[Alumni-chat] Antioch Interdisciplinary First Year Curriculum

[Robert Devine]

Interestingly enough, we've had club soccer (co-ed) for as long as we've
had club rugby.  As an aside, I believe the data that Skooter cited
indicates that in the last few years the College has retained male
students in higher percentages than it retains female students.

When I was president there were conferences all over the place on the
implications of moving beyond the 60/40 split of women to men in higher
education, and I imagine that the predictions of a 65/35 undergraduate
national student clientele of higher education -- particularly liberal
arts -- have come to pass.  I hope no-one underestimates the dynamics of
the central growth sector in higher ed, that of Community Colleges, and
the relationship of CC programs to career opportunities for male high
school graduates.  

Bob  

Alumni Chat List <alumni-chat at w3.antioch.edu> on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 at
10:39 AM -0500 wrote:
>
>Seth,
>
>That may be, but the issue has a particular relevance and expression at
>the
>College we're talking about, where for years there were female (but
>probably
>not as active a set of male) rugby teams.  That's fine for the young
>women.
>I don't think it's as fine for the young men.
>
>Gabe
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> Gabe,
>> 
>> The imbalance between men and women is a global problem for almost all
>of
>> higher education  in the US at the moment and I am willing to bet it is
>> more pronounced on liberal arts campuses.
>> 
>> Seth Gordon '00
>> 
>> 
>> Alumni Chat List <alumni-chat at w3.antioch.edu> writes:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> My 2-cents:  When a college's student body is only about 1/3 young men,
>>> perhaps that ought to be a leverage point to consider working on. 
>Unless
>>> of
>>> course we all want the college to be eternally feminized.  I don't. 
>Many
>>> young men have souls that need to be expanded, deepened, and unleashed.
>>> I've tried to have this conversation with the last couple of
>presidents at
>>> Antioch, to no avail.  Why?
>>> 
>>> Think about it.  Then think some more.  A freshman curriculum that
>>> involved
>>> some aspects of male initiation -- separation from the familiar
>descent,
>>> trial, and return -- accompanied by study of the process (anthropology,
>>> literature, psychology, etc.) would, in my humble judgment, go a long
>way
>>> toward (a) stirring Antioch's male population, both youths and their
>>> elders,
>>> (b) marking the college as a place that is not only 'safe' for young
>men,
>>> but truly appealing, and (c) restoring the natural balance between the
>>> genders that ought to exist at the College.  Unless, of course, the
>>> present
>>> situation is what everyone wants.  I can't imagine it's what the young
>men
>>> on campus want.  Which is why there are so few of them.
>>> 
>>> Gabe Heilig, '65
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Seth E. Gordon, M.A.
>> Associate Director of Enrollment Services
>> Antioch University McGregor
>> 800 Livermore St.
>> Yellow Springs, OH  45387
>> 937-769-1825
>> www.mcgregor.edu
>> 
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>
>
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Robert H. Devine
College Professor
Antioch College
Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387

Our lives begin to end
the day we become silent
about things that matter"

-  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr