calling it quits

June 12, 2007 9:16 PM

Antioch College announces that it is suspending operations, effective July 1, 2008. Founded in 1852, enrollment at the school had been declining for the past several years. Loren Pope included it in a list of life-changing schools. The school was notable for its strong tradition of student governance, advocacy of co-education, the integration of co-op work experience with the academic curriculum, narrative evaluations in place of letter grades, and the sexual offense prevention policy. Coretta Scott King, Stephen Jay Gould, Rod Serling, and Eleanor Holmes Norton graduated from Antioch, among other noteworthy alumni. Four satellite campuses will remain open.
posted by metabrilliant (98 comments total)

Holy crap! (visited Antioch when I was a H.S. senior, but found it to be a bit too aggressively P.C.)
posted by Liosliath at 9:17 PM on June 12, 2007

Full disclosure: I graduated from Antioch this year, though I haven't set foot on campus since 2004.
posted by metabrilliant at 9:33 PM on June 12, 2007

In 1991, a group known as the Womyn of Antioch began a campaign to challenge the culture of sexual violence within Antioch College. Through this effort, a document was createdwhich became known as the Sexual Offense Prevention Policy (SOPP). The SOPP is Antioch College's formal attempt at ending sexual violence while fostering a campus culture of positive, consensual sexuality. It is about empowerment,changing our rape culture, and healing

Rape culture? That seems a little shocking to put on a university website. Was Antioch signifigantly worse then an average college campus (Seems hard to belive)

And anyway, they claim theat they're only "suspending" the program to build a "21st century offering". We'll see if the actually manage to open back up.
posted by delmoi at 9:35 PM on June 12, 2007

I assume they asked their incoming freshmen for permission before screwing them.
posted by brain_drain at 9:35 PM on June 12, 2007 [11 favorites]

Okay, but the link says they're planning to revamp the curriculum and overhaul/upgrade the campus. So it's not all doom and gloom, closing the doors forever.
posted by kyleg at 9:37 PM on June 12, 2007

I think for many people, the ridiculous Sexual Offense Policy is the only thing they knew about Antioch. When I was in high school it was sort of a joke and none of us even considered it, simply because of that... even though I was interested in a number of small intense liberal arts colleges like Swarthmore, Williams etc.
posted by Spacelegoman at 9:39 PM on June 12, 2007

This is a non-story: State-of-the-Art Campus projected to open in 2012
posted by frogan at 9:42 PM on June 12, 2007

So it's not all doom and gloom,

Uh yeah, the link to Antioch's own press release. Other sources are reporting that they will open up (at best) 4 years down the road. A school with low enrollment. Almost no endowment. Going out of business and transferring students? This is a death sentence.
posted by phaedon at 9:43 PM on June 12, 2007

My good friend in high school happily went to Antioch, as did my mother's co-worker's daughter.

It wasn't cheap, but it was a great alterna-college. The 2 people that I knew that went there were very happy and went on to do very well for themselves.

Visiting there in 1999ish was my first time using co-ed bathrooms... I was also shocked at how openly people smoked pot in the dorms. No towels lining the door or exhaling into a toilet paper tube with fabric softener sheets.
posted by k8t at 9:43 PM on June 12, 2007

I assume they asked their incoming freshmen for permission before screwing them.

Zing!
posted by Scoo at 9:47 PM on June 12, 2007

Yes, they do say that it is their plan to reopen in 2012, with a "state-of-the-art" campus. With a tiny enrollment and alumni who are either unable or unwilling to fund such an undertaking, though, it isn't looking altogether certain.

on preview: what phaedon said.

As for the SOPP guidelines, I think the best thing it helped create was the chance for dialogue. It often gets presented by outsiders as some sort of "The cameras must record your consent!" when most of the time I found it to be a much more relaxed checking in: "Hey, is this comfortable for you?" As a guy, anyway, I found it a relief to have that framework in place.
posted by metabrilliant at 9:53 PM on June 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is sad.
posted by caddis at 9:55 PM on June 12, 2007

What's happening to the faculty? I assume this means mass layoffs, because the press release emphasizes that they're declaring "financial exigency as required by the faculty personnel policy." Can someone provide (or link) some more detailed institutional backstory? I have no connection to Antioch but always liked it. The financial problems, which basically sound like they were caused by living off tuition rather than having an endowment, remind me of several alternative institutions I dearly love; but other places have been able to deal with this situation without folding. I'd like to hear more detail about whatever – bad decisions or bad luck – brought this on.
posted by RogerB at 10:09 PM on June 12, 2007

Some news stories (still looking for more background):
AP story via Chicago Tribune
Cincinnati Enquirer
Chronicle of Higher Ed blog (may require subscription)
posted by RogerB at 10:17 PM on June 12, 2007

I tried to care until I saw John Hammond, blues legend, on the alumni list. Now it is much easier.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 10:22 PM on June 12, 2007

From the Enquirer story:
Some 160 faculty and staff will lose positions when the school shuts down, said Mary Lou LaPierre, vice chancellor for university advancement.

I suspect that this is the main point of taking such drastic measures. Financial emergencies and large-scale restructuring are one of very few ways to fire tenured faculty. Welcome to the new academic workplace, ex-Antioch faculty, and good luck finding new jobs. (The AAUP recently censured several New Orleans universities for similar mass-layoff tactics post-Katrina.)
posted by RogerB at 10:25 PM on June 12, 2007

No kidding, holy crap! Isn't this place the wellspring of the whole 'no grades' concept for colleges? I drove all night to see the Dead Kennedys there in 1988 and the place represents some hopeful ideal and possibility for the American soul to me.

Clearly, I'm overdue for some light-dousing and soul-crushing.
posted by mwhybark at 10:29 PM on June 12, 2007

I've been wondering whether a college crash was coming, similar to the upcoming collapse of the housing market. If you think about it, a lot of the same elements are still there.
posted by effugas at 10:31 PM on June 12, 2007

The posts in this thread got me a bit curious about that SOPP doc. Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. It is essentially just all of the current laws and prevailing attitudes about consent written down in a fairly concise manner.

Now that "Womyn of Antioch" thing just cracks me the fuck up. Do those poor dumb girls not even know the etymology of the word "woman"? Hint: It's not related to the word "man" at all. Let alone in some kind of subservient position.
posted by Riemann at 10:55 PM on June 12, 2007

Edit to the above for the pedantic: It is not related to the word "man" in the sense of refering to a male person.
posted by Riemann at 10:58 PM on June 12, 2007

Yeah, I heard that Stephen Jay Gould was a pothead.
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:00 PM on June 12, 2007

This news makes me sad. As a sheltered high school kid, growing up in Dayton, I used to drive out to Yellow Springs and soak in the hippie/punk/radical atmosphere surrounding Antioch. Though there were a lot of things I found ridiculous about the place, the people there were enthusiastic, bright, and committed. Antioch was a place that meant something, and a community that worked hard to protect and nourish that meaning. And, it provided an oasis of non-conformity in the vast cultural wasteland of southwestern Ohio.
posted by tew at 11:03 PM on June 12, 2007 [2 favorites]

Riemann, they're not dumb: they're just fucking sick and tired of being thought of as inferior adjuncts to the really important people: the ones with penises.

And they certainly do know the etymology of the word "woman", in the same way that they know the etymologies of words such as "arrogant", "self-absorbed", "egotistical", "little", and "prick".
posted by watsondog at 11:05 PM on June 12, 2007 [7 favorites]

This is sad. I have so many memories.

Like the part where Jeremy Piven threw that raging party and got George Clinton to play.
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:16 PM on June 12, 2007

he SOPP is Antioch College's formal attempt at ending sexual violence while fostering a campus culture of positive, consensual sexuality.

And tonight.. Everyone Gets Laid.
posted by phaedon at 11:48 PM on June 12, 2007

What's funny is that Riemann waited until 2007 to raise this objection to "womyn", as if nobody thought of it in 1975.

I'm sorry. I meant Riemynn.

I assume they asked their incoming freshmen for permission before screwing them.

The article says they will be offered degree-completion opportunities, though of course not at the Antioch College campus itself, which was probably a big part of their enrollment decision. The University continues to operate.

When I was in high school it was sort of a joke and none of us even considered it, simply because of that

Indeed. I do wonder if there was a tipping point in its decline from 2000 to 400 students.

Background, RogerB, at SaveAntioch. From March:
The situation seems to be increasingly dire at Antioch College. Deep cuts to the skeleton crew after 5-6 years of sinking under a university structure dominated by the other members of the network. The soul of the institution is at stake and any sense of institutional memory is scarce. Really, it’s that serious.

Thus, no surprise to those in the college community.
posted by dhartung at 11:58 PM on June 12, 2007

Sheesh, watsondog, chill the fuck out.
posted by Liosliath at 12:21 AM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Utilizing some of the concepts from the Antioch SOPP in my own life made women I dated more comfortable around me where otherwise they might be a lot more wary because of my size (not that I'm a thug, but I am 6'2"). I've had women comment that they appreciated how upfront I was on dates about what my intentions were. I'd even go so far as to say it got me laid in situations where I otherwise might not have.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:28 AM on June 13, 2007

Seriously, BC? Which concepts, exactly? I was going to Earlham at the time that they enacted this policy, and there was a lot of discussion about it - but I never knew anyone who actually followed it, male or female. Or femayle.

This is one of the reasons I didn't go to Antioch, actually - stuff like this - "All Community Members and other persons who use or visit the Antioch campus, regardless of their relationship to Antioch, are expected to become familiar with and follow the SOPP."

Zzzz.
posted by Liosliath at 12:36 AM on June 13, 2007

The only time Dave Chappell really disappointed me was when he jumped on the, what, already > 10 year old and much cliched "literal sexual contract comedy skit" bandwagon.

That being said, my fastidious and perhaps excessive use of verbal consent in early relationships has always and without fail dramatically decreased the amount of time and frustration from first date to sweet lovemaking. All y'all who think it's some kind of mood breaker are doing it wrong. And it sure as heck was nice to know that I did every thing right in in the beginning of a relationship where I later learned that my partner had anxiety from previous sexual assault.

But if one is so socially inept or emotionally void that drunken hook-ups are the only way that they can get any action, I'm not sure what to say. Doesn't sonud all that fun to me, but I've been accused of being a stick in the mud before.

And yeah, all the "womyn" and "herstory" stuff gets in the way of what is otherwise a sensible message. Considering the prevalence of rape, especially on college campuses, I'd still give this policy the benefit of a doubt.

I'd go to PCU in a f-ing heartbeat. My uni was already a lame cliche of college life, but in all the absolutely most tedious ways. As high school diplomas become more and more useless and as average and below average students turn to college because that's what everyone expects, it seems pretty likely that cookie-cutter universities will have much better financial success than ones that step outside of the mold. Smart investments for the 21st century are in diploma mills and penis pills.
posted by Skwirl at 1:43 AM on June 13, 2007

The only time Dave Chappell really disappointed me was when he jumped on the, what, already > 10 year old and much cliched "literal sexual contract comedy skit" bandwagon.

He lives like, half an hour away from Antioch. Let him jump on the bandwagon and take it home.
posted by phaedon at 1:46 AM on June 13, 2007

In fact, his father taught music at Antioch. Hah. I amuse myself.
posted by phaedon at 1:59 AM on June 13, 2007

Lynyrd Skynyrd is Now Wymyn's Music Herstory.

RIP Antioch. Count me among the "this is how to fire tenured faculty" cynics. These places were always idealistic on the surface, because that was their marketing niche. Underneath, they're all businesses. Just not enough hippie kids buying these days. Or their parents.

/cynical professor
posted by spitbull at 3:17 AM on June 13, 2007

And anyway, they claim theat they're only "suspending" the program to build a "21st century offering".

The University of Phoenix at Antioch.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 4:38 AM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Holy crap is right. Antioch is (was?) a star in the liberal arts sky. These places are an extremely important part of the educational system. They provide a necessary alternative to and complement of the big res and non-residential universities. I went to a little college (Grinnell) and it truly changed my life.

What I don't understand is how Antioch came to this. Demand for good college educations is way up, and supply--particularly for 'prestige degrees' like Antioch offers--is more or less stagnant. Grinnell, which is pretty much no-name, has done very well (in fact, the college is filthy rich). What happened at Antioch? Anyone know?
posted by MarshallPoe at 5:19 AM on June 13, 2007

Antioch didn't have Warren Bufett as their investment advisor for one.
posted by lalochezia at 5:26 AM on June 13, 2007

MarshallPoe: precisely. If Antioch could not succeed in the current market for elite colleges in its price class, one can question how "necessary" it was as an alternative, and whether it really was a "star" in any sky. The school certainly had famous grads, including one of the greatest teachers I've ever learned from (the aforementioned SJG), but I don't think the quality of its educational offering was considered consistent in the broader world of employers and graduate programs. Of course, one doesn't attend such a place for the specifics of its curriculum or a glimpse into the research careers of its faculty, but even so, it was the kind of place where geniuses who would thrive anywhere also thrived.

Even so, schools that fit this profile (Bard comes to mind) are thriving in the bubble economy of elite college education under huge demographic and class pressure. Hard to imagine the brand name is dead, but the temptation to sell it out for cash must be strong for the trustees now. Antioch College of Phoenix indeed.
posted by spitbull at 5:29 AM on June 13, 2007

How could the University of Chicago not be on that list of life-changing colleges? Its just one data point, but it turned me from a bright-eyed, gregarious, optimistic young man into a broken, cynical, self-doubting misfit. I know I wasn't the only one.
posted by psmealey at 5:31 AM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Ick. It sounds like the worst of the 90's PC movement bullshit concentrated into one little festering wound, where the rigid, conservative college administrations of the 60's finally gave way to the rigidly leftist administrations of the 90s. No thanks.
posted by mattholomew at 5:33 AM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Where will Mumia Abu-Jamal give his commencement speeches now? Most of the students I encountered that went to Antioch were mediocre, naive, or paranoid. I think I speak for many Daytonians when I say good riddance. I just hope the public radio station which has been nominally housed and supported by the college doesn't get pulled under with it.
posted by chlorus at 5:45 AM on June 13, 2007

Do those poor dumb girls not even know the etymology of the word "woman"? Hint: It's not related to the word "man" at all. Let alone in some kind of subservient position.

late O.E. wimman (pl. wimmen), lit. "woman-man," alteration of wifman (pl. wifmen), a compound of wif "woman" (see wife) + man "human being" (in O.E. used in ref. to both sexes; see man). Cf. Du. vrouwmens "wife," lit. "woman-man." The formation is peculiar to Eng. and Du. Replaced older O.E. wif, quean as the word for "female human being."...

Hint. You're wrong.
posted by delmoi at 5:46 AM on June 13, 2007

And to continue the thought, it's the Grinnells of this world that have the most to gain from the inflation in cost (and value) of name-brand college degrees. The traditional "elite" schools, both Ivy League and liberal arts utopias and Big State Us, and Stanford and Chicago, have already maxed their prestige value, and benefit at the pricing level only by the upward pressure of the competition.

I find myself engaged in this economy in a funny way lately. Let's just say that schools of the once-solidly-middle-class rank (say, Washington Univ., Case Western, Vanderbilt) have the capital now to pick off the baubles from their fancy-pants competitors, with impunity and for a modest investment risk. The Harvards of this world have to hire the top-shelf famous talent to maintain their reputations. But the Grinnells and Dukes of this world can go after the most ambitious and productive mid-career people -- the future top-shelf names -- and offer them things Harvard will never offer. They have huge endowment growth and huge tuition revenues and entrepreneurial administrators (often coming from the private sector, and especially the tech sector where executives are used to thinking of hiring as investment) that enable them to maneuver much more quickly than the Ivy-Covered Behemoths drowning in "tradition" and baronial bureacracies that siphon energy, money, and time (not to mention functioning as cesspools of incompetence relative to the administrative sector of the business world). Their locations in relatively inexpensive and less developed areas of the country (usually, though NYU is an example too) and their less-ancient infrastructures enable them to build physical facilities more quickly and more enticingly, both for students and faculty and sports and donor bling, and to invest in tech infrastructures necessary to capitalize on the other income-generating activity of the epoch -- developing technology patents that are money in the bank for the university. If universities were publicly held companies, the smart money would be in the mid-cap growth sector. Grinnell would be a strong buy.

And this doesn't even consider the huge global competitive pressure on universities, and the mad scramble now on to secure capital in India, East Asia, and the Middle East, especially, where graduates of the middle-rank engineering schools in the US are building massive billion-dollar tech economies and looking for ways to invest in their own growth smartly. Every university with an endowment of more than a billion dollars (and many without that kind of scratch) is courting a dozen projects in India and China right now.

Antioch was a delicate little flower in this jungle. Even in optimal conditions it couldn't survive. Shit happens.
posted by spitbull at 5:55 AM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

delmoi, that was sweet work
posted by spitbull at 5:58 AM on June 13, 2007

No college left behind.
posted by rmmcclay at 5:58 AM on June 13, 2007

MarshallPoe: "
What I don't understand is how Antioch came to this. Demand for good college educations is way up, and supply--particularly for 'prestige degrees' like Antioch offers--is more or less stagnant. Grinnell, which is pretty much no-name, has done very well (in fact, the college is filthy rich). What happened at Antioch? Anyone know?"

I'm guessing that there just are not enough parents willing to pony up $120K so that their kid can get a degree in Ultimate Frisbee. Parents don't want to spend the price of two Corvettes on a degree that will not really help their kid find a job in a tough Republican economy. I'm speaking as a father of a just graduated high school senior and I'd really like my kid to find a career that will make him enough money to move out of my house.
posted by octothorpe at 6:00 AM on June 13, 2007 [2 favorites]

"Utilizing some of the concepts from the Antioch SOPP in my own life made women I dated more comfortable around me where otherwise they might be a lot more wary because of my size (not that I'm a thug, but I am 6'2"). I've had women comment that they appreciated how upfront I was on dates about what my intentions were. I'd even go so far as to say it got me laid in situations where I otherwise might not have."

-- Your ability to sustain an erection through that is truly inspiring.
posted by mattholomew at 6:01 AM on June 13, 2007 [4 favorites]

Unless I read that incorrectly, delmoi, the etymology states that the word stems from "female human", and that "man" as a work has come to mean "male human" from its earlier meaning of "human, of any gender".

So, he's a bit confused but not outright wrong.

Of course, I went to a Big 10 school, not a small liberal arts school (Deep Springs did send me a brochure, but living in the desert with a bunch of dudes wasn't my ideal picture of the college experience).
posted by caution live frogs at 6:01 AM on June 13, 2007

"Of course, I went to a Big 10 school, not a small liberal arts school"

(By which I meant "so I could also be wrong". Science major, not Arts and Letters. Admitting that there is always a finite chance you could be wrong is Step 1 in becoming a scientist.)
posted by caution live frogs at 6:05 AM on June 13, 2007

Big Fuckin deal...get a life and move on.
posted by shockingbluamp at 6:18 AM on June 13, 2007

Liosliath and Mattholomew, not the whole thing, just the following:

# The person(s) who initiate(s) the sexual activity is responsible for asking for consent.
# The person(s) who are asked are responsible for verbally responding.
# Each new level of sexual activity requires consent.

It's not like I followed it slavishly either, but telegraphing your intent makes everything go more smoothly. You can also be more aggressive about escalating dating activity to sex without making your partner feel like you are railroading them. As Skwirl pointed out above, if you feel like it's a mood killer you are doing it wrong. It can be an excuse to compliment someone, or talk dirty to them while still setting them at ease if you do it right. And if you do have a partner who has been sexually assaulted, it can be the difference between establishing a trusting and loving and being shown the door, or at least delaying any nookie for a long time.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:18 AM on June 13, 2007

*trusting and loving relationship*

BTW, I do not consider myself to be a Cassanova by any stretch of the imagination, so take any relationship advice with a grain of salt as they say.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:20 AM on June 13, 2007

If the numbers in this thread:

Some 160 faculty and staff
do wonder if there was a tipping point in its decline from 2000 to 400 students

are right, then needing to fire some people seems a bit reasonable. Maybe I'm wrong but a student to staff ratio of 2.5:1 seem awfully low.
posted by obfusciatrist at 6:21 AM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

What's funny is that Riemann waited until 2007 to raise this objection to "womyn", as if nobody thought of it in 1975.

I'm female and a feminist and I've always thought 'womyn' and 'herstory' were silly. I can't say I raised my objection in 1975, precisely, as I was still learning to read that year and didn't have a very sophisticated sense of etymology or spelling at the time. Pretty much as soon as I was old enough to get it, I thought the re-spellings were silly. (I think "Grrrl" is pretty silly, too.) I get the point they're trying to make, but it's trying to base a serious point on a pun, and it just doesn't work. It's like trying to mount a serious campaign to name large storms as "himicanes" because 'it's the male force that's the destructive one'. Oh, and they should be hersterectomies, because they're about a woman's body..." I just can't take it seriously.
posted by Karmakaze at 6:36 AM on June 13, 2007 [8 favorites]

In fact, his father taught music at Antioch. Hah. I amuse myself.

If I recall correctly, Dave Chapelle's father was the first black professor at Antioch. In addition, his mother was the first black woman to be ordained as a Unitarian minister. If anything, Chapelle's comedy seems to come from joking about the anxiety that middle-class black people have about being the "first black" to do XYZ etc. etc. etc.
posted by jonp72 at 6:41 AM on June 13, 2007

# The person(s) who are asked are responsible for verbally responding.

Which in the end boils down to he said/she said. Guess who loses that one. Guys, always get consent in writing before each new level of sexual activity (notarized would be ideal), and it probably wouldn't hurt to have a video camera running.

Hard to imagine the brand name is dead, but the temptation to sell it out for cash must be strong for the trustees now. Antioch College of Phoenix indeed.

I guess when you get right down to it private colleges/universities are businesses. Much as people would like to think otherwise there's still the bottom line to consider. If Antioch is truly a viable brand it'll be back in one form or another.
posted by MikeMc at 6:43 AM on June 13, 2007

Whatever the fate of Antioch, it has nothing to do with the cultural politics ("PC") issues being debated hotly here. It has everything to do with the larger political economy of higher education.

Do we need to have a PC battle just because all some people know about Antioch is the sexual consent policy? It's 2007. I haven't seen much of "wymyn" or "herstory" in academia in a decade. Expectations of sexual consent have become much more normative across the entire culture ("date rape" ain't just for fraternity brothers anymore). The world has moved on from the trivial obsessions of the early culture wars. True, it's tough out there for a true hippie. But it always was.

Peace out, brothers and sisters.
posted by spitbull at 7:09 AM on June 13, 2007

I guess when you get right down to it private colleges/universities are businesses

It was ever thus, and more so now than ever. I would argue that state universities (the big research universities) are also businesses, much more than they are state agencies. All of them are subsidized with huge amounts of public money, and the American higher education system is (like our medical system) driven by global markets that do not have the same interests, always, as the people of the United States (to keep it US-centered for the time being). People who can pay cash for quality, especialy.
posted by spitbull at 7:21 AM on June 13, 2007

And they certainly do know the etymology of the word "woman", in the same way that they know the etymologies of words such as "arrogant", "self-absorbed", "egotistical", "little", and "prick".

Sounds like someone needs to get laid.
posted by bshort at 7:31 AM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

"man" as a work

And what a piece of work!
posted by Grangousier at 7:44 AM on June 13, 2007

I'll give you a pity fuck, bshort.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:47 AM on June 13, 2007

Rush Limbaugh had a great line when the SOPP was in the news back in the '90s. The SOPP supposedly required those engaging in sex to repeatedly ask for permission at each stage of sexual activity. Rush wanted to know if this was per thrust policy.

Heh, that still cracks me.


Also an exgirlfriend went there for a quarter, but left because she was so offended by the amount of sex on the campus. Supposedly she couldn't go to her room, the bathroom or any semi private space without people having sex there. This also produced a lot of rapes and STDs, which prompted the SOPP, supposedly.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:58 AM on June 13, 2007

Brandon Blatcher, if that was true, they'd have had a lot more students.
posted by spitbull at 8:04 AM on June 13, 2007 [2 favorites]

I think I speak for many Daytonians when I say good riddance. I just hope the public radio station which has been nominally housed and supported by the college doesn't get pulled under with it.

Oh sure, you can mock the school, but its radio station is ok?

As a northeast Ohioan (read: from the liberal quadrant), it's attitudes like this that make me view the rest of my state with such distrust. Antioch/Yellow Springs and my alma mater, Ohio University/Athens, are the only liberal oases in red-tastical southern Ohio. You'd never see the anti-strip-club bill coming out of our state senators, for example. Secede to Kentucky, already, Cincinnati, and take Dayton with you. I wish Antioch all the best in coming back stronger than ever.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:06 AM on June 13, 2007

Full article from Chronicle of Higher Ed (may require subscription)

I still don't understand how it came to this for Antioch. And the fact that half of this thread has devolved into "OMG STUPID HIPPIEZ" and/or cynical cheers for the corporatization of higher ed isn't helping. To me this is a sad moment, a funeral for one of the great alternative colleges, not an occasion to take out the Internet Culture Warrior Playset for one more round of cut-and-pasted conflict. And there are much more interesting questions to be asking now about this specific case.

Was this a situation where a deep cultural gap between the faculty and the trustees/administration led to mutually assured destruction? Are the Antioch administration seriously hoping that anyone will buy a new "Antioch College" with no continuity of faculty or students, no institutional memory? And, as MarshallPoe asked, how did Antioch come to this – why had their enrollments declined so precipitously when many similar schools are enjoying a boom in applications? How did the school fail to sell itself – a place unlike any other small college, with a unique sense of social mission and an uncommonly student-centered curriculum – to enough new students to survive?
posted by RogerB at 8:10 AM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

It has everything to do with the larger political economy of higher education.

It seems like it was probably simple mismanagement, and some dumb ideas that further hurt enrollment.

If I can go to Antioch in Seattle or LA or Santa Barbara or the forested hills of New Hampshire, why the hell would I choose to go to Antioch in the outskirts of Dayton?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:25 AM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Excellent questions. I'd've thought AC would be more relevant than ever in reaction to the last few years.

This will sadden a co-worker of mine who went there in the 70s.
posted by pax digita at 8:27 AM on June 13, 2007

Your revolution is over! The bums lost!
posted by mattbucher at 8:38 AM on June 13, 2007

Echoing some of the other observations here, it strikes me that in this day and age, the Benningtons, Hampshires, Bards, and Antiochs are in a better position to market themselves because they have something unique that not all other colleges have. Meanwhile, the pool of potential applicants becomes larger and larger while the "top" universities have less and less to differentiate themselves with.

However, without an endowment, they probably had no flexibility at all and no ability to offer financial aid to students they wanted/needed to attract, so it was just a matter of time. I wish some people could offer an insider's perspective about what was going on here.
posted by deanc at 8:42 AM on June 13, 2007

bitter girl: yeah, that's about right. The radio station is pretty good, it's the local NPR outlet, and the school has little to no influence on it. But the school sucks.

You have no idea about my politics. I'm totally against the strip club bill, for instance. I think Cincinnati should secede from the state for all I care (it was also the source of the gay marriage ban).

But seriously, I don't know what's so great about northeast Ohio politics. The corrupt union cronyism and organized crime from Akron, Youngstown, and Cleveland have left the schools in disrepair and the economy in shambles - Cleveland is one of the leading cities in the country in terms of home foreclosure. Oh, and there are plenty of Democrats in Dayton and Columbus, for your information.

Antioch is an embarassment. They are on the far-left fringe, to be sure. It's not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the term 'liberal.'
posted by chlorus at 8:50 AM on June 13, 2007

Back in the early 90s when SOPP was big news, a band I was in came up with a song called the "Antioch Rock", basically making fun of how absurd it would actually be to follow its guidelines. I never could get my head around the idea of repeatedly asking, "is it OK if I (touch your breast)?" "Now is it OK if I (touch your vagina)?" etc.

I know this debate is really old news now, but that always seemed absolutely insane to me. The suggestion that 'if it's awkward you're not doing it properly' just brings that confusion back in spades. Did these discussions ever actually take place? Whenever I've done anything remotely like that - and I have been intimate with several women with abusive backgrounds - I've inevitably been laughed at.
posted by stinkycheese at 9:10 AM on June 13, 2007

Riemann, they're not dumb: they're just fucking sick and tired of being thought of as inferior adjuncts to the really important people: the ones with penises.

And they certainly do know the etymology of the word "woman", in the same way that they know the etymologies of words such as "arrogant", "self-absorbed", "egotistical", "little", and "prick".

My goodness, I wonder why enrollment dropped so low as to cause the school to close? Certainly not nice people like this, I'm sure.
posted by mbrutsch at 9:12 AM on June 13, 2007

Antioch is an embarassment. They are on the far-left fringe, to be sure. It's not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the term 'liberal.'

Why was it an embarassment? I grant you, I sometimes rolled my eyes at some of the more extreme examples of cluelessness or naïveté I heard about from the earnest students at Evergreen State and Brown University in my day. But I can't imagine why, if you don't espouse those views but are similarly oriented (though not to that extreme), why you would be embarrassed by them. I'm grateful that people can still have those views and can exlore them freely and express them as loudly as they want.

If you're glad that Antioch is being shut down merely on the basis that it somehow annoyed or embarrassed you, I'd encourage you to re-examine your civic priorities. That kind of reaction embodies the "self-hating" liberal phenomenon, which has allowed rightist to make more inroads than any single other factor.
posted by psmealey at 9:26 AM on June 13, 2007

I'm guessing that there just are not enough parents willing to pony up $120K so that their kid can get a degree in Ultimate Frisbee. Parents don't want to spend the price of two Corvettes on a degree that will not really help their kid find a job in a tough Republican economy. I'm speaking as a father of a just graduated high school senior and I'd really like my kid to find a career that will make him enough money to move out of my house.

It's weird, though, because other, similar schools (Bennington, Hampshire) don't seem to be having these troubles, or not to the same degree - though I gather Bennington had some problems in the 1990s. It's sad about Antioch - I used to know some folks who went there, and they always spoke very fondly of their experience there.

Re: the wimmin/womyn thing - used it a lot in college (mid-80s), at a very whitemalefratboy school. We didn't use it with much (or any) irony. It sure sparked a lot of discussions, though, many of them productive and illuminating, so I can't say I regret it.
posted by rtha at 9:34 AM on June 13, 2007

The closing of Antioch brings to mind this comment, concerning the recent $400 million pledge to Columbia University.
posted by jayder at 11:11 AM on June 13, 2007

...I used to drive out to Yellow Springs and soak in the hippie/punk/radical atmosphere surrounding Antioch.

Where I went to school, the only really fun thing to do in town was... Go to Yellow Springs. We'd hit Haha Pizza, go to the comic store, maybe catch a movie at the Little Art Theater. That's where I first saw Akira. I didn't know very much about the college, mostly that it was very flat compared to our hilly campus in Springfield, but from looking at the bills posted on the telephone poles, I knew that it was clearly a very cool place with very interesting and good-hearted people. It's very sad to hear that it's going to go away. And what will students in Springfield do for fun now?
posted by jiawen at 11:26 AM on June 13, 2007

"Which in the end boils down to he said/she said. Guess who loses that one. Guys, always get consent in writing before each new level of sexual activity (notarized would be ideal), and it probably wouldn't hurt to have a video camera running."

Gosh, Mike, she must have really hurt you.
posted by klangklangston at 12:31 PM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

David LaPalombara, a professor of art, said that there was no doubt that the decision “could have been avoided,” and that there are “a lot of responsible persons who could have done something.” While he said he did not want to name names, he said that the Board of Trustees had responsibility.

Inside Higher Ed story
posted by RogerB at 12:44 PM on June 13, 2007

Brandon Blatcher, if that was true, they'd have had a lot more students.

I used to hear the same stories about Reed College -- extremely casual sex, heavy drug use, and at the same time intense academic rigor.

And yet, Reed is still going strong, possibly helped by a dearth of private school competition in the Northwest. Seattle Pacific and Seattle U. are too religious for Reedies, Whitman is in Walla Walla -- why go there when you can be in PDX, and Lewis and Clark's most famous alumna is, well, noteworthy for non-academic reasons.
posted by dw at 1:31 PM on June 13, 2007

he said that the Board of Trustees had responsibility

Indeed. That's why the word derives from trust. Anyway, that story says that there are only 40 faculty, which seems more reasonable (160 is probably total employment, including e.g. librarians and custodians).

I went to Beloit, which was also included in the same "colleges that can change your life" book, and it's doing fine -- although it's a lot more mainstream than it once was. Both of my parents went to Shimer College, which went bankrupt in the 1970s (the baby bust years, with debt load from construction for the baby boom -- an era that killed off a lot of the really small colleges), but managed to stay alive by moving twice. It's now on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus and apparently thriving.

So it isn't smallness alone, and it isn't being alternative alone. I think there's a lot to be said for the argument that the board abused what was entrusted to them by getting the "university" stars in their eyes. If I were an alumnus I'd want them all fired.
posted by dhartung at 1:59 PM on June 13, 2007

Gosh, Mike, she must have really hurt you.

Nah, it was the cops with the tasers and batons that really hurt me.
posted by MikeMc at 2:04 PM on June 13, 2007

I think I speak for many Daytonians when I say good riddance.

I guess if mind-numbing homogeneity is your thing, then yes, Dayton’s better off without Antioch. I would say Dayton, a virtual wasteland of suburban uniformity and industrial decline, needs more Antiochs if anything. Yes, it’s a wacky school, but the town of Yellow Springs is just as wacky, and likewise, is one of the most interesting places in the entire Miami Valley.
posted by gueneverey at 3:59 PM on June 13, 2007

> # The person(s) who initiate(s) the sexual activity is responsible for asking for consent.
> # The person(s) who are asked are responsible for verbally responding.
> # Each new level of sexual activity requires consent.

Every syllable of which arises from the still-unspoken initial premise, namely I want to screw you but I don't, y'know, love you enough to marry you. Hence the continuing dissatisfaction. No matter how much you polish a turd it's still a turd; and no matter how many layers of contractualisms and consensualisms you drape over ape-humping, it's still ape-humping--that is to say, what the guys (but only the guys) want.
posted by jfuller at 4:13 PM on June 13, 2007

Asking Antiochians what's wrong with their school is like asking economists to forecast: ten people will easily give fifteen differing opinions. The lack of endowment or other substantive funding was a huge burden; "without an endowment," as deanc said, "they probably had no flexibility at all and no ability to offer financial aid to students they wanted/needed to attract, so it was just a matter of time." What's more, good financial aid packages would be offered to incoming students as an incentive, then gradually pared down so as to be routed to newer students.

Without funds, the infrastructure was in disrepair. The buildings were anywhere from halfway decent to seriously mold-infested. The library was using the original furniture that it had when it was built--in 1957. I don't know about other schools, but when students at Antioch invariably got drunk and smashed stuff, or stole things, etc., the school would end up eating the cost instead of billing the offending students. And that adds up.

There was certainly a lot of antagonism between the administration and the students. Antioch has a strong tradition of student leadership and governance, so many were unhappy about the recurring rounds of layoffs and hiring freezes. They were unhappy when the new president ordered a bunch of students and alumni (including the student newspaper editors) from posting an online version of the school paper (claiming they hadn't gotten authorization to use the school's intellectual property). Years ago there were protests when the dining services staff was considering outsourcing work to Sodexho. I think in recent years that relationship had become much more strained (though as I said above, I haven't been there since 2004).

Honestly, my heart goes out to all of the people who devoted their lives to that place and now have to start job hunting. They are some of the nicest people I've had the privilege of meeting. At the same time, that school was never run as intelligently as a business. "Managerial incompetence," as my uncle called it. Extremely crazy-making. For instance, I tried to send my transcripts out this past January. I faxed the request, but by the time they did anything about it, I owed them money and had been billed. They told me I had to pay up first; I paid the next day and it still took them three weeks to send the transcripts (they couldn't overnight something because the office printer was broken). And I certainly wasn't the only one.

Ok, enough ranting. President Lawry made an appearance on NPR today. Here's the audio.
posted by metabrilliant at 4:30 PM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

"I think I speak for many Daytonians when I say good riddance."

Yeah, it sure will be the folks at Antioch's loss, not being in cosmopolitan Dayton, Ohio anymore.

"it's still ape-humping--that is to say, what the guys (but only the guys) want."

It's so sad that you've never had a woman want to fuck you and not marry you.
posted by klangklangston at 5:31 PM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

My paternal grandmother and a whole raft of great-aunts went there, back when there were post-flappers or something instead of hippies and punks.

I don't know what any of them did about sex, though I'm confident they must have had some. I do know that Antioch is where they picked up the faintly irritating habit of challenging each other with Latin crossword puzzles.

They always spoke of the place with great fondness.
posted by tangerine at 5:53 PM on June 13, 2007

# The person(s) who are asked are responsible for verbally responding.

Which in the end boils down to he said/she said. Guess who loses that one. Guys, always get consent in writing before each new level of sexual activity (notarized would be ideal), and it probably wouldn't hurt to have a video camera running.
posted by MikeMc at 9:43 AM on June 13

I don't know about the SOPP specifically (this thread is the first I've heard of it), but these sorts of guidelines aren't supposed to be followed so you can protect yourself in a court of law. They're supposed to be followed to prevent misunderstandings. (Which has the add-on effect of preventing the sort of misunderstandings which might result in criminal charges, but that's not really the point.)

Not understanding the people who think this takes the romance out of things. If you can't say, "honey, that feels so good, I want you so much," and then wait for him/her to say, "oh, me too," then perhaps you shouldn't be having sex. Of course, over time, most couples develop some non-verbal signals and shorthand, but at the beginning of a relationship (or a one-night stand) this stuff is invaluable.


jfuller: +1 for surprised you've never met a woman who wanted to have sex with somebody she didn't want to marry.
posted by joannemerriam at 5:55 PM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

You forgot Simon Moon & Markoff Chaney.
posted by synaesthetichaze at 5:58 PM on June 13, 2007

If you're glad that Antioch is being shut down merely on the basis that it somehow annoyed or embarrassed you, I'd encourage you to re-examine your civic priorities. That kind of reaction embodies the "self-hating" liberal phenomenon, which has allowed rightist to make more inroads than any single other factor.

Actually, it does go beyond just being annoyed. If the faculty and students at Antioch are anything like the far-left fascists they sound like, it is that very extremism that allows the right to make inroads by pointing at things like this ludicrous sexual consent policy to say "see, look at the loony left". My "civic priority" is to challenge others around me to make sense, not to react to an excessively right-wing society by grabbing the steering wheel, slamming it all the way to the left and driving off the rails.
posted by mattholomew at 6:04 PM on June 13, 2007

Not having a big endowment can really fuck up a school, even a really good one.

I attended (briefly) a small, liberal but way more mainstream than Antioch (and increasingly mainstream in recent years, as far as I can tell) Ohio school, which despite certain recent expensive projects, generally suffered from a lack of money - a lot of it is really run-down (or was when I was there, anyway), and I think they haven't been able to offer scholarships to the extent that they would like (although now that it's a "New Ivy" there's probably no shortage of applicants anyway- I find this New Ivy thing kind of irritating, but that's another story). But thanks to Paul Newman, things may be looking up a bit.

So basically Antioch needs to:
1. Find rich alumni.
2. ?????
3. Profit!
posted by naoko at 8:18 PM on June 13, 2007

Naoko, I can confirm that your alma mater isn't lacking for applicants, and it's looking pretty good. My mom works at Olin-Chalmers Library, so I'm there pretty often - though when I was there for her graduation (B.A. in History, go Mom!), Mr. L and I were shocked to see that the Arabic department bulletin board had quite a few incorrectly written words - for shame.
posted by Liosliath at 8:24 PM on June 13, 2007

Things may have improved drastically in the last few years. When I was there a lot of the buildings, dorms especially, had a sort of shabby feel to them (not that anyone really minded - if anything it added to how delightfully bohemian we thought we were. Parents were perhaps less impressed). I hear there's lots of construction and restoration and whatnot going on these days.
posted by naoko at 8:56 PM on June 13, 2007

Every syllable of which arises from the still-unspoken initial premise, namely I want to screw you but I don't, y'know, love you enough to marry you. Hence the continuing dissatisfaction. No matter how much you polish a turd it's still a turd; and no matter how many layers of contractualisms and consensualisms you drape over ape-humping, it's still ape-humping--that is to say, what the guys (but only the guys) want.

Huh? You live in a different world than I do. I've met some very sexually aggressive women who were not at all interested in marriage, at least not while they were in college, or college aged. I've also met men who were virgins until marriage.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:48 AM on June 14, 2007

A new blog and an older one that are apparently written by dissident Antioch alumni (redundant?) have some comments about the closing.
posted by RogerB at 12:57 PM on June 14, 2007

Blame, it seems, is being spread widely. The trustees get their share for poor planning and a lack of reinvestment in the original campus. Steven Lawry, the new college president, has been accused of trying to stamp the hippie culture out of the school.

Many alums speculated that the very sort of student Antioch attracts -- the anti-establishment, anti-capitalist types -- don't exactly make for rich benefactors, one reason for the low endowment fund. And the school's experimental reputation, a source of pride for alumni, scares off future students with grad school on their minds.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

This piece also notes that the school apparently has an endowment of roughly $36M. While that's not much long-term money as these things go, I'm very surprised that shutting down was even considered with the possibility of spending down the endowment first. It has to be easier to turn things around while you still have an operating college, doesn't it?
posted by RogerB at 2:10 PM on June 14, 2007

There's an insightful email from a former Antioch president and professor discussing the talking points as given out by the trustees. He does a good job summarizing some of the failures committed by the board, including a complete lack of communication with the larger community and no real attempt to follow up alternatives, not to mention spending resources on the university while ignoring the college.

"scares off future students with grad school on their minds."

The funny thing is that I was always told (and found to be largely true) that Antioch had a decent reputation vis-à-vis grad school acceptance and performance. Maybe that's just a holdover from a decades-old scenario, but perhaps something about that "wow, you sure take initiative with your education!" mindset helps, too.
posted by metabrilliant at 4:23 PM on June 14, 2007

it's still ape-humping--that is to say, what the guys (but only the guys) want.

I dispute that assertion. There are plenty of good ape-humpers of both (all?) genders.
posted by jessamyn at 7:14 AM on June 15, 2007

This blog post and its comments have a lot of reflection on the closing and interesting reminiscences from Antioch alumni.
posted by RogerB at 11:20 AM on June 16, 2007

:(

My poor old college. If the horrible run of reactionary student legislation I had to see happen to that place while I was there stuck, I'm not surprised no one wants to go there anymore. In my 4 years there it went from a 'proud open campus' that anyone could hang out at to a closeted people-getting-arrested-for-not-having-a-visitors pass little bubble where everyone wondered where the fun went.

But Antioch has survived worse, it's almost bit the dust more times than anyone can count, so I hope it can come back and maybe as a better place.

I refuse to say anything further on the matter except that all you people talking shit on the SOPP without a clue of being there on the ground, in the trenches, have my explicit verbal consent to eat a dick.
posted by 31d1 at 9:17 PM on June 16, 2007 [1 favorite]