Endless Knots

"The College That Would Not Go Gently"

Today's New York Times Education section carries yet another article about the Antioch College saga, which I've posted about aplenty. The story is not over and each writer who tries to tell it struggles for another angle that makes it make sense. Squaring the circle, that.

The lead picture with today's Times article says as much as anything in the piece itself: It's raining, pouring apparently, and one lone person is struggling into a desolate student union. In my five years at the college, there was never a moment when a picture like that could have been taken: the Union, as we called it, was teeming with activity day and night. Indeed, it was usually hard to find a table in the cafeteria. A college built for 2000 now has barely 200.

Graduation is next week and it might be Antioch College's last - and it might not be. The Antioch University Board of Trustees and the Antioch College Continuation Corporation (ACCC) are still talking, even after reports that talks have broken off. And there's yet another organization called "Non-stop Antioch" that vows to soldier on with a million dollars in funds collected by still another group of alums.

If the ACCC is successful in gaining control over the college (two deals have been proposed, one whereby this non-profit founded by a group of wealthy alums takes over the college assets in exchange for $10 million, another whereby ten of these alums join the University Board and ten of the current trustees resign), their challenges will be immense. Not insurmountable but immense. They too will have to make tough decisions about reconstruction, tenure, recruitment, endowment...all the things that plague the institution now. And, ironically, among their numbers are some of the very same people who served on the Board of Trustees while the college declined and the endowment did not grow.

It's not over and I do admire everyone who's hung in there constructively on all sides.

Knitting Antioch back together

My college friend, Pat Edwards, reunited of course via Facebook, has alerted me to this positive development in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where our dear, long-suffering Antioch College is situated. On the main street in town, knitters (and passersby) are stitching artful patches around "the knitknot tree." It's a trend, apparently. See "Knitters dress up trees for public art." As this blog is Endless Knots and I've been known to knit a thing or two, look for some developments here in West Newton (says she, eying the old maple in the back yard). Reminds me of "the note tree" on our beloved Bear Island in New Hampshire, where children (and their grandparents, principally) write messages on pieces of birch bark and tuck them in a particular tree near the island's famed Sunset Rock.

(AP Photo/Skip Peterson - thanks)

It's closed, it's open, it's closed, it's not...

Oh, Antioch. I've been following the saga since last June when the Antioch University Board of Trustees decided to temporarily shutter the college in hopes of saving it. In June, the board took its decisive vote; seconds later, the alums rose up in protest; in November, the trustees voted to reconsider their decision after a few alums banded together and formed a new 501(c)3 in hopes of taking over the college; and just last week, the board voted again to keep the college closed. Disclosure: I've got friends on both sides of this struggle -- trustees, of which I was briefly one, whose judgment I honor and respect, and officers of the new non-profit, Antioch College Continuation Corporation, one of whom has been a close friend since we were at Antioch together and whose business acumen is unparalleled (in my experience).

I don't know how to solve this one but I do know that this predicament calls for the greatest shoring up of maturity imaginable, including giving one another the greatest benefit of the doubt. I've heard a lot of conversation that is not that, frankly, and have been on the sore end of some of it myself just for saying that the board was brave to make its first move. I repeat what I said then: the college was not viable when I went onto the university board (1998) and things have only gotten worse. The trustees took a controversial decision that finally woke up the alums. Now, everyone, please talk civilly and productively. Not talking is not going to solve this. End of sermon.

Antioch College, Chapter 9763

For those following the Antioch College story, this update. Frankly, one could devote a whole website to it. Indeed, several have. A Boston area Antioch Alumni Association (alumni site here) meeting last Sunday prompts this post.

Brief recap: In June '07, the Antioch University Board of Trustees, of which Antioch College is the home of the brand and the original progenitor of its far-flung tentacles (there were once nearly 40 mini-Antiochs around the country), voted to suspend operations at the college for lack of funds. Enrollment had plummeted in the past few years (down from 2000 when I graduated in 1970 to less than a tenth of that this year). I've done a bunch of posts about this (The little college that might, among others), about the finger-pointing, about the outcry from the college alumni who revere their memories of their time there (as do I), about the immature reaction of some who chose to scapegoat others, some of those scapegoaters also having served in positions where they were responsible for creating the conditions that led to the college shutting down.

Comes then the outcry and the pledge by alums to fill the coffers. Good news, lots of energy to save the place, alums meeting everywhere to figure out how to turn demise into delight. Thrilling to see what my fellow alums were capable of - and how great the affection for this national educational treasure. Antioch's storied history is recorded in many places but in short it was the first college in the US to offer work/study, a unique form of experiential education that taught us how to work and learn at the same time. I've written elsewhere here about my co-op jobs. Horace Mann, the great educator who lived here in Newton, Mass., was the first president of Antioch College (1852); Arthur Morgan, Antioch's president for decades, instituted the co-op program. Then Antioch pioneered a massive junior-year-abroad program (Antioch Education Abroad) and I benefited from that too as the first woman from the college to go to Oxford as an undergrad.

Enough about how great it was.

Following their surprise announcement to suspend college operations, the university trustees seemed to hear what the alums were saying and, working with the Alumni Board, agreed in November to reverse the suspension. Then the unexpected yet again. The Alumni Board rejected the Board's suspension because the big-dollar donors were unwilling to fork over their funds (some had only made pledges) unless the college had complete autonomy from the University. Complete autonomy, meaning its own Board of Directors bearing no formal ties to the University. And at about the same time, a new nonprofit formed, Antioch College Continuation Corporation (link will take you to its most recent communication).

What struck me again at Sunday's alumni meeting was the fervor with which nearly everyone spoke, their love for the college and their desire to revive it. Most had a "hot button" issue, whether the way the original decision was communicated or the location of a new building for one of the Antioch graduate campuses located in the same town as the college, or why the other adult campuses (there are five around the country) couldn't just make up the college's deficit (they don't have the funds). But all agreed that Antioch College is a national treasure and that it must be preserved.

Me too. Among the most eloquent was Everett Mendelsohn, another of our esteemed alums and professor of the History of Science at Harvard, who has recommended that we convene the very the best minds in education - and among the alums - to plot the college's future. Funds are critical, yes, but a vision for an Antioch for the 21st-century is fundamental to attracting the brightest students and retaining the best faculty.

For my discouraged writer friends (and all Antiochians)

I love stories like this as they involve many favorite things - writers who keep at it even when rejected, food, honoring those who've died...and my alma mater, which has not died, Antioch.

If you get The Sunday New York Times, you'll be able to read the original. Otherwise (or if so inclined, even if), read Alex Witchel's nice recap of The I Hate to Cook Book author Peg Bracken's life (she died in October '07). Antiochians: she graduated in 1940. Here's a snippet:

The men who ruled the world in the late 1950s, or at least six of the men who ruled publishing, rejected Peg Bracken’s manuscript, “The I Hate to Cook Book.” It would never sell, they told her, because “women regard cooking as sacred.” It took a female editor at Harcourt Brace to look at the hundreds of easy-to-follow recipes wittily pitched at the indentured housewife and say, “Hallelujah!” Since its publication in 1960, Bracken’s iconic book, which celebrated the speedy virtues of canned cream-of-mushroom soup and chicken bouillon cubes, has sold more than three million copies. That helped lift her spirits, her daughter, Jo Bracken, said, about her $338 advance.

The little college that might

For those following the saga of Antioch College, it just gets better and better. Briefly, last June, the Antioch University Board of Trustees suspended operations at the college due to low enrollment and an endowment so paltry that subsidizing the deficit was not a viable option. The alumni went nuts. Appalled that their beloved institution (mine too) could be shuttered, they rallied, some more maturely than others.

Over the past six months, negotiations between the Alumni Board (elected by the College alums) and the Board of Trustees, augmented by a nationwide fund-raising drive among alums (not exactly known for emptying their pockets on behalf of the college in the past) led to two unexpected developments:

1. On November 3, the University Board agreed to lift the suspension with a number of provisos; and

2. Yesterday, December 11, the Board "approved a resolution instructing [the university chancellor] to begin exploring the possibility of transferring the ownership of Antioch College to a separate, free-standing liberal arts institution with its own board of trustees..." by July 1, 2008.

In the interim, a third group, the newly formed Antioch College Continuation Corporation, a 501(c)3 incorporated in Ohio, will serve as the new entity to operate the college, independent of the university. The incorporators of the new group are mostly college alums (one is not); a number are former university board members.

Hats off to this new group, to the alums working so hard to preserve this national treasure, and to the university board for moving with the tide.

NOTE TO ANTIOCHIANS: check out the virtual conversation among alums about all this along with the Antioch College Record Online. Ahhhh, for the days when I was a managing editor and stayed up all night at Yellow Springs News putting filler into lines of lead type.

ANTIOCH COLLEGE’S SUSPENSION LIFTED!

Just received this email from the Boston Antioch College (my alma mater) Alumni Group:

At 2 p.m. EST, the Antioch University Board of Trustees, in historic collaboration with the Alumni Board, agreed today to lift the suspension of operations at Antioch College originally slated for June 30, 2008. This decision, which follows intensive discussions between the University Board of Trustees and the Alumni Board, means that Antioch College will continue to offer academic credits and degrees to current students.

Amazing effort on part of alumni to raise the money needed to keep operations going. And indicative of the commitment of the Board of Trustees, most of whom are alums, to be open-minded and reverse a highly controversial decision.

I will write more about this in the days to come but this is quite a story in collaboration.

Meanwhile, here's the New York Times/AP article, Antioch College to Stay Open, already running on its site and on the International Herald Tribune site.

And from the collaboration point-of-view, alumni et al were able to listen to the college-wide meeting that took place in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which went on for three hours this afternoon, via streaming audio, and to participate in an 90-person chat, where people were able to post questions that others answered, identify who was speaking, and clarify points. Meanwhile, there was live blogging coming from the meeting itself, documents sent around to alums --and posted to the alumni website--while we were listening.

High fives to everyone involved. As Steve Schwerner, college alum and professor emeritus, said, "That [meaning the Board of Trustees' reversal of its decision] was the easy part."

I've written a number of posts about the Antioch situation.

Memorial service for Carolyn Goodman, October 7, 2007

Carolyn Goodman's memorial service takes place Sunday, October 7, 2007, at 4:00 PM at New York Society for Ethical Culture, 64th Street and Central Park West, New York, NY. Please send an email to melbrady at optonline dot net if you're attending.

I've done a number of posts here about Carolyn's remarkable life and career. Click on Obits in the Categories list to the right or click here or here or here, for the original post on her son, Andrew, and the remarkable and, in retrospect, extraordinarily sad postcard he sent from Mississippi on the day he was murdered in 1964. As mentioned, Carolyn's youngest son, David, was a classmate of mine at Antioch.

Wikipedia entry on Carolyn Goodman here.

Parental controls

So all of us have topics that kind of set us off, right? Stuff that comes up about which, if you're so fortunate as to have them, your kids say, "Oh, Mom. Don't bother with that. It just upsets you." And then the next 14 times you mention this thing that bugs you, they patiently say, "Mom, promise me you won't bother with that again, ok?" And then you promise and of course something else incredibly irritating related to the thing that sets you off happens, which, naturally, makes you complain for the 15th time, at which point even your son-in-law starts screaming, saying, "You promised us you wouldn't get involved with that again..." And on it goes. I'm certain there's not a single other parent reading whose kids have ever reprimanded her/im in this way.

Sooooo....in the 16th conversation, my very capable techie-foodie-amazingly sensible daughter says, "That settles it. Time for the parental controls. I'm going to fix your computer so that any time this [unmentionable, unspeakably aggravating] topic comes up, it will be screened out." Which is why I can't even type the word that peeves me so, because if I do type it, like here,   , this is what happens.

Since I first posted this on Sunday, I've had several conversations with people asking WHAT IS IT? How about posting your conjectures below? Careful readers of the previous paragraph, no cheating!

More on Carolyn Goodman

The obits for "Dr G," as Carolyn Goodman's son, David, called her, are coming in from around the world. Click through this gallery of photos from the Jackson (Miss) Clarion Ledger. The photos begin with this one taken June 17, 2005, showing Dr G leaving the Neshoba County Court House in Philadelphia, Miss., with David. She was there to testify in the murder trial of Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen, accused in the 1964 killings of her son, Andy, and two other civil rights workers (Michael Schwerner and James Chaney). Then read this obit by Jerry Mitchell, who kept this story alive for a very long time. Read more here about Mitchell's tireless investigative reporting that "has unearthed documents, cajoled suspects and witnesses, and quietly pursued evidence in the nation's notorious killings from the civil rights era."

At the trial, Dr. G read the postcard that Andy mailed from Mississippi on the day he was killed.

Killen was convicted of "orchestrating the killings," Mitchell writes, on the 41st anniversary of the young men's murders June 21, 1964, and is serving sixty years in prison for manslaughter.

Mitchell's personal understanding of Dr G comes through in his piece, reflected in the quote he chose from her son:

Goodman’s son, David, said today: “Besides being my mother, my mentor and spiritual guide, she taught me the precious value of human dignity and the importance of speaking up and acting whenever your own, your family’s or other people’s dignities and civil rights are denied.”

Other obits: Washington Post, The Guardian...just google.

Graveside service tomorrow (Sunday) in New York; memorial service to follow in the fall.

Dr. Carolyn Goodman - Oct 6, 1915-Aug 17, 2007

A few hours ago, I received this email from my friend of forty years, David Goodman:

My mother left this stage at 1:18 AM this morning and is now with my father and brother Andrew and others on the next level. I am sure she is having a fine time.

Complete obit in New York Times, Aug 18, 2007

Readers of this blog may remember my post of June 21, where I included, with his permission, the extraordinary postcard that David gave me in May when I had dinner with Carolyn Drucker Goodman (his mother) at her apartment on New York's Upper West Side. At nearly 92, she remained extraordinarily dignified, surrounded by the memorabilia of an historic life and the good taste of a sophisticated intellectual who'd lived in the city and known fascinating people.

Carolyn Goodman, as in the mother of Andrew Goodman, as in Goodman-Schwerner-and-Chaney, the three young civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964, here with the other two mothers at Andy's funeral.

David's light touch in reporting his mother's death is emblematic of her spirit. She carried herself with rare dignity and grace along avenues where others would have been crawling on the pavement begging. I don't know how anyone survives their child's death, no less brutal murder by the Ku Klux Klan, but she did, while maintaining a complex and influential career as a psychologist (assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein Medical School among other honors-see the jump page for her entire resume and list of publications) and maintaining a lifelong dedication to the Andrew Goodman Foundation that she and her husband started in 1966.

From the moment I met Carolyn in 1969, I wanted to be like her. It was just months after her husband had died suddenly of a stroke, barely five years after her son's murder. ("Andy's death killed him," David once told me.) She was 54 and, at 22, I was overcome with admiration at the composure of this absolutely gorgeous woman, who'd lost her child and husband in such rapid sequence. I was struck also with her beautiful skin (milk baths were the secret, David said).

Many times since, when I've felt overwhelmed by the cards on my table, I've thought of Carolyn, her just continuing, never wallowing, just continuing, positively, without complaint or fury, just continuing.

In 2002, I was honored to present her with the Champions of Freedom Award from Freedom House, here in Boston. She was nearly 88 at the time, still very beautiful, warm, and articulate about the choices she'd made in her life.

So tonight I've lit a very special candle, given to me by Sylvia, my Antioch college roommate, about the time we both met David. Today is Sylvia's 60th birthday and she too was with me for our last dinner with Carolyn on May 18, 2007.

Even NPR is worried about Antioch

My old friend, John McChesney (take no offense at the "old," John :), who taught  literature at Antioch for six of its most rambunctious years, went back for the annual college reunion last weekend and posted this story to "All Things Considered." More typically of late, John has been reporting from Iraq, where he's been embedded with the Arkansas National Guard (and worrying his friends to death).

I was not surprised to get a call from John when the Antioch news broke. Everyone who's ever loved the place is worried and talking...And the college chat rooms are running wild with rumor and innuendo. As an alum, I too grieve for the Antioch that we all loved; as someone who's served on the board and who's had to make hard business decisions, I am relieved that the Board of Trustees pulled a sinking ship to drydock before it took on too much water.

But, I'm very uncertain how to reach my fellow alums, who are disturbed, furious, and hurt about being left out of the decision. Process is very important, always and forever, but even when it's flawed, the right decisions often are made. We need all our diplomats to step forward now and work together to build a viable college for the 21st century.

Antioch goes on co-op

For any of its graduates, Antioch College's co-op program, which sent its students out to work for about six months of every year, was its crown jewel. Out in the real world, the thinking went, students would learn how to put their ideas and their ideals into practice. I loved it as it gave me time to apply what I was learning and to think about  my next steps. The Board of Trustees, which governs both the college and the five graduate and continuing-ed campuses across the US, has, in effect, sent the college on co-op. For the next four years, the college will close as a study takes place to redesign a 21st-century institution.

The NY Times, AP, LA Times, and just about every other publication that can get its hands around this story has been covering it. Most, including an unthoughtful op-ed in the NY Times, focus on the superficial aspects of the story -- Antioch's rep as a haven for mad(wo)men, where faculty let the students run wild, and the administration offers the same to the faculty, while the trustees look the other way.

I am a proud graduate of the 1970 class of Antioch College and a former member of the Board of Trustees. The cacophony of complaints that is blasting out of Yellow Springs, Ohio, the beautiful little village where Antioch is situated, lacks grounding in the reality of running a small liberal arts college without an endowment. The NY Times printed four letters to the editor in response to the knee-jerk op-ed it ran on June 17. But it didn't run mine:

To the Editor:
Michael Goldfarb’s swan song for Antioch College (“Where the Arts Were Too Liberal,” Op-Ed, June 17, 2007) violates two key principles of obituary writing. First, be certain the “person” is dead; and second, fact-check the forensics before reporting cause of death.

Antioch closing/reopening on CNN

CNN is reporting on the close-open case of Antioch College. Who knew my beloved alma-mama could cause such interest?

Antioch Adventure Continues-Boston Alum Meeting

Further to developments at Antioch College, I received this email today from Barbara Waldruff, Chair, Antioch College Alumni Group of New England, a meeting, fellow nearby alums, June 26, 2007, with one of the trustees, as per below:

Dear fellow Antioch alumni,

I certainly hope I'm not breaking the news to you that a week ago the Antioch University Board of Trustees voted to close the College, at least temporarily, in July of 2008. (E-mail me if you'd like to receive relevant documents and links, including a copy of President Lawry's letter to the Antioch community.) This news came as a shock to every member of the Boston alumni planning group. We thought many local alums would be eager for more information about

The reasons for the trustees' decision

The short-term implications for the College, its people, and its physical and financial assets

The proposed restructuring of the College and reopening in 2012

How those of us who care about Antioch and its values and traditions might be able to help

We asked Dan Fallon, Class of 1961, Vice Chair of the Antioch University Board of Trustees and the Program Director of Higher Education at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, to meet with College alumni in New England, and he graciously agreed. The time and place of the meeting will be

Tuesday, June 26
6:00 p.m.
320 Dudley Street, Brookline
(my house)

Put it on your calendar now! If you plan to come, your RSVP would be greatly appreciated. Just reply to this e-mail. If you need directions, please ask. Ample free parking is available on Dudley Street, and on request we'll arrange transportation from a nearby Green Line stop.

We of the planning group encourage you to attend. This will be your best chance to learn about the important changes at the College. And we hope you'll encourage your Antioch friends who may not be on our e-mail list to attend as well.

Sincerely,
Barbara Wallraff
Chair, Antioch College Alumni Group of New England

Antioch College to close :( - and maybe reopen :)

Congratulations to The Board of Trustees of Antioch University, on which body I once served, for taking a very difficult decision, voting to close my alma mater, Antioch College, effective July 1, 2008. Dayton Business Journal reports at 4:29 PM EDT Tuesday, June 12, 2007:

Burdened by declining enrollment and financial problems, Antioch College will suspend operations at its Yellow Springs campus July 1, 2008.

The college's board, which voted June 9 to close the Yellow Springs campus, said it intends to possibly reopen a "state-of-the-art" campus in 2012 if sufficient financial funding can be secured.

"The decision was taken in light of the college's very fragile financial circumstances, resulting from low enrollments and insufficient funding from other sources, including endowment income and gifts," Antioch President Steven Lawry said in a statement Tuesday.

The college has 330 students for the 2006-2007 year, down 36 percent from its 1997 enrollment of 522.

Tuition at Antioch College costs $26,492 per year.

Antioch College has been synonymous with alternatives in higher education for nearly 200 years. Horace Mann, the Bostonian who married Mary Peabody of The Peabody Sisters as in Megan Marshall's fine book, founded Antioch College in 1852.

When I attended Antioch in the '60s, there were 2,000 students, alternating work and study programs around the world. In five years, I went from Yellow Springs, Ohio, where the college is situated, to New York (sold books at Barnes and Noble at 18th and Fifth), to Los Angeles (worked as admin in USC's grad psychology program) to Yellow Springs (managing editor of the Antioch Record, the college newspaper) to Oxford University (studied Elizabethan drama and philosophy) to the Yucatan, Mexico (studied Mayan culture) and back to Yellow Springs to graduate. Education like this is hard to come by.

Antioch has fallen to the pressures of maintaining a small liberal arts college with an even smaller endowment in the 21st century.

Specifying four years to come up with a state-of-the-art plan for a new college is quite a challenge, a radical one. But Antioch is deserving of nothing less.

Standing O to the board for having the guts to do this.

NB: The college's closing will not imperil the fine Antioch University graduate schools across the US. In fact, it may strengthen them as the graduate schools have been subsidizing the college for many years.