By Jeanne-Kay

Research: Brian Springer, Kathryn Leahey, Jeanne Kay

Prelude: The Discourse of Toxicity

“Toxic Culture.” Steve Lawry’s infamous phrase is now part of the vocabulary of virtually all Antiochians. The year before the Antioch University Board of Trustees (UBoT) resolved to close the college, the key political issue on campus and the polemic that reached alumni revolved around the question of Toxic Culture–whether there was one, how it manifested itself, how to fix it or how to debunk its myth.

To alumni whose only contact with the community in years had been filtered through Media and University intermediaries, “toxic culture” meant a steady decline in academic excellence and increased political narrowness from their time at Antioch onwards; to conservative reporters, “toxic culture” came to be the perfect excuse to write diatribes against political correctness at liberal arts colleges; and to many observers “toxic culture” was a perfect shortcut to explaining how Antioch College had found itself in such an incomprehensibly dire situation: Antioch students were narrow-minded, unstable, out of control–they chased away new students, driving down retention and preventing Antioch from achieving financial stability. The toxic culture narrative made sense–and it was useful.

In This Issue…

• Nonstop Nomadic Again

• Barbara Winslow: Board Pro Tempore Member of the Week

• An Open Letter to the ProTem Board of Trustees

• “We’re here to learn:” ProTem Board Delegation Visits Nonstop

• Introducing: Spring 2009 IGs and Community Centers

• Nonstop Opening Snapshots

• COPAS Gives Community Intentional Focus

• Main Building Floods, Community Protests

• Declassifieds

• Question of the Week

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?”