STAFF PROFILE : Shahkar Strogler

by Alex Mette

How long have you been at Antioch?
Coming up on ten years.

Did you grow up in the area?
No, I moved here when I was thirteen.

From where?
Reston, Virginia.

How did you like growing up half here and half in Virginia? My formative years, that’s why I’m a weirdo now I guess.

I moved here when I was in high school, most people get crazy so…
So you were involved with Antioch through Yellow Springs for a good part of your life.
Oh yeah, I partied here.

Any stories about coming to Antioch?
No I can’t go there.  It was always fun, it used to be that they had a big thing about townies coming to campus so we got chased off.  People I knew stopped coming around because it was such a hassle. Continue reading STAFF PROFILE : Shahkar Strogler

Senior Profile: Gabriella Ruiz

By: Erin-Aja Grant

What are you studying? What are you getting your Degree in?
I am studying linguistics. Just a Bachelor of Arts in linguistics.

What has kept you here this year to finish out at Antioch?
Specifically, the fact that I was almost done. Um, I need to finish because I have to take care of my parents when I am done here.

What has been the thing changed the most for you since you personally have been here, from your first year to now being a fourth year?
My assertiveness, I think before, when I first got here I wasn’t a very assertive person and I didn’t really voice my opinion, because when I was growing up that wasn’t what we did. You were seen and not heard. I’ve gone through my time here and pretty much developed a voice for myself, and been able to articulate how I really feel.
Continue reading Senior Profile: Gabriella Ruiz

Against the Odds

By Erin-Aja Grant

This past weekend Antioch was alive with visitors. They were alums, town members, and the Antioch community’s first glance at the newest abbreviated in-group. The AC3, or ACCC, or Atrip, is officially named the Antioch College Continuation Corporation. This all-star alum group came to Antioch hoping to gain a community perspective on the College’s current situation. Students, faculty, and staff were provided the opportunity to interact with the ACCC Saturday in smaller groups. The AC3 members are: Frances Horowitz ‘54 (co-chair), Eric Bates ‘83 (co-chair), Laura Markham ‘80 (secretary), David Goodman ‘72 (treasurer), Steve Schwerner ’60, Catherine Jordan ’69, Lee Morgan ’69, Barbara Winslow ’68, and Terry Herndon ’57. Some of these people are familiar faces from the Alumni Board and some of them are just outright familiar names. There was no doubt that as Antioch Alums each member feels a responsibility and nostalgic love for the school, but the community still had its questions.

After breakfast planning, the day kicked off at 10am with a community meeting. It started with Andrzej Bloch, who made a few brief remarks concerning the recient power outage on campus. The meeting proceeded with an introduction by the ACCC members, and a brief presentation on the new corporation. McGregor 113 was packed with Yellow Springs residents, faculty, staff, and students. Many people said during the meeting, and after, that they were confused by the presence of Glenn Watts. Watts, the former CFO of the college, stated that he was only there to record the events happening and is no longer affliated with the University or its board. Continue reading Against the Odds

Editorial by Jeanne Kay

On September 1st, 2006 I was walking through the streets of Yellow Springs, two huge suitcases behind me, looking for Antioch College. I hadn’t visited before. I didn’t know what any American college looked like. (Actually, I still don’t know.)

I got scared at first. I’ve told the story many times of how I missed the class photo because I was busy sobbing “I want to go hoooome” in Weston Hall. I was twenty one years old and had crossed two oceans, two straits, one canal in the past three years but I was scared to death. It was the first time I had to live on my own, as an adult, in the world. At 16 I had dropped out of school, and at 18 I had raised anchor to flee an unbearable reality and sworn to come back only when I felt strong enough to fight everything that had made me leave in the first place. But I felt completely lost, helpless and had no idea what to do with myself when I first set foot on the Antioch campus. Something had been missing from the trip, apparently, because I didn’t remember why I was here or what in me made me believe that I was up to the task of living in the real world.

Continue reading Editorial by Jeanne Kay

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