Veteran Washington Post writer (and Antioch College graduate, class of 1969...she was in charge of makeup on THE ANTIOCH ADVENTURE PART ONE [1967] movie, now a classic about Antioch Colelge) Meg Rosenfeld answered a scathing attack on Antioch College predictably mounted by famous right wing zealot and ideologue George Will, who went to Princeton U. and didn't learn much about why America became great due to education away from Princeton U.
Her letter to the editor/ op ed piece is wonderful! Thank you, Meg '69! George Will stands corrected!
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Here is what Meg wrote in response to the George Will story attacking and defaming Antioch College ( a long time activity of the right wing press and its zealot spokesmen):
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Taking Exception
Save My Oddball Alma Mater
By Megan Rosenfeld
Saturday, July 21, 2007; Page A13
Geez, what did Antioch College ever do to George F. Will? My alma mater is on the skids, gasping for breath, and Will kicks sand in its face [" Forfeited Glory," op-ed, July 15].
It's easy to make fun of Antioch, which announced last month that lack of money would force it to close at the end of the coming academic year, 156 years after its founding. But why not look beyond cheap shots about hippies and radicals and ask why Antioch should be saved?
Bard College President Leon Botstein said recently that the closing of Antioch would be a "tragedy" and that the school is the "unfair victim" of liberals' failure to give money to higher education (he noted that most instead endow programs to eradicate poverty and discrimination and to take on other worthwhile causes). As Botstein pointed out, small, independent colleges such as Antioch are needed to help preserve the goals of a free and just society and to educate those who will demand the responsive government we all deserve.
We need people who do not accept the status quo. "Antioch taught me to speak up for myself," one graduate said at a recent meeting of shocked alums in Washington. We need people who have learned -- in addition to history and science -- to question authority.
There are a lot of reasons the school is going under, as fierce Internet traffic among alumni in recent weeks has shown. Blame it on the over-the-top radicals and the wimpy administrators of the 1970s; blame it on the tight-fisted alumni who felt unloved and responded in kind. Blame it on the multiple campuses and the unworkable governing structure that reigned over all with split focus and at times neglect. Blame it on lousy presidents, and the culture of consumerism, and, oh heck, blame it on Lindsay Lohan, too.
But don't blame it on a failure of liberalism. That's much too simple.
Institutions that experiment with the content of higher education, such as Antioch's co-op job program combining classroom learning with real-world experience, often have a tough time keeping ahead of their mandate for innovation. The co-op job program, for example, has been obviated by the ubiquitous institution of internships and summer jobs for most college students. Other progressive schools, such as Bard, have found that courses in Greek, Latin and Sanskrit are avant-garde. But Antioch should be allowed to carry on its role as a laboratory for higher education. Our mistakes often save other schools time and money.
When my husband was at Yale, the unofficial motto was, "We go to school to learn to rule." Maybe that's one reason they have a $20 billion endowment. Our motto is, "Be ashamed to die before you have won some victory for humanity." Maybe that's why we don't.
(The motto of Trinity College, George Will's alma mater, is, "Pro Ecclesia et Patria" -- for church and country. Not quite as inclusive as "humanity," but I'm not criticizing.)
Our small campus in Ohio has always been a target for anyone with an anti-progressive bent. When I was there in the late '60s, the tiny Ohio chapter of the Ku Klux Klan regularly marched down the main street of campus, apparently under the assumption that if Antioch vanished, the Klan's racism could flourish. Some of us set up lemonade stands and watched the marchers from the sidelines.
The sexual-conduct pledge of the early '90s came in for a lot of derision -- but from what I've read and heard, date rape is not a problem at Antioch as it is on other campuses. All colleges today are petri dishes of social issues. When my son entered Temple University -- a large, public, urban school -- six years ago, he had to sign a pledge not to bring guns into his dorm. I talked recently with a woman who left Smith College a decade ago because she felt overwhelmed by pressure to be a lesbian. Antioch is not alone in incubating a kind of monolithic radicalism that allows for little deviation from leftist mantras. Our college leaders are aware of this problem and are wondering how to fix it.
Antioch has produced a suitable number of MacArthur "genius" award winners, doctors and lawyers, if that's how you measure success. The proportion of Antiochians going on to get PhDs is one of the highest in the nation. We are proud to have never had a football team or a fraternity. To the best of my knowledge, "beer pong" was not invented on our campus.
Most of us alumni -- who raised nearly $500,000 for an Antioch revival fund over the recent reunion weekend -- do not want to preserve the starving, attenuated Antioch of today. We want our robust, challenging school back, the one that gave a home to oddballs of all kinds, that allowed the marketplace of ideas to flourish and that had a sense of humor.
If George Will hates us, we must be doing something right.
Megan Rosenfeld, a graduate of Antioch College, is a Washington writer and former Post reporter. Her e-mail address isrosenfeldm@verizon.net.
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(Contact me directly at YazzAllen@Yahoo.Com)
