If anyone has taken a course with Scott Warren, they’ve heard his analogy of the situation at Antioch “It’s like the grandchildren walking up the stairs with a pillow to smother grandpa for the inheritance moneyâ€. Appropriate analogies have never been what I’d refer to as an Antiochian strength, but this is as accurate as it is vivid and amusing.
At the same time, let’s take a step back and ask ourselves, like I imagine the grandfather from that analogy might between muscle spasms and screams, how we let this happen. When people at home or work ask me why Antioch is closing, as much as I’d like to scream about the evil University, what I always end up answering is “Decades of mismanagement by radical liberalsâ€. The University is certainly not innocent in its money-grubbing opportunism and disregard for history, tradition, or decorum, and the cowardice of these destroyers will not be forgotten. But they are simply vultures, looters attempting to squeeze another penny out of someone else’s hard work. They are not frightening aside from their prevalence. What’s much more terrifying to me is what allowed them this opportunity: The death of the Antioch dream. Continue reading Letter from Zach Gallant
Category: Letters
Letters to the Editor
Letter from Jude Logan Demers ’97
My People,
As an Antioch College Alumni ‘97, I am proud to share that I stood front row at Sen. Barak Obama’s presentation yesterday with my fiancé and 12,000 people. I am also happy to share that I “taped†it and have uploaded it to our web site www.youtube.com/judemers . I invite you to watch this motivational and inspirational speech in five parts.
The reason that I write this in my opening paragraph info is that us Antiochians are humanitarians. It is time to appeal to Sen. Obama in seeking help and assistance for Antioch College. I am offended and insulted by Antioch University’s Board of Trustees treatment of Antioch College’s Staff, Faculty, Administration, and Students.
We Antiochians of Antioch College fame have been the source of the philosophies, missions, moneys, knowledge, and wisdom that created Antioch University and it’s many Universities. Continue reading Letter from Jude Logan Demers ’97
Letter from Alex Mette
Dear Antioch,
Between periods of extreme stress and sadness I have thought about what this all means for me and my future, but mostly my heart goes out to others. I came here not too sure about how I would feel about this place, in fact, after I came here to visit I had a lot of doubts about whether I really wanted to come here. I remember that some people were doing an art project called ‘Antioch is Fucked’ and I asked them, “Is Antioch fucked because of us (the incoming class) or without us?â€Â “Both,†they told me. While I have come to realize that while they had a point, there is also a lot of “the new class is so watered-down, the real Antioch is dead, etc.â€Â Well, for my part, I’m pretty watery but besides our poor grassroots recruitment I think that people always idealize the past. Antioch may only have a hundred students but it remains a vibrant community and an amazingly educational place. I think that Antiochians remain concerned about this place, what it is becoming, what it maybe used to have been, because the idea of Antioch is so beautiful. That same idea remains today. It is, and always has been, an image. Despite that, Antioch, the people here, the environment, has helped to me find that image for myself, not of a flourishing progressive bastion of education and social activism, but of the personal. For me there is always an ideal, and there is reality, what we want to become, and what we are. Whether these differences are real or just mental, Antioch has taken me closer to my image of the world and myself than I have ever experienced. I have seen glimpses of what life can be and I think that the freedom that Antioch creates, freedom to express as well as to learn, makes it a sanctuary. Continue reading Letter from Alex Mette
Letter From Carl Hyde ’48
To the Editors:
The announcement at the community meeting on Friday contained no new information.  We already knew that the University would not continue to operate the College after July 1.  Why then was it presented as though it were news?
I believe that Toni Murdoch has her own agenda.  She has managed to make a simple issue so complicated that “we don’t have enough time to resolve all the questions!â€â€¯ That kind of detail is not what we need now.  We need a simple statement of intent that the University plans to transfer ownership of the College to the ACCC effective July 1.  Details can be worked out before and after that date.
Toni wants the College to close and has consistently worked toward that end.
The longer she can delay any resolution, the harder it becomes to keep the College open. 
She sent Andrzej Bloch back by night flight to tell the students and faculty to “Look to your own career needs.â€â€¯ In other words, “please go away.â€â€¯ She wants the campus empty.  I believe she is surprised and annoyed that students and faculty have stayed firm and refused to abandon ship.  She has no understanding of the strength of the Antioch spirit.
Please keep the faith.  We can win this battle.
 Carl Hyde ‘48
 
Letter to the Editors
        
I was shocked and angered on Sunday evening when, while enjoying the company of old friends and a box of wheat thins, I read the “movie review†offered by Barbra Davis.  Opening with a criticism of Tim Peyton’s work, Davis finds Tim’s reviews “distressingâ€, she goes on to argue that a critical review is “NOT about [Tim’s] and his own personal biases [caps present in original publication]†and that Tim fails to define some of the terms he uses.  Further, she writes, “the record is not a soap box, it is a means of communicating news in an upbeat fashion; or it should be.† Let us examine these claims one by one. Continue reading Letter to the Editors