has been lifted. However, as an alum, I am deeply disappointed with the bargain that has been struck between my elected Alumni Board representatives and the Antioch University Board of Trustees.

“When will we learn that treating with the University is like courting the embrace of a strangling vine?”