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.

I recently had a conversation with Micah Canal, 2008 graduate of Antioch College, who came back to Yellow Springs in January to join the effort to support Nonstop and for the recreation of the College. He is currently working for the College Revival Fund.

D: So, where are you from?

Micah: I was born on the side of a mountain in southern Oregon, (where we lived) without electricity. My parents went back to the land in the early 70’s. They were hippies, sort of, but I am also part redneck because of growing up in rural southern Oregon. I have always walked that line of someone who embraces my redneck-dom and also someone who was raised by college graduates, and has had a fairly privileged life. I am one of the people who loved high school, rare among the Antioch diaspora.
I was supposed to come to Antioch in 2004, and I deferred until 2005 because I was in love, and I needed to stay on the West Coast. We (my classmates and I) were informed when we got here that something called the Renewal Commission had changed the college that we thought we would be attending. To this day I am still unclear as to why… there was no information that was conveyed to us or our parents that we were going to be a part of a new, untested learning model. That was a real shock.
Fela Pierre-Louis and Olivia Leire, and I organized the first year class in the first two weeks into something called the First Year Liason Committee. It was my first experience with organizing at Antioch, and what an interesting, difficult, troubling, infighting experience it can be. We became Antiochians … for three years, and some of us graduated, and most of us didn’t. There were sixty-seven people who entered with me, and of those less than twenty graduated. I think of us as the lost class, because we were the first under the learning communities, and some of us were the last ones out, and some of us are still here. That is my brief history about Antioch.
My major in one hundred words was Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development. I studied economics and international relations. My focus was on change-making, trying to do it from the grass roots and also within institutions. All of my professional work has been in the non-profit sector, and I imagine that is where I will stay. That will be my life’s work: social entrepreneurship, building and contributing to organizations that do good works.

Nonstop's Campus North Facility in Yellow Springs, Ohio

By Carole Braun

Nonstop has moved to a space as innovative and arty as the Institute’s aspirations. Its new location in Millworks, 305 North Walnut Street, hosts its official open house on Friday evening, Feb. 6. The new Nonstop space is a work of art and a showcase for renovation with recycled and energy-efficient resources. In contrast to Nonstop’s previous location in a small house on Davis Street, the space provides extra room for staff and more options for students.

The transformation of the site from a plastics factory into the new home of the Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute will be completed by February 6, except for the construction of some rolling walls, according to Michael Casselli (1987). Casselli, whose own space is around the corner at Millworks, designed the renovation and is project supervisor.

The inclusiveness of the project was important, said Casselli. Townspeople, faculty, students and alums have worked on the space daily since fall to prepare for the opening. And since Nonstop moved here in December the construction and administrative staff have worked side by side.

The Nonstop space includes a main space, an atrium, a CG balcony, a library, a kitchen and an office area. The main plan was to create a space that is ?open– but not totally open?to share heat and light,? said Casselli. Even the heat from the server is siphoned off and recycled into the office area. A Nonstop science class this term will be developing measurement sensors and controls to help balance heating needs in the entire space.

By Jeanne Kay
It was not easy, on Tuesday morning, for AdCil members to discuss the first items on the agenda as if Friday?s announcement had not happened.  The state of aggravated uncertainty brought to the community by the reaffirmation by Antioch University that operations at Antioch College would take an end under the University watch on June 30th made order of the day topics subordinate to dealing with the consequences of the new situation.
The Subcommittee for Campus Services submitted their report about the short-term needs of different campus services (including IT, Counseling and Wellness, Financial Aid, the Gym, the Theatre?) yet several AdCil members felt unable to take action to meet these needs given the level of uncertainty about the future of the college: ?In order to meaningfully evaluate these issues we need to have a timeframe in our minds and we don?t have it? declared faculty member Hassan Rahmanian. Interim President Andrzej Bloch replied that although there was no clear picture of the future of the institution, the report pointed out ?small things that could be fixed right away.? Union member Carol Braun, however, ventured that ?The University is covering itself from a lawsuit by students? By going through a community institution like AdCil, so they can prove they?ve asked the community?and show that that they?ve tried to support students throughout the term.?

By Tyler Morse

Steven Duffy is, in general, a man of few words.  If Duffy is asked a quick question he gives a quick answer; if something important should arise, his thoughts are in order and he?s ready to roll. While he?s at work he keeps Olive Kettering Library running smoothly and happily, and when he?s not he spends his free time either exercising at a gym near his home in western Dayton, or perfecting his abilities as an all organic ?ghetto gardener.?  Before his forty or so years making fines disappear at the library, Duffy spent a decade in and out of Antioch College as a ?wild ?n crazy hippie?/student.  After his first three years at the school he moved to the ?promised land?, West Hollywood, where he opened a free clinic and supervised 125 volunteers dealing with ?V.D. birth control, draft counseling (for Vietnam draftees; Duffy?s own draft lotto number was never pulled), dentistry and psychiatry.? Occasionally the clinic didn?t have enough money to pay the rent.