What happens when your Intellectual Home goes bust?

By Sara

Let me begin this post with a declaration -- I am an Antiochian.  I have a hard earned degree from what was, in 1957, one of the most difficult colleges to actually get into, then classified with Reed, Oberlin, Carleton, and Swarthmore on all the quality measures.  My class that entered just 50 years ago this September with 325 members, graduated in 1962 with just 140 survivors.  We got a hell of an education, given that in 1957 it was a bit unusual to send a kid from suburban Dayton to work in the Cabrini Housing Project as a group worker, less than a year after she had left High School.  But that was my education.  More educational yet -- one of the ten year old girls in one of my groups came to get me when her older sister murdered her pimp, and she thought they needed help -- could I provide?  (I called a U of Chicago Law Student and he came, helped, and got her a real lawyer.)  And that was only one day in my first Antioch Co-op Job.

There are perhaps about 16 thousand of us scattered among generations and around the country, but this week we got notified that the Board of Trustees was closing down our college.  Maybe they will re-open in 2012, but who trusts those trustees.  Yet many of us knew that this action was long long overdue.  Some few years back I was part of a project that established a trust fund if only the Antioch College could be made independent, and we raised over a million dollars.  But the Trustees would not meet with the representatives of the trust fund -- so the fund was liquidated and went to charity.  My part went as designated to  AFSC.

My relationship to Antioch is deeply rooted.  I have ancestors who were part of the founding in Ohio in the 1850's, among those who wanted to move trancendentalism a little west of the mountains, and thus a college in Yellow Springs.  None of them ever earned an Antioch Degree -- it was my Dad's dream, but he was college age in the midst of the Depression, so I suppose I had an early influence to think about the place.  Once I learned to drive in the 1950's, I spent summer days on Front Lawn watching rehersals for Shakespeare Under the Stars -- a 6 year long professional college project producing everything the guy ever wrote.   I got accepted, I got processed between 1957 and 1962, and I had a grand education.  Besides working at Cabrini I also worked for the AFSC, I worked in a Danish Bakery and on a sugar beet farm (learning language so I could attend a Social Democratic and Labor Organization school taught in Danish) and then worked for the UN in Linz Austria in a Refugee Camp, and then in Philly at the Y, and finally as the Academic Coordinator of the first Peace Corps Training camp in Putney Vermont -- training for E. Pakistan.  And all that in addition to a double major in Sociology/Anthropology and History, with an academic program that forced us all into the top 1% of the AGRE's that year.  Yep, and that college just closed up. 

I never really left Antioch behind -- could not.  In 1966 I represented the Minnesota Race and Religion community at the White House Conference, and was seated at the table of the first black Bishop in the US (New Orleans) and commented to him that half of the head table were from my little Liberal Arts College.  After the formalities, I took him in hand for introductions, yep, Coretta, and Judge Higgenbothem, and many others.  This is not about name dropping, it is about an intellectual culture that has just been put out of business. 

What happened -- well lots of crap.  The established Faculty were either let go or strongly persuated to leave in the late 1970's.  My Senior Advisor in Sociology went to U of NC, but not before he did a 900 page manuscript on what went wrong, which I have been reading over the past few days again.  Everett Wilson was the US Expert on Durkheim -- and don't I know that.  The Anthropology end of it all, ended up at State trying to persuade folk that class (Shia) was the numerical majority in Lebanon, and unless an honest census was done, they would revolt like hell.  (Antioch Degree -- Harvard PHD, Rockefeller support for field work, but when the college downsized, he went to State in R & N, and that was the end of his knowledge.)  He was much more influential writing for peer reviewed journals. 

But in 1988 I agreed to run for the Alumni Board, and was elected for two three year terms.  I love Yellow Springs profoundly, and I would, three times a year, either drive down or fly in, and in the 8 or 9 miles from the turn off on Interstate 70 and into YSO, I had this huge anticipation I was coming home.  For perhaps a day that would remain.  But by that time I had talked with enough faculty, enough students and all to question all the PR the College Flacks were feeding us, and to wonder why I had invested in an airline ticket or several tanks of gas so as to attend the meetings.  What in the hell had the Alumni Voters elected me to do??? I would drive out of Yellow Springs determined to never never be part of it again.  But then Antiochians always do that when they leave or return from Co-op, and eventually I would convince myself, going to a board meeting was just another in and out co-op. 

Among other things I learned was the truth about what is now called the College Loan scams -- the stuff that Elliot Spitzer and the NY AG is now hot on investigating.  Antioch Administrators were taking leased Lexus cars in exchange for directing loans way way back then -- it was pretty open actually.  So were most college officers all across the country.  I think it actually went down to officers in the board of trustees.  But no one would toll the bell on it all.  No one would question it in terms of academic mission.  Today, private college students pay more than the average income of a middle classed family, and they leave college with more than a hundred thousand dollars in debt on loans.  Good god -- when is someone going to say this is not sustainable?  When is someone going to ask if this is good for the culture? 

Much more to say -- many more tears to cry over the loss of a place I call my intellectual home. 

Comments

[Dismayed]

Wow, Sara. Super sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, we've lost something in our society, and I'm not sure when it slipped away - The sense of custodianship. Your small example to the environment. So few people seem to give any thought to handing over something better to the next group to go through. Community has been replaced with materialism and concern for self image. Conversation with television and constant manufactured diversion. I read 'Undaunted Courage' not so long ago, and in it Stephen Ambrose descibed how Gentlemen in Jefferson's time seemed to share a main concern of accomplishing something for their fellow man. Of being some merit to society. When's the last time you heard that - especially from a leader. I observed in the eighties, during a brief recession, how people started to take care of themselves. They drank less, spent more time on healty activities, drove smaller cars. Then the internet boom came, and I noticed almost all of the sudden, people got dumb, they spent carelessly, started smoking cigars, got fat, started driving the largest least efficient cars they could find. I think we're suffering from prosperity. I think I liked it better when things were just a little tougher all around.

[Nan]

Oh, (((Sara))) - that is so sad. Thank you for all your efforts and your passion for the institution and all that it stood for. What a shame!

[Marky]

Dismayed,
I really think people are not equipt by evolution to deal with all the possibilities for intense, immediate stimulation of all kinds---chemical, food, media---and that is the root problem.
With obesity you see the obvious outward manifestation of ancient man's body and appetites to deal with the deceptively high calorie, low nutrition chemical swill that is called food by millions of modern men. In terms of the effects on the mind of modern life, the loss of the interior space is equally serious, in my opinion, but harder to see. There are no common values because people do not have enough common experience. The average American is extremely isolated. He doesn't build up empathy through contact with others or through (heaven forbid!) reading. As I understand it, even gym instruction for kids---and important opporunity to learn socialization skills---is curtailed in many schools. (I hated gym personally, btw)

Wise people have long recognized the moral danger of out of control appetites. Morality is developed through common experience, reflection in isolation, teaching, and the personal experience of privation---even minor.
What man would want THAT when he can have a Playstation?

By the way, I don't play video games any more, but one of the things I like in the Wii TV ads is the communal game-playing they show, with people of all generations joining in for very harmless fun. Contrasting this with the blood and guts warfare games is quite interesting.

[Sara]

Well that is Antioch's Mantra.

"I read 'Undaunted Courage' not so long ago, and in it Stephen Ambrose descibed how Gentlemen in Jefferson's time seemed to share a main concern of accomplishing something for their fellow man. Of being some merit to society. When's the last time you heard that - especially from a leader."

It is profoundly hard to even type -- but "Be Ashamed to die till you have won some victory for Humanity" -- address of Horace Mann to the first graduating class at Antioch, 1853.

Two good friends of mine won that award -- it is something the alumni award actually, Stephen J. Gould, and Peter Irons. Gould of course was the well published Harvard Prof in the end -- I remember him as the kid in the class after me from NYC who had never learned to drive. I was certified on the Antioch Van, so we became friends because we were tracking the bulldozer work on I-70 for places where fossils might have been revealed in their cuts. He dealt with the Ohio Geological Survey types, I loaded the van with hammers and all, and off we went.

Peter Irons forced the FBI to climb the towers to arrest him for draft evasion in 1965. Of course he was convicted. But then Howard Zinn volunteered to visit him in Prison and help with his History PHD. Following that, he got a law degree, and is the first felon to be admitted to practice before the SC.

The place was healthy one time back.

[Sara]

Oh, Oh, perhaps folk don't know Irons contribution. He did the historical research the led to the apology by Congress for the Japanese internment, leading to the payments of twenty thousand per survivor to all who had been in the camps.

And given his connection with Thurgood Marshall, he got the tapes of oral arguments on many critical matters out of Marshall's files at the Library of Congress, and made them public. Some Felon!!!

[Beel]

This is a real tragedy in American life, along with the demise of Goddard as well. We all went to sleep in the '70s and let the fascists take over. I blame it on Tim Leary, who got out of jail on his celeb card and didn't have to pay the real price for his idiocy.

[AJ]

Thank you Sara. I found what you wrote very moving.

[bluebird]

I am so sorry Sara. I currently live near Yellow Springs, and the communities are so emotionally devastated. The Dayton newspaper has had several articles this week, http://www.daytondailynews.com/

You might need to register, but it is free.

[calugg]

My father was an Antioch student in the 1940s, never graduated, but it influenced him until the day he died.

However, by the early 1990s he thought the college was horribly managed. He and mom drove out from PA to visit me at Drake (Des Moines) and they stopped in Yellow Springs. He was horrified by the condition of the physical plant. He firmly believed the place was being run into the ground. And so, with great relunctance and a fair amount of pain, he stopped giving money.

So, the recent decision doesn't surprise me at all. As a number of commentators have pointed out, it's been a long time coming.

[bluebird]

Here is a link to a list of articles in Dayton newspaper, http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/index/news/local/antioch/index.html

[Dan Lednicer]

As an alumnus (‘52) who attended Antioch in its heyday I am somewhat saddened but not totally surprised. In
the late 40s and early 50s the school was as much renowned for its academic excellence as for its social
awareness. To cite but a few examples Antioch routinely showed up among the top ten schools in the country in a
survey conducted by the American Chemical Society (ACS) based on the number (not percentage) of students
who went on to graduate school. Two students were among first recipients of National Science Foundation
graduate fellowships; this was out of a total of 126 awarded for all science majors in the entire US. By 1985
Antioch’s chemistry department was no longer accredited by the ACS. Academic excellence was not
restricted to chemistry. The conductor/composer David Epstein and the science historian Everett Mendelson of
Harvard were fellow classmates. Recall too that Stephen Jay Gould who graduated in 1962 got his start at
Antioch. The school seems to have lost its way sometime along the 1970s coincident with nationwide student
unrest. Academic excellence seemed to have been left behind just about that time
In the mid-1990 a group of Alumni started a movement to try to detach Antioch College from the so-called
University. The effort was abandoned in the face of a refusal by the powers who ran the latter to engage in
serious discussion.

[snowbird42]

I am so sorry to hear this. I went to Antioch in 1960 when it was very ant-war and very vibrant. I think of the Glen and the protests as well as the great professors.
I grew up at Antioch. I had come from an East Coast Prep school and was very protected. Antioch was quite a lesson. The only place where folk dancing was a sport.
Thanks for your diary, Sara

[snowbird42]

Sara
When the FBI came for Peter Irons(who was from my home town in NH) I was instructed to divert them and sent them to the library so Peter could give him self up. I had forgotten so much of this.

[dipper]

Sara,
I am so sorry to read this. My husband and I have lost several pieces of our past (houses, our wedding chapel, roads, etc.), but our colleges still flourish. I can't imagine how awful that would be. My condolences to you.

[KLynn]

Sara,

Have hope. It's not gone, yet. They have promised to try and re-open in 4 years after updating the physical needs. I went to another school in the area and made efforts to spend some study break time on the weekends in Yellows Springs, at the Gorge and at Young's Dairy. I loved the influence Antioch had on my college. Professor's were planning trips with student groups to Yellow Springs all the time to go to the Little Arts Theatre for a movie- art film (the first movie theatre in the state of Ohio to show Al Gore's, An Inconveinent Truth) and then hang at the Tavern and talk politics and social awareness. Antioch students were ready to engage and talk with a depth of knowledge. Besides, with Antioch being the home of Nobel peace laureate expert, Irwin Abrams http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.0149-0508.2005.00309.x I had no choice but to spend time in Yellow Springs. My background was cross-cultural mediation/comparative war and peace studies. My advisor was a peace historian and one of Irwin's very good friends- to this day. Irwin, I think is 96. Buy his books, they are great!

I went on and interned at the UN in Geneva through a great program which studied IGO's and INGO's and received a rich history of other experiences internationally and in DC. So, Antioch, indirectly did have some influence on my own education. I trust it will open again. Like the rest of the country right now, we need hope. Cling to that hope of 2012! Besides, that area of the country is an axis mundi culturally. Some of the most conservative colleges are in the area. Some wonderful and historic African American colleges are in the area. Some moderate tilting liberal colleges are in the area. Many church affiliated colleges are in the area. There is the military influence of Wright Patt Air Force Base and the historical influence of innovations by people that changed our country for ever such as the Wright Brothers. (A branch of the Smithsonian Museum is near there too at the first Engineers Club in the US founded by the Wright Brothers) Then, there is the poet who brought racism awareness to new heights, Paul Lawence Dunbar. The Little Miami leading to the Ohio RIver. Limestone cliffs atopped with hemlocks. Rolling hills. Urban areas within a short drive to large expansive farms. Add in the rich history of Native Americans in the area and the surrounding natural beauty. Religious diversity such Mennonite communities and Amish within 35 mins. in Plain City along with strong Lutheran, Catholic, Bretheran, Baptist, AMEZion... Just to your south beautiful orchards and vinyards. And then there is Antioch. Creating students who understand sustainable growth, social service and political awareness.

This area of Ohio is a college and social microcosm of the political and socio-economic spectrum nationally. Emptywheel would love it! She should do a booksigning here!

Antioch is not closing until the Spring of 2008. Make it back. Let me know. I'll meet you at Young's with my family in tow and you will be our guest! We'll make an ice cream cone toast to the hope that the new campus uses tons of green building and becomes the most green campus in the US. I can see Antioch doing that! Solar, wind, geothermal, good thermal envelope designs, greywater catch systems and filtration. They should contact RealGoods, especially with CA campus branches! They should build the first sustainable campus in the US!

[4jkb4ia]

Oh, Sara, I am very sorry. I knew Antioch College as this flaky progressive place, passed by Oberlin in terms of prestige. But your piece showed that it had a real ethos of service. It seems that a light of thinking about education has gone out. I agree with the $100,000 debt part. The opportunity to go to a prestigious college is a constraint instead of a means to freedom because of the debt.
(My sister graduated from Mac. Has no loans.)

[William Ockham]

I spent a summer in Dayton nearly 25 years ago (grad school internship with the Kettering Foundation) and made a visit to Yellow Springs. Antioch was already in decline by that point (although as I recall the dairy was still making pretty good ice cream). I never expected the college to die though. It's a sad commentary on the values of our society, made worse by the fact that I haven't seen anything in the media about it.

[kim]

I'm also sorry to hear this about Antioch, Sarah. I applied there party because of Gould (thanks for the nice story about him), partly because of the service ethos, and partly as there was rock climbing nearby (a favorite pastime of mine in high school). I think Antioch will be back in the future.

[SaltinWound]

Sara, I don't have your connections to Antioch, but my brother went there, and I used to love visiting Yeloow Springs. I think Antioch really hurt its brand with all the extension programs around the country. We have a big one here in Los Angeles. People used to associate Antioch with a sort of unorthodox academic excellence. Now when people think of Antioch, most people think of these satellite schools. The one thing they have in common with the original college are the huge student loans people come away with.

[Peter in St. Paul, class of 69]

And then there were those other stories . Perhaps you were actually there when the last Great Awk hopped through campus on one foot. It was the left foot of course...wandering down walks and through the locked science building week after week. Finally the trail led into main building right into the president's office and straight up to the safe. When they opened the safe there was one print on the back wall of the safe...and that was the last of the "Great Awk."

Now the story is like the college...hopping along until all engergy is gone. I miss its old glory and studied tilt. I hope they can find it again.

[Peter in St. Paul, class of 69]

And then there were those other stories . Perhaps you were actually there when the last Great Awk hopped through campus on one foot. It was the left foot of course...wandering down walks and through the locked science building week after week. Finally the trail led into main building right into the president's office and straight up to the safe. When they opened the safe there was one print on the back wall of the safe...and that was the last of the "Great Awk."

Now the story is like the college...hopping along until all engergy is gone. I miss its old glory and studied tilt. I hope they can find it again.

[KLynn]

Sara,

On the flip side, I am sorry. Forgive my "glass half full" commentary. It was not intended to ignore your loss or your feelings. I just want Antioch to come back. As an instituion of learning, it has had more impact than many realize. As for the college loan situation, I agree. Unfortunately, many do not want the "American Dream" for others. So, the false hope of the student loan program ends up leaving a college or university graduating students who owe financial institutions. Grads can barely consider: paying off those loans with their first job, delaying payment for grad school, buying a home, saving up and one day, making donations to their alma mater.

It is surprising with Antioch's strong focus on sustainability, that sustainability was not a part of their operational business design.

Take care.

[tekel]

Yeah, that's a bummer. A lesson for all of us about taking the alumni association for granted I guess. We will all weep the day that Kenyon and Oberlin and Swarthmore realize that the students they produce don't given enough money to the school to sustain it and then they are forced to close their doors too.

Perhaps instead of a focus on serving others, they should have paid a little more attention on planning for the future.

about the loan steering: If it was open, and it was bad, and you were there, why didn't YOU do something about it?

[Class of '72]

Sara, This is a sad time for all alums and friends of the College. The promised reopening in 2012 is meaningless unless the College is freed from the University. That seems extremely unlikely unless the Antioch Independence Fund is revived, to explain to potential outside donors why they should insist that the College once again be master of its own house. Is the Everett Wilson ms you referred to available for others to read? It would be wonderful to have it available to those who want to understand how it has come to this. The exodus of many of the best faculty during the latter 60s is what made the College vulnerable to the 1973 battering it should have been able to take in stride. The University trustees seem as incapable now, as they were during Jim Dixon's reign, of grasping that the faculty are the heart and soul of a College. On this point, the Yellow Springs News has this to say:

"The trustees state that their intention is to reinvent the college and reopen it within five years. It’s not clear how they will raise the money to do so with a closed campus when they couldn’t do so with one that was open.

"Asked this week how, exactly, the trustees plan to reinvent the college, an administrator said they will improve the college’s facilities and provide state of the art equipment and buildings. That’s a troubling response. While the college could certainly stand some spiffing up, students never came to Antioch for the facilities. They came for its challenging, dedicated and talented faculty, who will now be lost."

The News has it right except for this: the College had lost the faculty that made it great long before. There is no hope for a revival of Antioch College unless it has an independent board and a governance structure that gives the faculty--not the trustees, not the administation--the final say over educational policy.

[P J Evans]

The story on this at CNN.com has this paragraph:
The school hopes that alumni will provide financial help, that it will attract investors and that it can develop more partnerships with the Yellow Springs community, said Mary Lou LaPierre, vice chancellor for university advancement.

I'm reading that and going 'Yeah, right. They could have had that already, if they had wanted it.'