b real, call this a rough draft, perhaps. I’d like to get something like “Antioch College as the microcosm of the problems with America.” That’s ambitious, and ambitious is where my writing goals can fall apart. So the simple chronology here, which I’m also taking these back to the communications group we have for more editing.
Anyway – the Revival effort.
The Board of Trustees’ suspension of Antioch College was announced, to the media and not the College community, on June 12th, 2007. Alumni who discovered this quickly gathered in shock, and spoke of their Antioch memories, and planned to organize whatever response seemed proper at Reunion, scheduled for the weekend of June 23rd. Two groups didn’t wait: the faculty of Antioch College, and the Antioch College Alumni Association Board of Directors (Alumni Board). Both came to the Reunion with the beginnings of a plan: the faculty had their history of recent Antioch to counter the narrative the University was putting forth, as well as declaring their willingness to take legal action. The Alumni Board came in with a fundraising plan and willingness to take the lead of a revival effort.
The majority of alums who descended on the campus, on the other hand, were there for explanations. The College’s difficulties were well-known, certainly. The University leadership had the chance to stand up in front of the alumni and declare the necessity and the brilliance of their vision for the reopening of the College in 2012. Instead, they got equivocations. Questions left unanswered. An administration obviously in disarray, with the College President declaring he had no idea that closing the College was on the table and Trustees resigning on the spot.
Antiochians are used to a concept of shared community governance. That is, everyone who has a stake in an issue gets the chance to speak to that issue. The Administrative Council, for example, is a representative body of administrators, staff, students, and faculty. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the shared governance model is Community Government, which every member of the faculty, staff, and student body are a part of. CG is run by the Community Managers, a generally a handful of recent graduates who have been student leaders. It can be viewed as student council with teeth, or a surrogate Dean of Students’ office, but perhaps best as the facilitators who are the glue that holds the campus together.
In the aftermath of the University’s frustrating inability to communicate to the alumni, a group of mostly recent Community Managers met with the current CMs and brainstormed their concerns about where Antioch College was. Some were ideas for the future. Some were questions about the past. They were put into an outline, and taken out to the alumni in small groups for discussion and refinement, culminating in a community meeting attended by hundreds. Suddenly, this efficient, effective grassroots turned the Alumni Board’s ideas into an alumni movement. The goal for the weekend had been to raise $40,000. Ten times that amount was donated to the Revival, in cash and pledges, and the Antioch College Alumni Association passed a powerful resolution to dedicate themselves to reviving Antioch College.
The alumni dispersed, mobilizing nationally at Antiochians in several committees, such as Communications, Governance, and Fundraising, and also to set up or revitalize chapters in cities all across America and the world. The Board of Trustees, apparently recognizing that they had failed to convey their reasoning, promised two meetings: one a “webinar” to go over their financial information, and a week later an emergency meeting in Cincinnati, the last weekend in August. The Alumni Board responded by declaring the week before Save Antioch Weekend, and chapters all across the country responded by preparing social and fundraising events.
The Antioch College faculty, supported by the American Association of University Professors, filed for an injunction to keep the College open on August 14th. The Board of Trustees, apparently caught off-guard, canceled their financial webinar. Save Antioch Weekend continued, and thousands of alumni raised $5.3 million in cash and pledges, to combine with previous funds for over $8 million to take to the meeting in Cincinnati.
With the alumni carrot and the faculty stick facing them, a previously intractable Board of Trustees sat up and listened to the alumni, faculty, staff, students, and Yellow Springs residents talk about their dreams for Antioch College. The Alumni Board, and a group of former trustees, each presented proposals for mechanisms to separate the College from the University, and maintain its operations. The Trustees listened, and when they finally spoke, some even went to far as to say they’d changed their mind. They released a statement of support for the Alumni Board, said that they would reconsider their decision at the October Board meeting, and accepted the Alumni Board’s proposal of letting the College development office work with the Revival movement.
All appeared to be well, until Friday August 31st, when University leadership forced outgoing College President Steven Lawry to resign immediately, and changed the locks on the development office, forcing the staff to leave early for the long Labor Day weekend. It remains unclear as to why this happened, and what it means about to the Trustees’ promise to work with the alumni….

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