Antioch Alumni Strike Deal to Take Control of Closed College

An Antioch College alumni group has hammered out a deal to take control of the shuttered college, which is now owned by Antioch University. After years of decline, Antioch College declared financial exigency and suspended operations in 2007.

However, the college’s intensely devoted alumni have been working for the past two years on a college-continuation plan, which has hit roadblocks in the past. Another deal to take over the college fell apart last year.

Now, it seems, the alumni have cleared a major hurdle. The alumni association will pay $6-million to obtain the college’s endowment, its campus, and a nature preserve near the campus, in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The deal is contingent on approvals from state officials, including the attorney general of Ohio, and from the university’s bond holders.

Even if those conditions are met, there is still work to be done before Antioch can reopen. Buildings on the 150-year-old campus are in desperate shape. The alumni association has been raising money to reopen the college, but the costs of renovation, combined with the dismal economy, may prove challenging.

However, even amid tough times and the controversy of the college’s closing, the alumni had raised $10-million toward the renewal of the campus and its reopening, said Matt Derr, the Antioch College Continuation Corporation’s chief transition officer.

“I think the exciting opportunity that we have is that we can create a business model for this economy,” he said. “I say this with my tongue firmly in cheek: We’re not dependent on endowment income. … We tend to think that we will embrace this economy, stay small, and fund a small program.”

He said that the campus needs about $25-million in renovation and maintenance. Some buildings on the campus will be demolished before the college reopens. Mr. Derr said that the campus’s historic structures would be preserved — that, in fact, they are in better shape than some of the buildings from the 1950s and 1960s.

In an article in the Yellow Springs News, Mr. Derr said that the college would start out small after reopening. Its budget would be $4.5-million, about a third of what it was in 2007. The college, which would get 60 percent of its revenue from tuition, would enroll 70 students in its first year and slightly more than 200 after five years, according to plans, the article says. —Scott Carlson