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.

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Letter from Bob Devine ’67

   I am more than a little disappointed that continued financial exigency is a part of the agreement.  The original declaration of financial exigency was based on (a) rapidly declining enrollments (in which the
Board played a major role), (b) large deficits (made larger by Board policy with regard to depreciation and COLLEGE endowment growth), (c) projected continuing decline in enrollment and revenue (cast as pessimistically as possible), and (d) cash flow problems. Continue reading Letter from Bob Devine ’67

Letter from Steve Mooser ‘72

To Antioch Students,

I am over at a conference in Europe and immersed in the duties of participating in that.  I read the NYTimes dispatch which indicated in part that after the initial euphoria among students last Saturday, there was concern because nothing in the “historic agreement” was firm and permanent about the future of the college.  There are multiple conditions, provisions and questions.
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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

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?