The following is a list of albums that were released this year that I did not have the space to review, but recommend no less. Hopefully you’ll see something that catches your interest and inspires you to look it up. Ummm…… yeah, smoke babies. Oh, and P.S., go to www.slsknet.org for the best file sharing program ever. Pipes!
Tag: development
CSK Center Candidate Visits Campus
In its search for a new director, the Coretta Scott King Center (CSKC) for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom conducted its first interview on campus last Tuesday with candidate Dana Patterson. Two more candidates are expected.
The director’s job description is ambitious. He or she must serve as a special assistant to the president on institutional diversity. He or she must also sit on the presidential staff group in order to ensure that when the cabinet discusses campus issues, the importance of diversity is a part of the conversation. In addition to that, the director must raise funds for the CSKC. Continue reading CSK Center Candidate Visits Campus
Letter from Callie Cary
“In our society the two institutions commissioned to provide the substance of a democratic public sphere, as a place for critical nquiry, are the news media and academia.�
This quote comes from a review of David Horowitz’s book “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America� by 1979 alumnus Robert McCheseney entitled “David Horowitz and the Attack on Independent Thought,� “ in which both McCheseney and Antioch alum Gordon Fellman ‘57 are included.
Robert McCheseney is a Research Professor in the Institute of Communications Research and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
Changing campus culture in the name of intellectual freedom is certainly not a new theme in the higher education community. The larger question is how is the term intellectual freedom being defined and by whom? Are the standards universally applied to everyone in the community, and who or what are the arbiters of those standards? And finally, what are the intended educational outcomes of these cultural changes?
It was made clear by President Lawry in his first address at Community Meeting last spring, as well as at subsequent meetings with the Alumni Board and alumni groups around the country, that he seemed to arrive with an agenda, a preconceived opinion about the campus culture and the governance system.
According to the President’s assessment, as stated in “Lawry Challenges Campus Culture; Students Troubled� (Yellow Springs News, 10/5/06), students are too confrontational, lack mutual respect and social maturity, are self-indulgent, use menacing language, and speak irresponsibly, and all these behaviors lead to an anti-intellectual, closed community that prevents students from being able to “embrace the full spectrum of ideas and opinions, without prejudgment….� The article goes on to say that Lawry feels that “A less threatening campus…will help the College retain some of the students who tend to leave Antioch because they feel attacked by other students.�
Where did the President’s perspective come from after such limited exposure to the student body, or anyone else in the community? Is this based on anecdotal information provided by those who oriented him before his arrival? In his presentations, Lawry sites a conversation he had with a student while he was on campus being interviewed for the presidency- a student who had said that he might transfer out of Antioch because he felt uncomfortable with the campus culture. Lawry has also mentioned how a student wearing Nike sneakers got attacked for not being more sensitive to the scourge of sweatshop production. OK, but is there some concrete data to support the theory that the campus culture is the main reason we lose students, or why students don’t come to Antioch? Past data from the exit interviews conducted by the Dean of Students Office over the years has shown that students leave for a variety reasons, including financial, social, academic, developmental, and finding a dream co-op, but very rarely because of campus culture and climate. According to existing data, there has never been one overriding reason for student attrition.
And so, it’s been almost 10 months since this message was first delivered. What steps have been taken to change the campus culture? Apparently, the governance system has been targeted as an axis of confrontation and is described as “out of control� and combative with the administration.
I am puzzled by this assessment. I served on Community Council (ComCil) in 05/06 and was extremely impressed with the high and civil level of discourse between faculty, staff and students, the student chair’s oversight of the meetings, the humor and creativity of the members, and the overall sense of responsibility members felt for the community. We debated, persuaded, challenged, changed our minds, built consensus and agonized over some difficult and frustrating situations on the campus. We also made every effort to engage with the administration to orient the new President to the Council’s purpose, and to express concern over some of the decisions that were being made without any consultation with Comcil, decisions that had historically been brought to Comcil for deliberation and input.
Although at times a very frustrating experience, for me as an alum, it defined one of Antioch’s core values and part of its mission – to create informed risk takers through participation in a laboratory of democratic decision- making. It would be a mistake to define Antioch’s system of governance as a locus of power for all decision- making, but it would be equally misguided to discredit and ignore the significant educational implications of the decision-making process that happens within this system.
Community governance at Antioch provides one of the most unique educational experiences the College has to offer and, if properly facilitated, allows all community members to feel some ownership and responsibility for the community in which they live and work. For students, these skills are further developed and tested in the various co-op communities they enter around the globe. It is this praxis that, with trial and error, teaches students some sense of humility and cultural mobility. It is the ingredient that helps to turn out so many interesting, entrepreneurial, and, yes, outspoken graduates. Last year Antioch College had three graduating students receive Fulbright awards. That sort of intellectual inquiry doesn’t happen in a vacuum!
I have never understood the concern that oppositional perspectives, be they conservative or radical, are somehow oppressed at Antioch.
Antioch alumni, young and old, have always been represented throughout the political spectrum. I know for a fact that Republicans and radicals (some now democrats) actually sit side-by-side with each other as Trustees and Alumni Board members! The alumni work in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors, many are organizers, artists and educators, but regardless of their path, most feel passionately about their values. The alumni take Antioch’s first President Horace Mann’s dictum “Be ashamed to die until you win some victory for humanity� very seriously.
There are some very real challenges facing Antioch right now, and while there is nothing inherently wrong with working on creating a campus that promotes open dialog, the administration needs to be sure to walk the talk and to create a forum that builds consensus around what the walk is…and maybe what shoes should be worn. I would also hope that energy is quickly shifted to other institutional priorities with specific steps being outlined on how best to address the recruitment and retention of students and faculty of color, improving the physical plant, supporting faculty moral, professional development and the integrity of tenure, and building a culture of mutual respect and labor incentives for the union workers, exempt staff and middle managers.
Top-down decision-making rarely has any educational value and it generally doesn’t promote a climate of mutual respect or intellectual freedom. If retention, recruitment and fund raising are the priorities right now (as they have been for decades), the entire Antioch community should be embraced as ambassadors, future alumni, future donors, future leaders, and advocates of an extraordinary educational experience that has held a truly unique place in the landscape of higher education.
Callie Cary ‘84
Second-generation alum and former Director of Alumni Relations
No Sex In The City
by Marjorie Jensen
A personal tragedy has overshadowed my ongoing deconstruction of privilege. There are wars overseas I could be discussing. “Community Government� is an AdCil agenda item. But I have to speak about the dead. I hope my prose-form elegy will move you, dear reader, to feel some empathy (or sympathy, as the case may be).
I mourn the loss of a loved one. It is an unfamiliar death. Last Saturday, at the penultimate moment of passion, my vibrator died. I have had to revive my most constant and loyal lover with the occasional battery or two, but death was never this permanent before. No matter how much I shook with tears in my eyes, I could not bring life back.
Now, you have to understand how long we have been together. I spotted this pink, sparkly piece of ecstasy over six years ago. Others have tempted me, but I usually couldn’t afford them anyway. Mine was uncomplicated, somewhat realistic, the perfect size. Reliable, you know. It never changed between us. Things were never awkward.
I never expected my most steadfast lover to abandon me in the city, to leave me alone so suddenly in a cold (and windy) metropolis. I have fretful dreams. Nights seem longer. I am uncomforted, frustrated. The loss of something without life leaves me mystified. How do I cope with this unexpected loss? Does everyone grieve differently?
I suppose I should think of it as an opportunity to buy something I’ve really wanted, something special and new. But the obsession with the familiar is unshakable. I crave the one I know and have loved. How do I find another exactly like the one that has died? I live with wanting and waiting. I hesitate to replace, to dismiss.
I have to escape somehow, forget my loss, and begin to love again. I live under the cruel, Petrarchan hand of the subject of my research- Elizabeth Regina. She speaks of a perfect courtier that pursues her with no intent to capture. I see her everywhere. She permeates my textsher gendered rhetoric correlating Twelfth Night to The Maid’s Tragedy. In all their women I see her words reflected. “To think of making love by sentiments!� Sterne speaks to me from the reading for class tomorrow, mocking not only the conventions of travel literature. I’ve been trying to seduce with words Gloriana of Spenser’s imagination; the ultimately unattainable woman outside my text. She is a signature under my hand, a poem written in Latin. I have only remnants.
While this Renaissance Queen has captured my days, my nights still beg to be filled. I work late hours on the weekend, playing hacky-sack, in Jimmy John’s apron and all, to fill the quiet before the storm hits at about 2am. My co-workers make me forget in my laughter. We make enough in our tip jar to go out for breakfast. We close the store as the morning crew unlocks the door behind us.
I mindlessly enter data in my comfortable cube in the Development office at the Newberry after events. Before bed, I try yoga, familiar movies, drinks with kids from JJ’s. Nothing eases me into sleep. I lie awake and remember years together, unfailing, perfect, effortless. I know I have to find another to make this cycle of half-living end.
Coming to the end of this conceit, I find I have no more euphemisms to shroud my loss. I’ll invoke New-Age magic to heal me. Hitachi’s wand awaits me online. I’m sure my quest will have a happy ending.
Broke
by Marjorie JensenÂ
As tautological as it may sound, Chicago is an expensive city. Between only the most essential groceries and envelopes marked “Antioch Business Office,� unexpected bills found me miles from my “current mailing address.� My pithy checks signed by the President of the Newberry don’t cover half of these costs. I had to find a second job. I wasn’t surprised.
The second store within a few blocks of my apartment with a “Help Wanted� sign offered Caitlin and I jobs moments after turning in our applications. I am now an exhausted employee of Jimmy John’s sub shop. In fact, I have to leave for work in exactly two hours. Do I like it? It offers me something that the Newberry doesn’t: working-class people.
Now, I’m not implying uneducated. Some of the kids go to various colleges in Chicago. Most are just refreshingly down-to-earth. Take Kenny, one of our delivery drivers (read bike messenger with subs), informing us about where the elastic in his boxers had begun to separate from the rest. Davorah, our manager, asked him to clean the lower racks of the cold table (where we make our subs).
“I told you about my underwear,� he replied, unwilling to bend over. It breaks up the monotony.
JJ’s is open late on the weekends (by late, I mean until 5am) and we are on Division Street (read one of the most expensive bar districts in Chicago). My Friday nights are spent listening to the mantra of my manager, Matt: “bathrooms are for customers only,� to the rich, drunken “douchebags� with popped collars. He changes the CD to Mindless Self Indulgence and sighs as they ignore him.
These are the kids who couldn’t afford to take most of the “public� programs offered at the Newberry. We have a master schedule in the Development Office’s ‘S’ drive in the computer network. The ‘Sacred and Profane: The Art of the Tale’ workshop that I would love to take is 8 sessions for $160. I couldn’t afford it. I’m only at Antioch (and the Newberry) thanks to lots and lots of financial aid.
I invite my fellow Fellows to visit me at JJ’s. Some do, bringing me cigarettes and hugs. They are sad that I can’t go out with them. But they understand and are encouraging, calling my JJ’s uniform sexy. I appreciate that white lie. Caitlin is a riot to work with. We dance in the ‘back of house,’ as it were. Others are reluctant.
“I didn’t know if you would feel comfortable with me visiting you at work; seeing you in a subservient position like that,� said Laura from Beloit.
Really, it’s okay. I’m used to it. I’ve been working-class all my life. It does make for a strange relationship with the academy. Higher education is generally run by and for rich, white men. I chose Antioch, in part, to try to escape the elitist mentality of many institutions. Even our radical, left-wing haven has its literati and men earning drastically more than women. A microcosm, truly.
My Wednesday nights belong to the events at the Newberry. We held a pleasant reception for the Book Fair Volunteers. John Notz, the chair of the Fair that has been going on for twenty years, spoke briefly. He was proud of the work they had done- theirs was the only program that reached out to Marx’s proletariat. He hedged around that term, instead calling them:
“Those people who come to buy their year’s worth of romance novels for a few dollars.� Not the educated elite. Not those who have the money or cultural capital (as Bourdieu would say) to attend most of the events. Not those who receive Gala invitations with themed giving brackets (ie. Lords and Ladies being higher donors than the Knights and Damsels at the Elizabeth event).
The following Wednesday held the opening of ‘The Aztecs and the Making of Colonial Mexico’ event. I have been preparing the RSVP list, name-tags, signs, and various other internish projects for over a month now. The names on that list include the General Consul of Mexico, many members of the Board of Trustees and friends (read large donors) of the library.
I sat behind the check-in tables, anxiously awaiting 323 people that RSVP’ed. We didn’t make enough name tags. Many not on the list arrived, complaining about their name not being in the alphabetized collection spread out in front of us. We put out more chairs frantically. Eventually, David Spadafora, the President of the Newberry, took the mike to introduce the General Consul.
“We have not had sufficient contact with the Mexican-American community of Chicago,� he began. He continued, explaining that this event was an attempt to bring much-needed diversity to the library. The first step in solving any problem is admitting to it. The second is discussing it. I encourage students to come to the library, be part of the program and part of the solution.