Category: Letters

Letters to the Editor

Letter from ‘The FAB Four’

Dear Community,
As we approach the CG elections in just one week, we are anxious, excited, and motivated to move forward. As we have said before, we are a collective team of passionate and devoted community members and we intend to provide the Antioch College Community with leadership that will encourage sustainable education and progressive activism.
We realize that the CG elections have been stressful for all of us but we hope that you are still excited about legitimizing community governance through your participation in the upcoming election. While acknowledging that the options are limited, we hope our work and energy spent over these past several weeks convey that we are committed to reflecting all of the community’s voices.
Our next collective step is to support the community in the development and finalization of the 4th position job description. This process is incredibly important and we are committed to doing this work regardless of the outcome of the election. We recognize that the sustainability of Community Government is more important than who is in CG next year and will do what it takes to secure a strong 4 person CG for the year ’08 to ’09.
We believe in the words of Algo Henderson, “Freedom must be matched with responsibility”. It is imperative that we as a community make the necessary efforts to preserve shared governance and our Antioch community. We look forward to working with you in the coming months and to continue honoring the process of shared governance at Antioch. Thank you.

The FAB Four

Jamila Hunter
Niko Kowell
Meghan Pergrem
Fela PierreLouis

Letter from Collective

Dear Antioch College Community:

The past eight months have been extraordinary for our collective, and the experience of running for Community Government has been deeply meaningful in each of our lives. We have been fortunate enough to influence campus discourse and the future of the College by publicly naming what we believe to be the school’s dire needs. We are proud to see our ideas, including a fully-funded fourth CG Officer, an endowment for CG, the first year mentorship program, and the careful analysis and restructuring of our current shared governance model, added to the community agenda. Being at Antioch during this turbulent time has been nothing less than a high-speed rollercoaster ride. We have all played various roles and held various views on the future of Antioch. We greatly cherish the experience of working within shared governance and of campaigning as a collective for Community Government.

Regretfully, we must inform the community of our collective’s decision to step down as candidates for CG, for reasons both personal and political. As we look to the future and assess our individual wants and needs, we feel strongly that our values, coupled with the experience bestowed upon us by an Antioch College education should be brought to the world in other meaningful and effective ways. We will move on in different directions.

Moving on has been a difficult decision for us, but we feel it is the right one. We give thanks to all those whom have provided us guidance. We are especially grateful to the professors, staff, students, friends, and family who have supported us throughout our time at Antioch College. We are confident that we have each made our own marks on this place and we know our vision of what Antioch can be will live on in the future. We trust that the members of the “Fab Four” collective have the talents, skills, energy, and enthusiasm to lead this community through the difficult transition ahead.

Sarah Buckingham
Julian Sharp
Micah Canal
Nicole Bayani

Dear Antioch Students – A letter from Yellow Springs Citizens in Support of Antioch College

Dear Antioch Students,

During these last difficult months, we have watched many of you hard-working, intelligent, courageous young people with delight and pride. We want you to know that you are not alone in your struggle. We, members of the Yellow Springs community, are also working in good faith (sometimes to exhaustion) to save our beloved Antioch College. Our commitment is strong, for our lives are deeply intertwined with the College. We, or our family members, have worked at the College; faculty and staff and their families are our friends; we, ourselves, are Antiochians or could have been, as we, like you, have a commitment to the historic vision and values of Antioch College.
We know in these last months you have found valuable friends and found from faculty and staff deep concern and inspiration. Many good and brave things have occurred even during this time of great duress. So we ask you, if you are able, to please hold on.
While it would be prudent to develop a backup plan, we want you to know that this important fight for the College is not yet over and that the struggle for its survival is dependent on many of you choosing to stay. By staying, you will not only learn in your area of study, you will also continue to learn what is possible when people work together towards a good and powerful vision. You must know how very important an Antioch College education is. Author Rita Mae Brown, when she spoke at an Antioch Commencement, called Antioch College the “point of the arrow” among progressive institutions of higher learning. To quote Antioch alumni, Dan Shoemaker, whose recent email is making wide circulation, “Antioch’s traditional educational model (based on the three pillars of community, academics, and co-op) has among the most robust and enviable outcomes of any college in the country.” Continue reading Dear Antioch Students – A letter from Yellow Springs Citizens in Support of Antioch College

Letter from Nancy Crow, President, Antioch College Alumni Board

The Antioch College Alumni Board is calling for the retraction of the November 9th letter from Andrzej Bloch, Interim President of Antioch College, to the Antioch College faculty.  This combative approach to academics is anathema to all of us; shared governance and faculty tenure were two main points of our Resolution of June 2007, and we continue to champion those ideals. A letter that hides behind financial exigency to declare that most of the faculty “won’t be rehired past June 2008” is in no way collaborative, accurate, respectful of tenure, nor in any way a part of the shared vision for Antioch College.
The misstatements and miscommunications have challenged our efforts for Antioch College. Part of our agreement in principle with the Board of Trustees was that the Alumni Board will be part of the College planning process going forward. This letter from the Interim President does not convey the spirit of our agreement, and indeed, was not shared with us ahead of time.  We are calling on the University Trustees and administration to live up to the letter and spirit of our agreement.
Antioch College is a vibrant institution with a world-class faculty. The Alumni Board fully supports the gifted Antioch College faculty, and has nothing but admiration for the spirited and committed student body and the dedicated staff as well. Our plan going forward calls for recruiting transfer students now, and first-year students as soon as the Ohio Board of Regents extends the College’s authority to grant credits and degrees.

We are still ashamed to let it die!

–Nancy Crow, President, Antioch College Alumni Board

A Letter from the Antioch College Alumni Board

The statement below is supported by the majority of the Antioch College Alumni Board.

Since there have been different interpretations of what the Alumni Board intended in approving the agreement with the University Board of Trustees on November 3, 2007, and since recent actions by administrators contradict both the spirit and specifics of our understanding of how that collaboration should proceed, we hereby clarify our understanding of the terms of the agreement
We do so by indicating specific initiatives that fulfill our understanding. These understandings will guide our contributions to keeping Antioch College moving forward in the direction we all desire.
1. Immediate retraction of Andrzej Bloch’s letter of November 9, 2007, to the faculty. On November 9 the faculty withdrew its lawsuit in an attempt to encourage a more collaborative process–a gesture that should be welcomed, not dismissed. We believe that faculty employment should be assumed to be continuing, not terminated, with the understanding that a genuinely collaborative process may indeed recognize that some faculty positions need to be eliminated and that such a process will benefit the Antioch community much more fully if faculty are encouraged to suggest means for making such adjustments. Continue reading A Letter from the Antioch College Alumni Board