By Tyler Morse
Recruitment has been a constant theme in discussions about the future of Antioch College. Several months ago, when the Antioch College Board of Trustees finally offered a compromise with the possibility of keeping the school open, Antiochians began to think about what the college might be like next fall in its “dim” state if the school was still part of the University. When the major donors thought about it they decided they didn’t want to be major donors at all unless the college was free to conduct its own affairs. The problem is it would probably be cheaper for the University to close the college then sell it, so there is much to discuss before an agreement can be reached and probably a long wait for an already frustrated community. How long that wait turns out to be could have big effects on campus beyond the stress it creates. Because Antioch College might not be open next year the Board of Trustees feels it is unethical accept any new students even if they are well informed about the situation. Currently, if someone sends in an application, “We just file them,” says Meredith Taylor, who by herself makes up half of the Antioch College Admissions Department. Meredith has filed 71 completed online applications and there are at least 21 more in progress, along with many that were sent by mail or fax and filed but uncounted.
Kip Vosler is a twenty-one year old gas station attendant in Yellow springs and is one of the 21 incomplete online applications. He first visited Antioch with a former student he met at the Yellow Springs street fair. His reaction was an “instant attraction” to the campus, but then again it may have been for the student that he is now dating. Kip’s attraction to Antioch is not just physical, he especially likes the concepts of the co-op program and narrative student evaluations. He was surprised and a little mad to learn that the University believes Antioch’s program is unattractive to serious students. According to Meredith, Kip is not the only prospective prospective student that wants to show the Board how serious he is. Unfortunately for Kip, the Admissions Department is not currently allowed to process applications beyond filing them for later analysis, and there has been no active recruitment of a first year class for the coming fall. For a school that might be closing next year, with an Admissions Department of two people, over a hundred applications is a very impressive number, but during a normal school year Meredith would expect about five hundred applications by now.
Tag: closing
Editorial by Kim-Jenna Jurriaans
“It’s a wild place,” I remember my English teacher in University, an Antioch College alumna from the late 70s, saying when talking about the College back home in the Netherlands. In hindsight she could not have predicted just how right she was.
Sixteen months ago I embarked on a transcontinental journey to a small town in Ohio, hoping to reinvigorate a joy for learning I once had. Little did I know that less than a year later, I would find myself amidst one of the biggest stories in US higher education of the last decade. I had taken a leap of faith and it had changed my path forever.
At times, it is still unreal how this national uprising of alumni and campus community –the Antioch Revival, as it has come to be known — came about and just how massive it is. Online listservs are buzzing at all hours of the day and deep into the night, when alumni, having come home from a long day at work and having put their kids to bed, give up on a good night’s sleep to share their expertise in areas like law, fundraising and communications in one of dozens of online planning discussions (some running 80-posts deep in your Gmail inbox), while a volunteer IT team, made up of alumni professionals from around the country, work graveyard shifts to live-stream audio of campus meetings and build websites, including that of the new College Revival Fund, which in the last 125 days has raised close to $18 million in gifts and pledges to keep Antioch College open. Things are simply going too quickly to pause and realize the magnitude of experiences we’ve undergone in such a short period of time. Yet it somehow feels organic; as so often at Antioch, madness soon became a state of normality.
Continue reading Editorial by Kim-Jenna Jurriaans
DeClassifieds
Declassifieds
Thank the Gods that this blasted semester is almost over! Let the revelry commence!
Dela, I adore you. Thank you for making my term so wonderful. xo -niko
“Poopularity Planner” and “Gorilla recruitment” are less funny when they seem when you’re wasted
Nicole, I love you I’m glad you’re here. I’m sorry about the shit that went down this weekend
I found your sock 🙂
Kelsey, this place won’t be the same without you 🙁 Emma
To whoever called North Friday Night saying “reverse racism doesn’t exist” this is no way to win an argument. It only puts the people’s backs up, and makes an agreement less likely -Lincoln Continue reading DeClassifieds
Hell, High Water and Hope
By Linda Sattem
It is hard to accept that Antioch College is in bad shape when daily we work with such wonderful students. The following are comments and feelings I have had since the closing announcement this summer that I don’t often have a chance to share.
Hell
This summer was very hard with the second round of layoff of staff. Then when I offered requested programming about grief, loss, searching for jobs, etc., there were complaints that I was “giving up” on Antioch, that I was undermining the good fight.
In fact we were acknowledging what had already begun to occur. We were both mourning the loss of friends and colleagues while still trying to prepare for a difficult year with a skeleton staff.
It is difficult to work, with ever increasing workloads for Student Affairs staff, especially with the criticism that we are not working to save the college. We all care deeply about the college and we are working to support the students still here.
High Water
This term has been equally hard. We are watching students struggle with their course work and organizing. They are struggling with decisions most people never face.
Many are struggling to keep their heads above the rising tide of fatigue, anger, hopelessness and feeling powerless. How do you feel good when you have done all you can, and it still is not enough?
As we work with students we have to help them figure out what is best for them. Maybe they have to leave, so that they continue to be strong and balanced. Only then will they ever be able to come back, as alumni, as faculty, as staff, as parents sending their children to Antioch College.
Hope
The recent efforts of alumni/staff/students/faculty and the faculty lawsuit are where I receive hope. There was genuine shock over the uproar about the closing. (And I firmly believe that the end game was to never reopen.)
At a church I once saw a hand printed sign that read:
The church is what is left after the building
burns down and the minister leaves town.
They can tear down as many buildings as they want, send away as many people as they can, and Antioch will still be here. When we reopen it will be with residential students and tenured faculty.
All staff in the various student services feel privileged to work with students day in and day out, in the dorms, in the café, in the ASC, in the gym, the library, Main Building, in counseling and wellness. For our amazing students — present, past and future — who are brilliant, compassionate activists, will not let us die.
From The Editors
By Jeanne Kay
I wish I could celebrate. I wish I could have called Bard College this week thanking them for their patience but telling them that I will never enroll, instead of simply deferring again. I wish I could have sent an email to my friends and family back home that said “The good news is that you’re invited again to my graduation ceremony in 2010. The bad news is, it’s still in Ohio.” I wish I could have let my yellow balloon escape, I wish the bell of main building had rung, I wish I could have gone back to being a normal student. I wish I could have felt relief.