Month: September 2007

For Your Health-Check out the First Floor of North Hall

In the rush of modern life, we must feel pressure from various problems.

At Antioch College, there are four reliable organizations to help you rejuvenate your mental or physical health, all located on the first floor of North Hall: the Wellness Center, the Counseling Center and the SOPP office.

In the Wellness Center, you can take a relaxing time with some snacks and some silent rooms. Any student can use the center whenever they want for free.

Run by five FWSP students, all third and fourth-years, Wellness offers a full schedule of services and activities, starting with the Icarus Project on Mondays. For a de-stressing time of lazy listening, Story Time on Tuesday is the place to be. Next, there are Friday Night Events and Chem Free Parties at 9 or 10 p.m., followed by Vegan food prep and potluck, hosted in Mills Hall at 6 p.m. on Sunday.

The Counseling Center provides courteous  treatment for your mental health free of charge. When you want to contact get into with a staff, you need to make an appointment by phone, email or in person. “The Counseling Center is important for students,” said Linda Lee Sattem, Director of Counseling and Wellness Center.

The numbers of sessions logged in the Counseling Center on average, amounted to more than 900 visits every year.  Problems that students encounter are anxiety (from academic stress or money trouble), depression, relationship problems with their family, friends or clashes with professors.

All staff are certified counselors that interact with each student on an individual level by listening to their problems and using therapy.

As for other services, Third Party Consultation is there to solve problems that concern a student in interaction with another another person -faculty, staff, student or family member.

Then there is the training of RAs at the beginning of each term and email therapy, using the net to provide counseling services for students on co-op and on travels over the summer.

In the SOPP office, located in the Counseling center, the SOPP advocate or the Director of Counseling and Wellness will provide an accurate advice and guidance. They also give SOPP training to the SOPP coordinator and SOPP educators. The SOPP budget remained at $1,300 that salary comes from the Counseling budget. (over 8-9 months)

On the whole, there are five Wellness officers, of which three are counselors. Tracy Hunt Cupp provides general counseling and specializes in cognitive behavioral loss, career and transitions. Cheryl Smith’s expertise lies in the field of chemical dependency and health issues. As director of the Counseling and Wellness Center, Linda Sattem provides general counseling and runs daily operations at the Center. Completing the office staff is Office Manager Jennifer Baker and Ann Hembee as the SOPP advocate.

“I have been in the field of Counseling since 17 years old,” says Sattem. “I think this work is not difficult but it’s very rewarding.”

If you feel a little tiredness in your life, how about stopping by at these support organizations?

Alumni Teach-in Brings Swagger Back to Campus

Last Friday evening a small group of community members kicked off a weekend of events geared to inform and share skills to engage students in current efforts surrounding the revival of Antioch College. Starting with “A Brief History of the Revival,” in McGregor 113, visiting alums Rowan Kaiser ’05, Tim Noble’02, and Beth Gutilius ’00 shared their experiences since the closing announcement in June. Yellow Springs resident and alumna Judy Wohlert-Maldonado, and Media Arts faculty member Chris Hill completed the panel providing a broad overview of the national and local organizing efforts that were sparked by the infamous Alumni reunion three months ago.

Continue reading Alumni Teach-in Brings Swagger Back to Campus

12 million and counting

“Roughly 12 million dollars” is the number on Alumni Board Treasurer Rick Daily’s abacus this week. It’s the result of the most recent count of cash and pledges donated to the College Revival Fund, that was established less than 12 weeks ago. As the College’s development office prepares to launch a full-fledged fundraising campaign, the Alumni Board has hired a consultant to assist in creating a viable business plan that will encourage the University Board of Trustees to reverse its decision to close the school in June 2008.

Continue reading 12 million and counting

Tenure: Why it Matters

What is it?
Tenure is a contractual agreement between a particular faculty member and a school, college or university. After a probationary period and a series of reviews during which the faculty member demonstrates his or her value to the institution, that faculty member is offered a permanent position, or tenure. Exceptions usually apply in cases of financial exigency on the part of the college, or illegal or unprofessional behavior on the part of the faculty member. Continue reading Tenure: Why it Matters

McGregor Faculty Speak on Tenure

At McGregor, as in all other satellites of Antioch University, faculty are under limited-year contracts that do not entitle them to the protection and rights that tenured faculty benefit from. “No tenure adds to a sense of contingency,” remarked Professor Joe Cronin, “you could be let go for any reason any year.… Next year if there isn’t enough money, my job might not be there.”

Professor Jim Malarkey joined McGregor at its creation and has been working at Antioch for 22 years. Yet he too does not benefit from contractual employment security. He does not feel like the lack of tenure has been impairing his academic freedom, even when teaching such controversial subjects as Middle Eastern studies. “I’m more afraid of Homeland Security than of Antioch University Administration,” he commented, “they care about revenue.” Professor Susanne Fest corroborated this view, recounting “I have been very free to teach my courses…. I have never experienced any interference in terms of my teaching and my research.”

Involvement of faculty in governance is another issue, however. “Faculty governance to date is negligible, not to say nonexistent” said Fest, whereas Cronin remarked, “Many important decisions are made from top-down, often in ways that do not include faculty.” Malarkey pointed out the ideological contradiction between the institution’s values and its practices. “Douglas McGregor was famous for his theory of participatory management. If we’re naming ourselves after McGregor, there’s a lot of changes to be made about the way we govern ourselves,” he declared. “I think that’s a serious problem; not enough attention is given to sustain that legacy.”

“Whether I get a multi-year contract after this article on it is a real question. So watch what happens next year.”

The uncertainty generated by the lack of tenure can go as far as limit professors’ liberty to speak out. “We are a very cautious faculty,” commented Fest, “because we don’t want to jeopardize our jobs.… So far I’ve got the multi-year contract that I’ve applied for. Whether I get a multi-year contract after this article appears with my name on it is a real question. So watch what happens next year.”

McGregor President Barbara Danley declared that Vice Chancellor for University Academic Affairs Laurien Alexandre was looking into the possibility of a multiple year contract for faculty university-wide. She stated that it was not in her power to decide on implementing tenure at McGregor as the decision is made “across the university.”

“If we had tenure at McGregor, we would have a very different faculty,” predicted Fest, who emphasized the difference of cultures between the college and adult campuses. She mentioned “certain obligations that come with [tenure]” like the production of scholar work. She told of her own experience as a non-first career academic. “Competing against students in their late twenties or early thirties who had gone through high powered university programs would have been impossible,” she said, and added that many McGregor faculty were in similar positions.

“The trend in history is more contingent faculty, and I don’t like this trend,” said Cronin. The subject of tenure reaches far beyond the border of the Antioch University system, and can be envisioned as a political issue. “Higher education right now is in a period of time where corporatization is pushing in every direction,” declared Malarkey, raising the “question of the extent to which the University needs to be corporatized.”