Tag: community

“It Was Supposed to Make Me Cry” – Letter from Rowan Kaiser ‘05

  It was supposed to be the culmination of everything we’ve worked for. It was supposed to be what I’ve given my life to for the last four months. It was supposed to be an explosion of joy, or a session of focused rage. It was supposed to make me cry.

Somehow, that was taken away. I don’t mean lost. I mean taken. I have this feeling of something gone that should have been there. I had visions of the bell ringing, hugging sessions with whomever could be hugged, of lying down in the horseshoe deliriously.

Since I moved here, my primary focus was building up for Homecoming weekend. Getting the signs ready and distributed. Inviting the alumni. Preparing the community. I lived for the hour we spent on the Stoop, waiting for information, people-watching, distributing the nervous energy to and from all those present who had made the pilgrimage to see the fate of their college.

If we’d received this announcement then, these exact same resolutions and agreements, we’d have had the explosion of joy we wanted. But we had a week of anxiety, of paranoia, of just not knowing what the fuck we were supposed to do or how on earth we were supposed to feel. There was a hole where those emotions were supposed to be. I couldn’t cry when the suspension was announced as lifted, I couldn’t even stand for the round of applause.

At some point, I’ll devolve into nostalgia and kitsch, into narrating what’s happened. Ahhh, I remember meeting you that day, we had no idea what was coming, what a fine job we did! That could have been after the tears, before the party. But no time for that, it’s all business. We have to move fast into the power vacuum. I have to find an effective place for myself. Full speed ahead. No time for release.

It was supposed to make us cry. But they took our tears. I guess making us determined will have to suffice.

Rowan Kaiser ‘05

Letter from Louise Smith, ‘77 Professor of Theater and alumna

“I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
-Blanche Dubois

Since the announcement that we have been given a reprieve from suspension, the theater department has been immersed and focused on the opening of “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams. All term, I have been struck with the resonances between the play and our situation here. It started when John Fleming, the director, put out audition notices in which he crossed out the word ‘Streetcar” and wrote the word “College” so that the poster read “ A College named Desire”.  Continue reading Letter from Louise Smith, ‘77 Professor of Theater and alumna

Letter from Joni Rabinowitz ’64

To the Editor,

My feelings about the current state of affairs are very mixed. I applaud all the people – on both boards and those on no board – for their tireless labors of love  and generous contributions, to bring us to this point.

On the other hand, I’m very suspicious. The same people seem to still be in charge. The same ones who have ripped us off for years. I see people who don’t  identify with our traditions, and who want  to destroy the college, still holding the bulk of the power. Continue reading Letter from Joni Rabinowitz ’64

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, How Say You?

This weekend, the future of Antioch College is sitting in the hot seat of a court room. Antiochians, Yellow Springers, Alumni, members of the Board of Trustees (BOT), and many reporters with pen at hand have come to witness a decision that could be either a death sentence or an Antiochian Renaissance. No one, not even BOT members, knows what the decision will be, yet everyone has strong feelings about the outcome. Some people think that the Board’s decision to close is unlikely to be reversed. Others believe that the Board will keep the college open. Gina Potestio, a first year, is, “trying to stay optimistic, and hearing the feedback from the upper-level students saying it’s going to close is a little hurtful after seeing … what everyone’s doing for us.” Many students are in denial about the possibility of Antioch closing. “I just really didn’t want to think about [the closing],” explains James Kutil, a second year student, “so, I’ve kind of been in a numb panic, because the school closing means a lot to me.” There is still a gut feeling that the college just can’t close.

Continue reading Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, How Say You?

From the Editors

  “The dazzling vision and relentless passion of the founders.” One might have thought that the title of Jim Malarkey’s Founder’s Day presentation was slightly hyperbolic. If you attended it, however, that preconception most likely vanished somewhere between Horace’s claim that ”nothing today prevents the world from being a paradise,” and Arthur Morgan’s quest for an “informal utopian community of learning.”

I remember when I was 14 years old and, when asked “what do you want to do when you grow up?” relentlessly answering “change the world.” I also remember losing momentum for the project as I advanced into the disillusioning turpitudes of adolescence. Like many teenagers in quest of identity and purpose, I wondered how to reconcile that yearn for transformative action and the weight of reality that gradually imposed itself on me.

Many educational institutions, observed Malarkey, have the purpose of “meeting market demands” and helping students adapt to society. What about students who do not recognize themselves in the profile of “fit in, slide through, and get away?” he asked. Then there is Antioch. Antioch as a hyphen between what the world is and what the world ought to be.

Antioch, in the time of Horace Mann was indeed a bootcamp, recounted Malarkey, if not for the revolution, for winning victories for humanity; a “cross between Harvard and West Point” where students exercised for two hours every day, academics were rigorous and morals stringent. “A war of extermination [against ignorance, oppression of body and soul, intemperance and bigotry] is to be waged and you are the warriors” was Horace’s message to Antioch graduates.

“This is not just a bachelor’s degree’” exclaimed Malarkey, “This is a War Cry.”

Arthur Morgan in the 1920s perpetuated and added to Mann’s vision. To prepare for the frontlines, you have to find your purpose; Co-op was thus instituted. Gen-Ed courses were brought to the curriculum, based on the idea that learning to know how the world works is not just a preference but a responsibility. Finally the idea that the whole human being thrives only in a healthy community inspired the principles of community governance.

The three legged stool was created.

“Education in America must mean nothing else than this,” declared Malarkey, drawing comparison between the task ahead and the boulder in Glen Helen under which the Morgans are resting together. To be a radical means to get to the roots, deep down to lift the boulder. “And Antioch is the place for that to be done.”

Antioch’s spirit “keeps losing itself and then finding itself,” observed Malarkey yet the “feisty if elusive Antioch spirit of inquiry and action” that characterizes it seems to resiliently survive through generations of Antiochians, regardless of incessant administrative turnovers, gaps in vision and top-down renewal plans.
And no matter how it redefines itself perpetually, Antioch continues attracting students who, like me, once dreamed of changing the world and wondered how to do it. Not only does it draw us in, but most importantly it revives the embers under the ashes, the will to take on that boulder, and the certitude that the potential to lift it is within us—assuming, of course, we get to graduate from Antioch College.
-JK