October 18, 2008

AAUP to Investigate Closing of Antioch College

The American Association of University Professors plans to investigate whether Antioch University violated faculty-governance standards when it shut down Antioch College.

The Yellow Springs News, in Ohio, reported on Friday that the AAUP sent a letter this month to Antioch leaders informing them of the investigation. Anita Levy, an associate secretary of the association, told the newspaper that the group was concerned that professors had not been properly consulted and that their due-process rights had been violated. An ad hoc committee of professors from around the country who have not been involved in the case will conduct the investigation.

Antioch University’s chancellor, Tullisse A. Murdock, told the newspaper she would meet with other Antioch University campus presidents to devise a response to the AAUP letter. But she also noted that four teams of financial and legal experts had already analyzed Antioch’s ledgers and determined that the financial exigency that led to closing the college was necessary.

The university said in 2007 that it was unable to weather the operating deficits of the 156-year-old college and announced that is was closing it down until it came up with a different operating plan or found a buyer. Earlier this year, it appeared the university was close to a deal to sell the college to a new corporation led by alumni and former trustees. But those talks fell apart. —Scott Smallwood

Comments

1. The world is a better place with Antioch closed. Good riddance.

   — Take Back the U!    Oct 18, 07:29 PM    #

2. Suspect strongly I do that if the AAUP conduct a competent and unbiased investigation, they’ll find that a major problem at Antioch was little or no governance at all — except maybe by extremist students who had little or no use for academic freedom but their own. I concur with (2); they should have shut the joint down years ago.

   — Joseph f Foster    Oct 18, 08:14 PM    #

3. The good thing about Antioch was that they were truthful about their bias and their agenda. They were much more honest than the dozens of other “Antiochs” out there who hide the exact same bias and agenda from unsuspecting incoming students. Since Antioch had to close due to low enrollment, it’s not too hard to figure out why.

   — Red State University    Oct 18, 08:53 PM    #

4. Those in charge of Antioch University appear to be most interested in education-as-profit-making and their own careers, or they would not have made the very ignorant choice to close one of the country’s finest educational institutions.

   — Antioch College WILL BE BACK    Oct 18, 10:43 PM    #

5. Joseph F. Foster: I’m not sure I understand your impression of Yoda-speech (verb and adverb preceding first person subject; disagreement in number between subject and verb). I wonder, though, if your institution can match Antioch College in claiming 2 Nobel prize winners, 7 MacArthur genius recipients, 2-3 Fulbright fellows annually, a Poet Laureate, top numbers nationally in PhD productivity, and scores of CEOs of the nation’s most responsible non-profits and most successful corporate enterprises. And the reason it should have been shut down years ago? I’m sorry to disappoint you, fg and Take Back the U, but Antioch College will be back in the very near future.

   — Robert Devine    Oct 19, 12:41 AM    #

6. TO AAUP on investigation of Antioch Closing

   Antioch should never have accepted the New Directions diversity project in the early 1970s without adequate staff and funding to avoid the catastrophic violence that followed. The foundation funded experiment was much like the recent Sub-Prime mortgage insanity. In each case many unqualified were led to accept funding without any of the usual financial or other abilities to survive. Law breaking students should have been jailed. George Will and other native fascists were jubilant to hear Antioch Closed.

   The so-called Antioch University has no legitimate claim to use the word Antioch in its name, particularly after it bled dry the college endowment, closed the college doors this summer after corrupting the curriculum to the point where admissions could no longer be generated. Staff, professors, students and alumni were not informed, much less participants as in the traditional and landmark Antioch governance system, and in the decision to close the college. There is some evidence, in the leadership and members of the university Board of Trustees, that members of the military-industrial complex were active on the Board and in its decision.

   Aside from most widely known graduates Coretta Scott King [Both she and her husband Martin spoke at graduation ceremonies.] and Rod Serling [creater of the classic TV series Twilight Zone], Antioch has been a major force for national progress. For generations Antioch had been known for its production of leaders in the arts and in the sciences: Nobel Prize winners, extraordinary numbers of MacArthur Genius Awards, and even in recent years among the top twenty American colleges to generate PhDs in a wide variety of disciplines. It is impossible to over-estimate the loss if it is not to be regenerated.

   Pathetic and ignorant dismissive comments by lemmings in other Comments only confirm the sad state of our society. This reflects an age of unjustified calamitous wars, official use of torture, suicidal refusal to deal with global warming, catastrophic corruption of our financial and economic system, and other grotesque blunders that result from our short-sighted educational systems and threaten our nation’s future and even the world. This is how nations decline and species collapse. Unique schools like Antioch can help us avoid the fate of once proud Egypt, Persia, Meso-America, Greece, Rome, Spain, France, Germany, the British Empire, etc etc.

   BKB, Antioch 1953

   — Bob Bogen    Oct 19, 02:58 AM    #

7. The biscuits were cold….that is what I heard.

   A good residential college has to have good food service. Dietary considerations were elements in the fall of all the major societies that have fallen. Diversity of ideas really dont add anything to society..what really matters is a flavorful menu that ranges the three hundred and seventy four food groups.

   If the AAUP would join up with the American Dietetics Society, the whole thing might be fixed, but dont forget that too many cooks make for accidents with cutting devices.

   — mnh    Oct 19, 12:07 PM    #

8. The obvious response to this announcement is So What? The AAUP has no standing in the substantive issues. What, AAUP is going to keep the place open? The AAUP standards on shared governance are pretty clear in acknowledging that faculty have only a voice, and not the say so, in matters of budget and programs. If the Antioch faculty are so vital and essential, then let them open a New Antioch — oh wait, they would have to get the money together, and then actually be responsible for running the place. How about this – the aggrieved faculty could offer their services for free in the name of academic freedom and ideal.

   — gtg    Oct 19, 01:43 PM    #

9. Bob Bogen – excellent post – too bad those who think intelligence is not of any value can not seem to think past a snappy sound bite.

   — Antioch College WILL BE BACK    Oct 19, 09:19 PM    #

10. #7
    Ooooooo! I had no idea one small “college” in southwest Ohio was so critical to the survival of mankind! Kinda puts the recent world survey of best colleges on its ear. Someone better inform Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge. In fact, for the survival of the species, let’s make it mandatory that everyone attend Antioch. Too much hangs in the balance. Let’s just shut down all the other colleges and universities so that when someone says, “Oh, I’m attending university,” everyone knows they mean Antioch.

    In fact, I think everyone’s got the wrong idea in bringing back Antioch as a college. It needs to be brought back in the form that Bob and so many others properly revere it – as a church. Just change the name to the Antioch Universal Church of Radical Progressivism. Oops!, I’m sorry. Radical Progressivism is redundant. Just call it the Antioch Universal Church of Progressivism. Of course, the faith will have to become the national religion. Christianity will have to be banned in the public square in favor of it. Ooops! sorry again. That’s already happening. Well, that just means the church is already well on its way to global dominance. Ooops! sorry once more. That’s already happened.

    Remember, Bob, the first one to call another fascist loses the argument and his credibility.

    — Red State University    Oct 20, 07:48 AM    #

11. Antioch College was a great institution, and its closure is a terrible loss for higher education.

    — Laurie Paul    Oct 20, 08:54 AM    #

12. Again I marvel at the presence of so many Know Nothings among the CHE online readership. Going strictly by the comment sections, these people comprise about 35% of the total! Why, one wonders, do they even read the Chronicle? To keep up with their enemies, maybe? To ensure that the university-as-trade-school contingent is represented?

    — BertW    Oct 20, 09:44 AM    #

13. Amazing that the rest of the world sees the U.S. as an incredibly religious, Christian-dominated nation, while so many Christians in the U.S. seem to feel that their religion is under threat of being outlawed. Red State, you don’t know what religious intolerance is until you’ve been an adherent of a minority religion, or no religion at all!

    However, Red State, I do agree with you about Bob’s over-the-top comments.

    — swish    Oct 20, 10:49 AM    #

14. As for the New Antioch, gtg, former faculty of Antioch College are currently teaching in Yellow Springs: nonstopinstitute.org. I not only applaud this work, I also applaud the work of the Task Force (including the President of the GLCA) in moving towards an open and independent Antioch College.

    — Christian    Oct 20, 10:56 AM    #

15. Wow. Is it Grumpy Conservative Day?

    — HIED doc    Oct 20, 11:32 AM    #

16. One only needs to look at the Hate Slate to know that everyday is a grumpy day for conservatives! Anyway, I digress. However small, the loss of Antioch College to the American HE landscape is one additional milestone in our move towards making education a commodity. This trend is as tragic as it is senseless, since over time it will reduce the alternatives that are proposed and considered in addressing the issues that face humanity.

    — Artful    Oct 20, 12:05 PM    #

17. nonstopinstitute.org — Christian, thanks for the link. Pretty interesting. A review of the site reads like a description of new left intelligensia heaven. I will follow the developments with interest in whether the nonstopinstitute will go the way of the new left, devolving into opposing and self destructive factions. The seeds are certainly there in the shared “governance” structure. Note that
    “ [A]nyone can be brought to the Community Standards Board . . .” (http://nonstopinstitute.org/community/). Show trials, anyone? Vist the site — the jargon is stangely early 70’s time warped. Congratulations to the faculty who are actually putting up, good luck to them.

    — GTG    Oct 20, 12:11 PM    #

18. Good morning AAUP
    I am glad you are awake today. Where were you for the last three years when everyone knew of Antioch’s troubles and the possibility of closing it down? Did you do anything to help keep it open?

    — JR    Oct 20, 12:31 PM    #

19. Swish #14,
    Christians are seeing what’s happening in Canada with how “hate speech” legislation is being used to stifle the expression of biblical principles (e.g. – the prohibition against homosexuality.) Not to mention the attack on religious freedom in the public schools, except for Islam, of course. That’s actually being accomodated and even advocated with taxpayer dollars. There is ample reason for Christians in this country to be nervous, and one doesn’t start fighting only after it becomes illegal. You start fighting as soon as political and social winds begin blowing in that direction. Freedom requires eternal vigilance!

    — Red State University    Oct 20, 12:34 PM    #

20. GTG, try reading the honors board rules at Reed or St John’s or any of the remaining but threatened small liberal arts college’s out there. Collective demand of personal responsibility is hardly a leftist position. I though it was the foundation of representative democracy and adversarial legal systems.

    — travis    Oct 20, 01:52 PM    #

21. Travis — Collective demand of personal responsibility? Just in my view, freedom is predicated on individual above the collective. When ‘responsiblity’ is defined by a collective and not by agreement among individuals about boundaries, then the individual is at the mercy of the whims of the collective. Not too appealing to me. This is where the rhetoric of nonstop gets muddy and corrupt — self actualization and authenticity does not arise from the collective imposing itself on the personal.

    — GTG    Oct 20, 02:40 PM    #

22. Antioch College provided an outstanding education to me and thousands of others in recent decades. It wasn’t a perfect education, but a good one, and a unique one in the broad picture of higher education in America. What Antioch lacked in the very recent past was capable, selfless leaders. There was not pressing fiscal reason to close the school – and it will come back, once the discredited and incompetent rulers of Antioch University face the music for their deeds. Mismanagement run rampant, not innovative education, is the problem at my alma mater.

    — Mark    Oct 20, 02:46 PM    #

23. For Mark (#23) and others: recommend you go into the CHE “Search the Site” box (just scroll up from where you’re reading right now) and type in “Antioch College.” One of the first entries is “Present at the Demise,” dated 07/20/2007, by Ralph Keyes. Mr. Keyes, an alum, obviously loved Antioch and is certainly no flaming right-winger. Yet, his “take” on the downward spiral of Antioch is well worth reading and pondering, especially for those inclined to think that timeless fiscal fundamentals somehow do not (or at least should not) apply to higher education.

    — Doug    Oct 20, 03:39 PM    #

24. so I guess by the tenor of some of the comments that some readers perceive that the education was not only liberal, but liberally based. God forbid (sorry, no pun intended given the other posts). Just as there are conservative professors and institutions, so too there are onces that tend to gravitate towards a more liberal (or progressive – whatever you want to call it) agenda. The question at the end of the day was did students learn from qualified faculty using a strong curriculum, i.e. what were the learning outcomes? Given the number of luminaries, I think that is safe to assume that Antioch offered a solid education. Closing the doors represents the loss of choice amongst academically rigorous institutions of Higher Ed, just as if Liberty closed its doors. Try not to get hung up on a school’s political environment—trust me, students are brainwashed that easily…so why such vehemence among some of the postings. It was an institution of excellence. Period.

    — don    Oct 20, 03:50 PM    #

25. sorry…NOT brainwashed that easily

    — don    Oct 20, 03:54 PM    #

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