By Diane Chiddister

On Friday, Sept. 4, the keys to Antioch College will be transferred from Antioch University to the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, or ACCC. The action marks the college?s revival after having been closed for a year, and its return, after 30 years as part of a university system, to being an independent liberal arts college.

The public is invited to a recognition of the historic event at around 5 p.m. on the horseshoe on the Antioch College campus. The event will follow several hours of paper-signing by ACCC leaders Lee Morgan and Matthew Derr, who have been vested by the ACCC board with the authority to sign the agreements, and Antioch University Chancellor Toni Murdock and Antioch University Board Chair Art Zucker, who have been vested by the university board with the authority to do so, according to Morgan and Derr in an interview Tuesday evening.

Morgan, Zucker and Great Lakes Colleges Association President Rick Detweiler will speak at the 5 p.m. event, and Antioch professor emeritus Al Denman will give the benediction.

Friday?s closing finalizes an agreement between the university and the ACCC that was made two months ago. While that agreement identified Aug. 31 as the target date for closing the deal for an independent college, the amount of detail involved led to missing that target by a few days, Morgan said. The closing was dependent on the approval of several outside agencies, including the Ohio attorney general, the Greene County probate court and bondholders for Antioch University.

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.

The drying out of campus following flooding from broken attic sprinkler system pipes in South Hall and Main Building is running ahead of schedule, said Lynda Sirk, Antioch University Director of Public Relations. ?The damage is not as extensive as we believed when [Munters, the company providing mitigation of the water damage] first came on campus. We’ll be able to salvage everything and have Main Building back to its original state except for a few damaged ceiling tiles,” stated Sirk.

Sirk said damage was confined to the central areas of Main Building. ?The registrar’s office, AEA and the music department stayed dry” she declared.

South Hall should be done in two to three days, said a Munters worker who wished to remain anonymous. The mitigation of Main Building will take longer, another worker said, because the painted plaster walls need a long time to dry. Wednesday morning the workers said they were waiting for a decision from Tom Faecke, Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer of Antioch University, on whether they could begin removing paint from the plaster walls so that the walls could be dried more efficiently.

- Transcript by John Hempfling

The Record interviewed ProTem Board Chair Lee Morgan and Consultant to the ProTem Board Matthew Derr on Monday, February 16th

Stream this audio interview below, or click on the link to download or listen in your preferred audio application:

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Download or Listen to full, unedited interview

The Record: Could you both define your role in the process leading to the definitive agreement? Lee what is your role?

Lee Morgan: Technically I?m the chair of the board ProTem, that?s my role, but I was nominated by the Alumni Association Board of Directors to represent alumni on the Task Force to negotiate the LOI.

What are you doing during the 90 day period, what does your schedule look like?

Lee: I?m trying to raise fifteen million dollars and we have to hammer out the definitive agreement and there are problems with the definitive agreements. I made some mistakes in the LOI one of which is mine, so I?ll fess up… which is the reversion clause in the LOI.

You said at the Seattle meeting that this was a deal breaker?

Lee: It is, for me it is, now Matthew might talk me out it but right now to me it?s a deal breaker.

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.