Articles - THE RECORD

Fabulous in the Face of Fundamentalists

“We’re here, we’re queer, and we’ll be walking around your local Barnes and Noble during Christian Living Day, holding each other’s hands.”

At 11:30 a.m on Saturday, like a swarm of rainbow colored locusts, a group of forty Antiochians descended on the Beavercreek Barnes and Noble in response to a management- imposed Christian Living Day. Not a thought of protest graced the protestors rainbow-bandana’d heads. Instead, their goal was to formally request a “Gay Day,” after an earlier inquiry from an Antioch faculty member had been shot down by manager Dan Renfro.
Antioch professor Christine Smith was the first to make students on campus aware of Christian Living Day on returning from a shopping trip to the book store last week. At the check out desk of Barnes and Noble, she had engaged in a dialogue with the employees, who said that they were upset about the event and had been denied the request to take the day off by their fundamentalist Christian manager. Encouraged by the employees, Smith returned the next day to speak to manager Dan Renfro, who claimed he was just responding to customer requests. Book authors had contacted him about signings, he said. When pressed, he also admitted to arranging the ministers, gospel choir, crisis pregnancy center and recruiters who where scheduled for the day.

Smith asked if she could request a comparable “gay day” along similar lines: a gay men’s choir, gay and lesbian authors. Smith’s offer to put him into contact with all the relevant parties, however, did little to spark Renfro’s enthusiasm. Renfro went on to say that Smith just had her own opinion and was trying to cause trouble. Following her encounter, Smith contacted Barnes and Noble’s corporate office, before bringing the issue back to campus. Students quickly threw together a planning meeting in the Queer Center that Thursday and posted fliers advertising a “Gay Takeover” for Saturday.

The air in the parking lot that morning was one of mischievous glee and anticipation, as the group compared outfit choices and discussed appropriate public display of affection; Hand-holding and kissing with “church tongue,” were both deemed appropriate. The en masse entrance of the fabulous forty caused heads to turn so fast that whiplash became a serious concern of customers and employees alike.

The next hours mostly consisted of browsing. Lesbian and Gay Studies, and the woefully vanilla Sexuality section were both popular. Next on the list was engaging the Christian authors in conversation, while tallying who got the most blatant stares. Many queers were disappointed to find that what had been touted as a nine-hour showcase of fundamentalist Christian values, in reality was nothing more than a hyped-up book signing. Ministers, crisis pregnancy center and illustrious promotions from various sponsoring organizations were as notably absent as the manager himself. Renfro was forced to tone down the event, so the unofficial word goes, after Barnes and Noble’s corporate division had received a series of complaints about the religious agenda-promotion stunt. Renfro himself was not available for comment.

Whether it was their phone calls that pressured B&N to curb their local management, or those of other consumers concerned with a national book store chain endorsing a specific religious perspective, the forty protestors banked the success as one for direct action executed in style. Meanwhile, for all who are interested in having their favorite lesbian poet autograph her work at Barnes and Noble, while tapping their feet to a gay man’s choir, a “formal request for Cultural Celebration of Gay Day” is going around campus for signatures.

“Formal Request for Cultural Celebration of Gay Day at Barnes and Noble Booksellers of Dayton at Beavercreek

In an effort to support cultural celebrations equitably, I request that Barnes and Noble Booksellers of Dayton and Beavercreek sponsor “Gay Day”. This will be a cultural celebration and information sharing of community resources, community activities, and networking for the Dayton area. This will give Barnes and Noble the opportunity to highlight gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) authors and showcase to the community the books and resources available at your store. Having the opportunity to hear GLBT authors make presentations about their work will be an exciting and attractive event for Barnes and Noble and the greater Dayton area.

Thank you for proving us with the opportunity to collaborate together to celebrate literature, community, and culture.”

Thank you, Barnes and Nobles, for giving us an opportunity for an impromptu Gay Day of our own. May there be many, many more.

Alternative to FirstClass soon to be available

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.

Baya and others are working with an open source platform called Drupal (drupal.org) which “has thousands of features,” he says. Drupal has all the features and accessibility to provide a solid alternative to FirstClass system.

In 1997 Baya worked in the technical resources department at the college, in the days before FirstClass. According to Baya, the decision to implement FirstClass met some resistance. Prior to the actualization of the software, students and faculty could have their own websites and an email address. When the rest of the University forced the school to conform to the new system, all websites and former email addresses were lost, Baya said.

The recent server move to New England comes at a time when the college’s professional technical staff has been moved to the new West building. IT operations at the college are now handled by a staff of three work study students. Field Technician Cassie Collins still attests to the integrity of the campus network. “I don’t think there’s been a practical impact,” she said. “The tickets are still being answered.”

Mending Fences

“We have a hole in this triangle as far as trust is concerned,” Antioch College Professor Hassan Rahmanian fumed to a crowd of alumni and students and villagers last Thursday at the Yellow Springs Senior Center. The three points in the triangle, Antioch College alumni, the University, and the campus community, are engaged in the Alumni Board’s efforts to keep a viable Antioch College open past the announced closing date in 2008. The relationship between the three has recently been tested by direct intervention of the University Chancellor in the operations at the College.

The meeting, organized by the Alumni Board, was meant to facilitate dialogue about the future of the college in an informal, off-campus environment. Attendance was high, with many guests taking position against the wall or on the floor.

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Never mind the Pentagon, here’s The Antioch Papers

Today, theantiochpapers.org launched another batch of files disclosing information about financial measures taken at College and University level over the decade leading up to the current crisis.The files, among which letters from former College President to then Chancellors of the University James Hall and Jim Craiglow in 2001 and 2002, show that red flags about the college’s financial challenges and government structure have been raised for years. In a letter dated February 22nd 1999, Bob Devine wrote: “The top-down implementation of the plan to charge depreciation to each campus is, for the college, the crushing blow. It renders the challenge of building a healthy and viable college a Sysyphian nightmare, in that it means that the college’s revenue over expenses will never again be a positive number.”

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Library shows heavy decay

Only in February, at a memorial in honor of head librarian Joe Cali, Antioch’s Olive Kettering library was praised by Ohio librarians and college professors for its continued excellence in light of limited resources. Now yellow caution tape wreathes the 53-year-old building, marking a large bulge that stretches across the back of the college’s pride of ages. The Olive Kettering Library is slowly falling apart, but relief is nowhere in sight.

Constructed in 1954 the OK opened its doors with the agreement that it should be rebuilt in 1974. Due to a lack of resources, however, the engagement was never fulfilled and 53 the Olive is still standing unchanged. The outside wall is falling apart because of a rain damage and corrosion over the years.

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