Tag: community

From The Editors 10-13-06

20061020-luke.jpgDear Community,

Friday the 13th has reared its ugly head in October this year, 699 years to the day from the when this date first earned its infamy. Some of you may notice the shield of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon adorning this week’s masthead, and the last words of the Grandmaster above it all. You may also notice a strange, breasted goat somewhere within the pages of this week’s issue. The creature is a Baphomet*, which some contend is a representation of the Mother Goddess, and it is the worship of this icon which led to the arrest, torture, and execution of hundreds of Templar Knights in France on Friday, October 13th 1307.

I cannot elaborate to deeply on the mythos of Friday the 13th, but I thought it important to mention the original events behind the superstition we observe today, and to provide some context for the symbolism found in this issue. If you want to learn more, or if you want to wildly hypothesize about the fate of the Templar treasure, I’ll be glad to talk your ear off.

Good Luck today community,

Luke C. Brennan, esq.

20061020-foster.jpgDear Community, I want to start by apologizing for the end of last week’s letter. I understand how it is offensive, and for that I am sorry.

I also want to clarify that letters to the community to editors can be anonymous. Also, we do not censor DeClassifieds. The Haiku format does not limit what you can say, only how you say it – i.e. 17 syllable tercets. We do accept multiple, related Haiku and will do our best to print them in the order we get them.

I want to thank everyone who has been working for the Record this term. You’ve all been great. Also, I want to thank those students who have been elected to AdCil and ComCil for their dedication. Finally, thanks is due to the community for the support given to the Record.

Not much space left for me to fill here. I have laundry to do.

Foster Neill
Layout Editor

A New Acronym: CSKC Prepares to Open its Doors

By Madeline Helser 

Coretta Scott King once said, “The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members…â€? and it holds true today, especially when applied to our institution.

Construction is slated for completion on the Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom, designed to enhance knowledge and awareness about cultural identity in our community and beyond. It aims to educate future generations about cultural struggles and focus on how, as a community, to increase the unity among the different cultural identities.

The CSK Center was the notion of Bob Devine and Team 7. Team 7 was part of the renewal plan for Antioch College given to us by the Board of Trustees. The idea for the center was motivated by an essay written by Dr. Everett Freeman on some of Dr. King’s writings on community. Dr. Freeman was then on the Board of Trustees, and is now the President of the University of Indianapolis. It was in the renewal plan that Team 7 would articulate some sort of center for cultural and intellectual freedom. Out of the plan and the mind of Team 7 and Bob Devine, The CSK Center was born.

After a few weeks on the project, Bob Devine resigned, and Beverly Rodgers became the chair of Team 7. Team 7 was one of the most diverse teams working on the renewal. The team had good community representation; students, staff, and faculty were all represented in a very diverse manner. The team created job descriptions for Diversity positions within the administration.

The positions created were Director/ Diversity Advisor to the President of the College and Administrative Assistant/Diversity Advocate. “The position of Director is loaded with responsibilities, including fundraising, which will be important to the Center’s programming and future staffing. The new director will also need to be visionary, and carry out projects and ideas to better inform and engage the community. They will also serve as a special assistant to the president on institutional diversity; this is crucial to the retention and recruitment of faculty, staff, and students of color. We are a very white campus, especially in the upper-administrative positions, and the Director will hopefully be able to assist with this problem as they sit in the President’s staff group and bring in resources to support faculty, staff, and students of color.� Says Lauren Hind, an upperclassmen working for the Center. As of now, they are in the process of interviewing and hiring an administrative assistant and are in the last steps of hiring a director, which includes visits to campus and talks given by the three candidates in the Inn during Lunch.

When Steve Lawry was hired as President, things were not flowing together very smoothly, so Beverly Rodgers was asked to step in as Interim Director for the Project. Beverly’s job is to oversee the entire renovation of the building that used to be used and known as the G-Space and Security. From overseeing the installation of the carpet to the programs hopefully being set into place, Beverly deals with it all. The main part of Beverly’s job as Interim Director is to organize. She is to get all of the little things out of the way so when the Director starts in early January, the little things will be out of the way and the director will be able to start their job right away. She also has staff meetings with the people that are going to be occupying the new offices in the CSK. Until now, the groups to occupy those offices have had no direct supervision. She is also to get a handle on the budget for the CSK Center. The CSK Center, until just recently, has had no direct monetary support.

The As far as physical changes to the building, the laundry equipment was removed, which included the floor having to be leveled, the electricity taken out, and the walls needing to be repaired and painted. The rest of the building was carpeted and painted as well. It is now being wired for Computers and Internet Access. There are new doors on the front and main entrance and the fireplace is being replaced from a wood burning type to one with gas logs. There are going to be 8 offices set up. The director, the administrative assistant will occupy two of the offices. The other offices will be for the Bonner program, the Makeit program, Vista Americorps, and the community engagement office. The office furniture has already been ordered and should be in by the week of October 16. Once the furniture is in the building, everything should be set within 2 weeks. The Lounge furniture for the common room, formerly known as the G-Space, won’t be in, however, until the middle of November.

As far as programs in the future, Beverly has positive outlooks. “Antioch has a lot to offer our community. But sometimes we get very hidden under a bushel basket. Let’s look at how privilege plays out in the outside world. We need to continue dialogue about it. It’s an important facet of education.� A goal is to be able to have a good developed program for next term. A positive step was bringing Allen Johnson to campus, as he opened up the arena for discussion on topics of cultural identity on a new level.

She has in mind a program educating about Youth Urban Violence, specifically in the Dayton area. It would be for volunteer work or for co-op. Beverly believes that it would be a wonderful way to expand students’ ability to connect with the area.

Another possible program would be focused on immigration. “ I feel like immigration is something that people just do not know much about,� said Rodgers, “we have so many opportunities to interact and focus on what we already have.� The aspects of things like availability of healthcare, work, and ESL courses are important to the immigration issue. There are so many struggles associated with it that it is very much linked to cultural and intellectual freedom. Beverly remarked, “Allen provided good grounds for discussion of that once again. To be able to express culture freely and respectfully, you have to be empowered. It doesn’t necessarily have to be regional or national, but we can look at it on a smaller level, because in some way, it all connects.�

Overall, The Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom is headed in the right direction. “I went to Atlanta to talk to Mrs. King, and I feel we have a serious responsibility that we do honor her name. She expanded on Dr. King’s ideology with the fight for the rights of women and gay’s as well as supporting HIV research. She was courageous and forceful, yet elegant. A truly amazing person,� said Beverly.

There will be an opening celebration for the center sometime in the spring of next year. The orchestra will play and alumni will flood Kelly Hall. It will be a celebration of cultural freedom and diversity. As Beverly said, “We may be small, but we’re pretty mighty!� We can accomplish anything we put our minds to, and the King Center is solid proof of that.

President Lawry Shows His Teeth

By Wesley Dawson

At the AdCil meeting Tuesday October Tenth School President Steve Lawry began discussion with a document entitled “Principles of a Community Learning Structure.� Presumably written by Lawry himself, the page subtitled as a “Draft for Discussion� had all statements and no questions. Community members present at the meeting found the document demonstrative of the President’s desire to change to a more top down school power structure that negates decision making shared governance once had.

The bite in the document seems to be that even though Lawry has been instigating what many older students see as unprecedented change on the school, it is written as an explanation of policy rather than a proposal for change. Lawry’s point is to say that the community government never had any real power beyond advising the real decision maker, himself.

The document asserts that the purpose of shared governance is purely educational, preparing students to “be effective in public life and to represent their views and values convincingly in public affairs after leaving college.� This is not unlike Student Government models in many other colleges where students hold no power beyond fund raising and throwing parties. One purpose this parallel serves to the perspective of a newer student like myself is to say that Antioch is, and always has been, structured the same way as any other college in the country.

Many students, some of whom who have been at the college longer than the President, disagree with the statements in his document. They say that while the President of the school holds the official power, they have historically taken heed of the community’s wishes and made decisions as a representative rather than an authority. This point of view shared by many members of the community asserts that until the current president, governing power was shared under shared governance.

Teachers present at the meeting were noted as saying that the ability to utilize real power allows students a better opportunity for learning to be “effective in public life� because it allows them to do so as students instead of just “after leaving college.�

The document does not refer directly to Steve Lawry but rather to a theoretical President but also includes statements like, “Faculty have in recent years gained greater direct responsibility for curricular matters. This is a welcome and healthy trend and it should continue,� which, aside from the date, is the only part that shows that Lawry himself wrote the document, and recently. The rest could have been a policy set out years ago by the school administration were it to always have the absolute power Lawry asserts it to have.

According to the President, “AdCil’s role is advisory to the President and the administration� and ComCil is “a place of discussion and debate on community matters� not “an alternative locus of authority to the President, the administration or the faculty.� Older students say that while the President’s statements may correspond to how the school policy is written, it is a new interpretation of that policy that does not take account of how school decision-making has historically worked at Antioch.

If that is the case, the student body faces the question of whether the decree of authority is more important than the ideals of community. President Lawry has already considered this question and made up his mind.

Letter To The Editor – 10/11/06

To The Editor:

We are new members of what one might term the “extended community� at Antioch. As family members of an Antioch student we have had the opportunity to visit campus a few times, meet a number of students, and read several issues of The Record. We have had the chance to meet some members of the faculty and administration, as well.
It is our hope that, as a “Boot Camp for the Revolution�, Antioch is a place where all assumptions are questioned, the voiceless are heard, and where those who will bring change to society are encouraged to observe, evaluate, and act. Indeed, the legacy of Antioch is one of promoting justice, peace, and a better world. Unfortunately, some of what we have read in this paper and experienced during recent campus visits is, rather than demonstrating openness, promoting a culture of insularity and mistrust of anything or anyone new or from the outside.
We have observed that there is a lot of introspection at Antioch, perhaps too much. It seems that a large number of community members are so engrossed in arguing about “Antioch values� that the school itself seems to be an end, rather than a means, to impacting and changing society. To wit: there was little or nothing that we could see on bulletin boards, in the school paper, posted on walls that speaks to issues outside of your small world on campus. Here are the three main messages we’ve been able to glean from these sources: 1.This is a place where there is tolerance and openness to all expressions of human gender and sexuality. 2. Safe, consensual sex is a value and right for all community members. 3. There is mistrust of those trying to bring about change at Antioch. This is frequently expressed by insults and name-calling.
Meanwhile, in the world beyond Antioch College, discrimination rages, the poor are getting poorer, civil rights are eroding, and those in power seek to rule via fear and suspicion. If Antioch is really the “Boot Camp for the Revolution�, we wonder why the major issue at hand seems to be a single-focused obsession with “the idea of Antioch�. Truth be told, we are not certain what is meant by that expression. We have noticed, however, that in spite of a seeming openness to ‘otherness’ and diversity at Antioch, there is instead intolerance and a willingness (on a shocking level) to engage in name-calling and profanity when describing those with whom one disagrees. There seems to us to be little or no ground for respectful discourse at Antioch.

There is much about Antioch that we admire. The idea of a liberal arts college that encourages independent thinking and then equips students to engage the world in a way that fosters justice and peace is something we support. Unfortunately, at least at this time, Antioch seems too self-obsessed to be able to engage in a respectful dialogue among even its own community members, much less the world.
Scott Leannah and Gina Kuemmel

Allan G. Johnson Speaks to Community

20061011-power-and-priv.jpg

By James Fishbeck

Last Tuesday and Wednesday, Antioch College was privileged to have Allan G. Johnson visit to give a series of discussions covering a wide variety of topics including white privilege, gender issues, and coalition building. He has written many books including The Gender Knot, and Privilege, Power, and Difference. What becomes evident in his speaking is that he comes from a background of intense contemplation and inquiry into the structures of power and the people that perpetuate them. His discussions provided a constructive background of where we are as a society and what we can do to change these systems through constructive dialogue.

On Tuesday, he spoke during the time that would usually be reserved for community meeting. In this lecture, he talked about systems of power and how they are responsible for perpetuating white privilege. According to Allan, “The problem is the way in which systems of privilege get organized around the differences that would otherwise have little if any significance in our lives.� He started his lecture talking about how human beings are not inherently scared of difference that it is curiosity that brought about interactions between different groups of people in the first place. He stated, “In the early decades of white Europeans settling in the North American continent, there were all kinds of communities in which Native Americans and Europeans intermarried and it wasn’t an issue.� He also mentioned that in the relations between Africans and Europeans, difference was not a large factor until the start of the African slave trade. Then, a perceived racial divide was built into the system so that the triangle trade could perpetuate economic power. He explained that “the economic payoff from the long history of racism in the U.S., of slavery, conquest, and genocide is not simply in the past, it is embodied in the wealth held by the white population.� This legacy that was passed to us as an inheritance the moment we were born no matter what our racial background, gender, or anything else is. “We are not the legacy and it is not us.�

To quote Allan, “We have been socialized to see difference as a problem, it is a very powerful way of distracting our attention from the systems of power.� He also made the distinction that “systems are not people and people are not systems.� When you make the distinction between systems of privilege on the one hand and us as human beings on the other hand, an important thing that comes out of that is that people that have access to privilege aren’t truly aware of it. A problem noted by Allan is that “we are stuck in [paralysis] because we don’t know how to talk about these issues with relation to your life.� Dialogue is essential to creating change, even when it doesn’t fall under the path of least resistance. Because it is hard and painful, it is our collective responsibility to be part of the solution. “When one person can dismiss other points of view by saying it doesn’t matter or that they are making a big deal out of it, that is an expression of privilege.�

In later sessions, he continued talking about gender issues and the fact that “We are living in a patriarchal society and it provides a template for all forms of oppression.� This is a difficult concept to come to terms with and once again, Allan made the point that we have to confront these issues. Not because of guilt, but because our involvement in these systems of power directly affects how this legacy is passed down to our children and grandchildren.

Below are some of the important questions that he addressed directly that I really like. Enjoy.

What is the issue with racial misappropriation? “I don’t think borrowing from other cultures is in itself a problem, what makes it a problem is the relationship between those who take and those it is taken from…When one society conquers another society, they see themselves as superior, and they see themselves as having the right to take what they want from other cultures…When white people appropriate from people of color, they are acting out a history of domination and subordination based on conquest and genocide.�

What is your impression of Antioch College? “This is very unusual in my experience, this is the first campus I’ve ever been to where students have been confrontational around these issues. Getting students to think about the issues is the problem in most places. This is the first place that I have ever been where that has actually been an issue that is openly discussed.�

Is there any hope for society with the amount of chaos that you see? “Creativity comes out of chaos, when things get blown up, very awful and very wonderful things can come out of that, sometimes the worst thing that happens to you in your life is the best thing that has ever happened to you because it shakes you out of all kinds of preconceptions and patterns and everything and there is an opportunity there. And it can go in lots of directions, you can go down, and you have the potential to put your life back together in a way that is extraordinary and I think that works for organizations like colleges as well, so to me the struggle, the chaos, the confusion, the pain that is evident to me here is difficult and a tremendous opportunity. The question then becomes: How do we respond to that chaos?�

“I travel around the country not because I have the answers to these issues, but I think we’re in a whole lot of trouble and we need all the help we can get and my work is about providing some portion of that help�