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.

Continue reading From The Editors

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 Michael Casselli ’87

Shit, where to start? The current situation has served to divide the community instead of bringing it together. The amount of information/ disinformation has reached such a level that I feel overwhelmed in trying to determine where exactly we are. Sure the school is staying open, but if we are reading the Agreement and the Resolution co rectly, at what cost? There has to be a community-wide clarification from the body that represented Antioch, the AB, as to what exactly the terms are. I also believe that the role of the AB must change, from being the self-appointed vanguard of this fight, to being a secondary player, helping to support the members of the community that are directly affected by the situation at the college. Continue reading Letter from Michael Casselli ’87

“Antioch’s Near Death and Revival as a Learning Experience” – Michael Brower ’55

  Antioch College is based on both classroom and real world learning.  Let’s look at our recent Near-Death and Revival asking What happened? What did and didn’t work?  What could we learn?  Here are my own 12 learning areas.

1. Organizing, not blaming.  What worked was not complaining and blaming, but lots of organizing and dialogue with help from everybody – Faculty, Students, Alums, AND from the majority of Trustees, who, believe it or not, really do want Antioch College to survive, be healthy, and thrive.  Lesson?  Involve, don’t blame. Continue reading “Antioch’s Near Death and Revival as a Learning Experience” – Michael Brower ’55

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.
Continue reading Letter from Steve Mooser ‘72