[Alumni-chat] Antioch Interdisciplinary First Year Curriculum

[Gabe]

Bob,

That's fine and no doubt true, but you are not speaking to my larger point:
that something needs to be done for young men that the College does not do
(and very few colleges do -- another reason to think about doing it).  Young
men are not about co-ed soccer or rugby; they are about their souls.  Our
society does a poor job of initiating young men into manhood.  And a college
that is as self-consciously feminized as Antioch ought to consider what it
may both need to do and benefit from doing in this arena.

I staffed a 5-day initiation process for men at Folsom Prison 3 years ago,
all of them capital offenders.  It was the safest space I've ever been in,
once we got into it.  These men understood the value of initiation, and the
cost of the lack of it.

Gabe






> 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
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Alumni-chat mailing list
>>> Alumni-chat at w3.antioch.edu
>>> http://w3.antioch.edu/mailman/listinfo/alumni-chat
>> 
>> 
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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
> 
> 
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