Finally, a post about Antioch that manages to suggest a genuine love of the place while also skewering the leaders of the last few decades–and the students of that time too. She even has the courage to light into the students who are there right now for not taking over the campus and demanding a better place to learn. If only the person had the additional courage to name Bob Devine outright, instead of referring to him twenty different ways to Tuesday.
I don’t buy the “PCism killed Antioch” thesis–unless you’re talking PC circa 1973, supplemented by some PC circa 1965, which inspired Dixon’s murderous plan to start branch campuses all over the planet. But I agree that all kinds of other folks have gotten off pretty easily, particularly on the discussion boards.
The only notes I would add would be a general slam against the somnolent (but hard working! never forget that!) faculty. I’d also include a plan to move forward–one that doesn’t piggyback on one of the Usual Bloviators.
July 6, 2007 at 12:57 pm
I haven’t seen any perspectives from members of the Antioch community at other campuses. So allow me to offer one.
1. Many students, employers, and community members in Seattle, Keene, Santa Barbara and LA see Antioch as a single school in their city. They don’t even know Antioch College exists. The “brand” is what each of these schools has made it.
2. Having served several roles at two of these campuses — administrator, subcontractor, adjunct — I know that, regardless of how successfully we run our programs and thrill our students, our budgets are cut nearly every year. For decades, money has been bleeding out of these campuses to keep the College and its tenured faculty alive. Resentment occasionally runs high.
3. These campuses deliver notable, innovative and constantly evolving programs. Faculty have unfettered academic freedom and longevity — without competitive pay or tenure.
4. We are accustomed to change. It happens all the time out here. That’s why I was drawn to the subtitle of this blog/forum. Because the College will reopen and look very different when it does. To restate that subtitle with positive terms, it might go something like: staying open — to change.
Keep up the good work.
August 18, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Wonderful blog. One of the things I like best about your writing is that, although we agree about some things, we don’t agree about others. I love reading your take on Antioch–makes me THINK, which, compared to most of what is on the Antioch chats, is new and different.
Wanted to correct something you wrote about my posts about Bob (He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named) Devine. I did indeed name him in subsequent posts. I tried to avoid this because I felt focusing on issues was more important than naming perps. This is why I talked about “toxic culture” and “PCness”. One of his (drank-the-Koolaid) followers forced the issue and in posts subsequent to the one you have posted here I was very explicit about who, and what, I was talking about.
Of course, I have learned much more since I wrote that post: About Bob, about the unusually high percentage of students with serious mental health issues, about when the faculty were stripped of their power and by whom (1967; Jim Dixon), about missing/misspent money, about the curriculum Bob created to “teach students how to confront” (that last from Bob’s own postings), etc. I am more convinced than ever that without Bob, Antioch would not be in the extreme jeopardy it faces today, though he is not the only problem.
How a two-bit video instructor could become both tenured professor AND college president is an hilarious/pathetic story in itself.
Update on Voldemort: He is now party to a “lawsuit”–he promises there is more to come–which began, theoretically, on Tuesday, August 14th, when a group of faculty filed for a permanent injunction. Bob is trying to get alumni to contribute to the “Faculty Legal Defense Fund”. Highly unlikely they will accumulate enough money to see the “lawsuit” to its logical conclusion, so one wonders where the money will go and who is overseeing it.
They appear to be hoping a judge will hand Antioch College over to them to run. It is interesting to see which faculty members are not listed among the plaintiffs. Also interesting to see that Bob, who at 62-63 years of age, has a nice retirement package to look forward to and has little to lose, but that several of the plaintiffs are at least 13 years from retirement age and not as well paid. The older faculty don’t appear to lose any sleep over the likelihood that the younger ones, having joined the lawsuit against their employer, will probably have a hard time getting another job in academia.
Just more questionable ethics to add to a long list of questionable behavior…
The injunction is unlikely to succeed. The attorneys hired for this specious move are not as qualified as the lawyers the better-heeled Board of Trustees likely already have on retainer. The legal foundations of their request for permanent injunction are extremely weak. Either the faculty’s attorneys gave poor advice in the timing (two days before the Board of Trustees was going to make public financial information we’ve all been clamoring for), or certain individuals on the faculty do not want this financial information made public, for reasons of their own. Acquiring this information through Discovery is going to cost a huge sum of money.
The result? The Board of Trustees have been advised by their lawyers not to share the financial information which would prove to the writhing alumni exactly how badly things have been run and how dire the financial situation really is. The lawsuit also adds more bad publicity to the school, which the faculty publicly say they want to avoid. In fact, they’ve even added this point in their document filed for a permanent injunction. Talk about mind-fucks.
Of course, Voldemort’s followers among the alumni are already gearing up for admissions recruitment and PR (to counteract the negative press), believing the school will be theirs in less than a month. Denial and self-delusion are hard to watch. Some of them appear to believe this is the beginning of “the Revolution” and that Voldemort will be giving them prime positions in the Revolutionary Guard after the Fall… Ey, voi.
Just when I think it could not get worse, the more vocal and visible faculty–led by God Bob–bowl me over with even more questionable “logic” and tactics. Toni Murdoch estimates only 10% of the faculty are “activists”. There are only 38 faculty left and not all have joined the lawsuit; you do the math.
In the end, the school will close, the faculty will have to go elsewhere (I do wish all but two of them the very best of luck), Toni et al. will create what they will, and the alumni will be less welcome in the visioning process for the 2012 reopening than they could have been.
Times change. Universities across the nation are tightening their belts. The folks on campus in Yellow Springs don’t appear to know what the rest of Ohio, or the nation, is facing economically.
Under these circumstances of tenured faculty who NEED to be removed and who never would have been given tenure before Jim Dixon destroyed the Faculty Senate, tenure becomes harder and harder to justify. The European practice of “permanent” faculty makes much more sense.
I hope Voldemort one day acknowledges his role in the demise of Antioch College. But I’m not holding my breath. God help any organization stupid enough to hire him after what he has done to Antioch.
As for the other Antioch University campuses, their programs are more “Antiochian” than what is presently offered by Antioch College. Irony of ironies. Antioch College alums denigrate the education provided at the other campuses without knowing the first thing about it.
Incidentally, the faculty’s legal team do not appear to have expertise in this branch of the law. It is very telling that no attorney alums have stepped forward to help in this endeavor–lack of specialized expertise does not seem to be the issue.