[From the Editor: On April 1st, 2009, the Concept Paper for an independent Antioch College was released on antiochians.org. Read the concept paper here.

[Click here to discuss the Concept paper on the Record's Forum]

I’ve looked over the Board Pro Tempore’s concept paper a couple times since its release a few days ago, and my feeling are, to say the least, mixed.

I have to admit that it all looks very smart and exciting. In fact, there’s a lot of that stuff that I think I could get on board with. They want to enact more diversity initiatives and make the college more international? Great. Require students to develop a working knowledge of at least one additional language? Sure. The Distinguished Faculty program, with classes taught by alumni and friends of the college? Why not?

The Board is committed to a tenured faculty. That’s good. And though it doesn’t say so in the concept paper, I understand they also want union staff. Also good.

They propose a restoration campaign, and want to make the campus more sustainable. I support them in this too, so long as we take said “restoration” measures to have maximum emphasis on utility and minimum emphasis on glamor. Concentrate on the necessities of running a healthy college in line with our values, not projecting a classy image. I think we can all agree that Antioch College is never going to be luxurious, so let’s not throw desperately needed money away trying to make it look luxurious.

- 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:

Podcast: Download (39.1MB)

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.

What will you be doing next fall (or when you start your new position)?  And how do you expect it will be different from your work here at Antioch?
I begin my new position in August.  I will be Assistant Professor of Psychology, Human Development, and Women’s Studies at University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.  Probably the biggest difference will be in class size.  For example, my intro to Psychology course will have 125 students. I’m going to a state school, and many of the students are first-generation college students.  I suspect they will have working technology, and if it doesn’t, they will actually have staff on hand to fix it.  I also expect that there will be soap in all the bathrooms.

What do you think you will miss the most about Antioch and what do you think you will miss the least?
I will certainly miss the students.  I love the fact that I can get to know my students because classes are small.  I love the fact that students are generally quite aware of world issues and that most people are politically liberal.  Students here tend to be intellectually curious for its own sake, which makes being a professor a wonderful experience. Antioch attracts a lot of great, funny, witty characters, and I mean that in the best sense.  I was talking in my Social Psychology class about how we sometimes cannot easily come up with reasons why we like or love something because it is so difficult to put into words.  This really is an amazing place and I will miss all the little things like knowing almost everyone on campus and being able to sit on committees with students.

By Alex Borowicz

As the term exhales its final waking breaths into the snow-filled December air, students scramble to finish final papers and senior projects.  Besides the late nights, slippery walkways, and myriad of distractions, Antioch students face one obstacle that has been plaguing the school for months: feeble internet speed that leaves all community members fighting for their own chunk of cyberspace.

Not 10 years ago, before the heydays of file sharing, Antioch was the proud owner of a T1 connection that brought internet to students, staff, faculty, and administrators.  T1 lines are capable of transmitting at speeds of 1.5 megabytes per second for both uploading and downloading.  These days however, speeds have fallen to merely a fraction of their former rates.  Even with the proliferation of the internet and its increased accessibility, Antioch College has been reduced to around half that speed, suggesting that perhaps the college is now being given only a partial T1 line.

While dollars from Antioch College students are spent on the college’s subscription to FirstClass, a new prospect has appeared on the technological horizon. Sprouting out of the alumni-run website antiochians.org, an alternative to the college’s use of the FirstClass messaging and communications software is currently under construction.

The FirstClass system, which links all of the Antioch University campuses, is a subscription service paid for in part by the tuition of Antioch college students.
Enthusiasm about the possibility of an alternative email and messaging has been growing slowly on the college campus. Concerns about the privacy of information on the FirstClass server have been raised and some students have moved their email communications to private email providers. These concerns were heightened by the recent consolidation of University FirstClass servers from localized campus servers to a site in New England.

Following the Antioch University Board of Trustees announcement earlier this year of the suspension of operations for the college, a strong alumni support movement began. One product of this movement was the creation of the antiochians website. From its beginnings as a site for the larger Antioch community to gather news, the webpage has grown to include a forum, gallery, and a wiki page, among other features.
The motivation for the creation of the site comes from the need of alumni to be on even ground concerning facts related to the closing of the college. “We were going to need to be organized and share information,” said Matt Baya, one of the alumni working on the site.