The original can be found on the SaveAntioch mailing list.
1) The Board did not actually deal with alternative scenarios for dealing with the College's financial difficulties, such as (a) merging McGregor and the College, (b) closing another center of the University, (c) liquidating the endowment, (d) bailing out of the so-called Renewal Plan that the Trustees imposed on the College. Some of these may be drastic, but they provide viable alternatives to closing the flagship campus. They did not consult with the faculty, the alumni Board, the Village or the major donors in deciding on a course of closing;
2) The Board did not take responsibility for the financial condition of the College. Policies on depreciation and adult-campus subsidies implemented by the Board made it impossible to balance the College's budget. The Board imposed a "renewal plan" on the College that involved re-tooling the curriculum (which was not what needed to be fixed), projecting a five year transition period, and promising to provide the resources for the transition. The plan resulted in the College moving from 650 students to below 300 in just two years, along with a dramatic rise in attrition. A large percentage of the Trustees did not contribute to the Renewal Plan, and the Board did not raise the funding to support the transition. After two years, without taking responsibility for the situation, the Board pulled the plug by announcing the closing of the College;
3) The Board proposes to raise sufficient funding to improve the campus, to reinvent the College, and to reopen in 2012. If the Board was unable to raise sufficient funding to implement the 5-year "Renewal Plan", I'm wondering about the possibility of raising the magnitude of funding required to restart the College from scratch -- with an improved and high tech campus during the four years that the College is closed. Further, the Board's vague proposal for reopening the College takes no account of the requirements for maintaining the existing campus in a mothballed state;
4) The Board failed to acknowledge the transfer of assets from the College to Antioch University. In the process of closing the College, the University walks away with the Glen, AEA, the library, the campus, its buildings and infrastructure, the endowment and the brand;
5) The Board has failed to explain, rationalize or reconcile their action in authorizing the new McGregor building. This project, undertaken concurrently with the College's deepest financial difficulties, encumbered the bulk of the institution's borrowing capacity, and used the resources of the institution to leverage the development of a branch campus, rather than the flagship campus. The contrast is obvious here in the Village; a new building rises on the outskirts of town, while the legacy institution languishes and is closed.
Again, my 2 cents.
Bob
Comments
thank you, bob
that's all i wanted to say.. just thank you, bob.
excellent information
Thanks Bob, for putting together this bullet point list. It will be useful in drafting the many letters that need to be sent ASAP.
This situation is absolutely appalling. Closing the flagship campus without ANY involvement of the Antioch community is inexcusable. I received one fundraising letter about 10 year ago and that was it. I most definitely didn't get a red alert email, letter or phone call appeal saying that the College was in such dire straits as to require closing and could I help.
Just as should have happened with Gonzales, I believe that vote of no confidence in the current Board and President is in order.
No Antioch, No Way
Trustees Must be Turned Around or Locked Out
Vision & Stature
For many, and not just alums, Antioch College has been a crown jewel, perhaps even the crown jewel, of college education in this country and perhaps beyond. Number three among colleges in Macarthur genius awards. Long among the highest in Graduate Record Exam standings, among many other academic as well as broader standards of liberal arts education. Current postings show Antioch has even been very highly rated in scientific education. As the first, and perhaps still, the unique liberal arts college in use of work-study programs, it contributes in myriad ways to our nation and the world. Its gender and racial equality policies go back far beyond even the Arthur Morgan era of the 1920s and 1920s. Despite the disastrous over-reaching attempts over the recent decades to spawn off-shoots, there is not one sign of a replacement.
Tradition & Decline
When some of us attended Antioch the ratio of applicants to admissions was one of the highest in the nation. The impact of the total Antioch experience on students and their life work has been imponderable. The production of broad-minded and vigorous liberals was without parallel. Only the mush-brained liberalism of those who oversaw the hijacking of the College, leaning far over backward for students who should never been admitted and apparently the professional avarice of Trustees who, we are now informed by former Trustees, disdain the College in favor of their satellite so-called University operations can explain the new Antioch College, a sad ‘ghost’ of its former preeminence.
Social Ferment & Social Chaos
Since the 1930s increased concern for economic as well as social progress in the great advances for labor and civil rights expressed in the Franklin Roosevelt New Deal, Antioch has been a national college, with substantial recognition from California to New York and a student body to match. But families and their prospective students from major urban centers have not been conned by the mushy-brained liberalism of recent years and shifted their application focus to second choice colleges, as my sons did, one to Harvard and his brother to another Ivy League school. Proper investments in staff and facilities rehabilitation as well as balanced attitudes toward students is urgently needed to reverse that grotesque decline, graphically depicted in Michael Goldfarb’s Op Ed article in the New York Times yesterday, June 17.
Outrage & Action
Time for whining about decay and maudlin recollection is over. The modest endowment was over $60,000,000 and it is still reported to be $30,000,000, not chicken feed, if enough to whet the appetite of carnivorous satellites. It must be used to restore the College, not continue to bleed the College dry in favor the questionable satellites, which cannot possibly compare in their significance to the College. It is vainly but devoutly to be wished that the current outrageous Trustee pronunciamento is merely a ‘clever’ bid for contributions. But more likely, effective action must be taken to reverse the decision, by court injunction if necessary, and replace the Board of Trustees with those concerned about the College, not just the so-called University. Very simply, it clear the Trustees failed both in their most basic substantive obligations as well as in decent and transparent process. Even in this era of indulgent corporate malfeasance, such actions bring jail terms. I’m getting a bit old for civil disobedience but surely some could hang and/or burn in effigy the malefactor Trustees. Or a court ordered injunction.
Perhaps all good things end, but the current national nightmare demands more, not less, Antioch education.
Surely the so-called Right Winger pols, pundits, and related Neros are celebrating this grotesque event. Is it possible there is more than money involved, or more behind the money problem? The abrupt action others document suggests guilty manipulation now common in our federal executive offices.
My wife and I, as well as classmates, found our life roles absolutely transformed to enable manifestation of Horace Mann’s dictum. Three of my children did not attend but now, well into their very different careers, they have also fulfilled that vision.
There may not be a lot of Arthur Morgans out there, but Bob Devine or perhaps some nominee of his must be drafted to restore some decency to this essential institution.
The hijacking must cease.
As our only elected Bush president, Bush 41, used to say, ‘This will not stand.’
BobBogen@hotmail.com