[Alumni-chat] (no subject)

Sun Nov 4 15:59:27 EST 2007

Dear David Apter:
Thank you for sharing your ideas a second time.  Let us hope it is not a silly exercise.  I like the idea of more build-up and focus on a field study project.  I appreciate your weigh in on the pros and cons of such a model.  This is food for thought and discussion.

I agree that the experiential aspect of Antioch needs to be better honed and integrated with the academics.  A focus on a junior year field project where theory is applied is a great idea!  However, a first year six month co-op can be transformational for an eighteen or nineteen year old student. My freshman year, I studied in Yellow Springs for six months and then worked for six months in Seattle in a field I strongly wanted to explore (Clinical Psychology--Day Treatment including interdisciplinary treatment modalities such as art and dance therapy).  Having six months in a urban center after six months in Yellow Springs was a great experience.  However,  when I came back from Seattle ripe with new experience and much buzzing in my head--there was very little integration or avenue to articulate what I had learned on co-op.  Yes, I did a paper and got credit but it was never integrated into my academic planning or into a structured sharing with others of what I had learned.  If there had been an opportunity for deeper research based on what I had experienced working in Seattle; I might have gone for an interdisciplinary approach--there was not the structure and academic focus to consider this.  Despite my interest in the interdisciplinary field of Art Therapy--I instead focused on a traditional BFA because not only were the academics watered down but so was the professional practice of Art Therapy.  (Ironically another intern in the Day Treatment program where I co-oped was a masters candidate at Antioch Seattle in Art Therapy--it was her lack of insight that pushed me towards a BFA rather than crafting an interdisciplinary degree involving arts and the social sciences.)  

Of course mine is just one story.  It would be interesting to gather others experiences of the balance between co-op, academic study, and interdisciplinary studies/research across various generations of Antiochians.  What worked for some?  What has not worked?  What are the pros and cons?

It might be interesting to have a work experience in the field of interest before a field study.  Perhaps this first work experience could be complimented with coursework at another University particularly if the first co-op was in a urban center--to continue the initial foundational study.  Or what about online coursework?  Academic vision, commitment, skilled advising would be critical to successful implementation of such a program.  In order for field research to be successful it would also take faculty with research experience and a rigorous commitment to the academic program.    

Good to read your words.
Sincerely,
 Lesley A Pownall Bahr '83

> Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 12:11:32 -0500
> To: alumni-chat at w3.antioch.edu
> From: david.apter at yale.edu
> Subject: RE: [Alumni-chat] (no subject)
> 
> Dear Lesley A. Pownall Bahr,
> 
> Since you ask let me send you something I tried 
> to circulate for starters a while back even 
> though it got nowhere.  Even if it is probably silly to try again here goes.
> 
> >A good deal of what made Antioch different in my 
> >day (immediate post-war two) is now pretty wide 
> >spread throughout the American university 
> >system.  My teaching experience, Northwestern, 
> >University of Chicago, Berkeley, Yale has been 
> >comfortable for the most part because of the 
> >universalization on these very diverse 
> >university campuses of the very virtues that 
> >once set Antioch apart.  Think Yale fifty years ago.....
> >
> >Which suggests that much of what was unique 
> >about Antioch, although certainly not 
> >everything, is well, no longer unique.  Students 
> >everywhere do work, take time off, travel.  An 
> >amazing proportion contribute to local self help 
> >projects in the community.  Many hold jobs part 
> >time.  If so what does this tell us about 
> >opportunities for Antioch?  Can there be an 
> >interesting and legitimate role for an Antioch 
> >of the future given the range of institutional 
> >alternatives?  These are questions that inspires 
> >me to play with some ideas based in part on my 
> >Antioch experience as well as in more conventional institutions.
> 
> As I see it the more general problem is 
> this.  One of the difficulties facing those who 
> would design a suitable educational curriculum, 
> (one that would be attractive to students making 
> choices), is the problem of learning, absorbing, 
> interpreting.  To really understand the materials 
> imposed on most students today given the 
> extraordinary build up of essential and required 
> knowledge, has made a good deal of higher 
> education a strategy game, the markers of which 
> are grades, recommendations, etc. This is 
> perfectly understandable given sheer volume of 
> what it is necessary to know.  Not only do such 
> conditions impose extraordinary burdens on 
> students and faculty alike but choosing and 
> selecting often means loss of what has been known 
> - so that it is often the case, especially in the 
> social sciences, that the wheel gets reinvented 
> again and again, even though the discourse 
> shifts.  One way of dealing with the problem has 
> been the increasingly widespread use of 
> interdiscplinary courses something which for a 
> variety of reasons seems to make particular sense 
> at Antioch.  However, (and even though I have 
> recently won an international prize for 
> interdisciplinary research and yield to no one in 
> support of it), I doubt that that is in itself 
> more than a question begging solution.  Mostly 
> such courses are just just watered down, thin 
> stuff from several disciplines. If so, what might 
> be needed for enrichment?  What is required to 
> stimulate the tension and even passion that might 
> make learning truly interesting and educationally 
> more inspiring and not subject to short cuts and beat the system strategies?
> 
> >Here are some ideas off the top of my 
> >head.  Suppose instead of simply restoring the 
> >work study program a new program was 
> >established, one that focussed on field 
> >research.  My own experience of such projects is 
> >in the social sciences, but the physical 
> >sciences, the arts and humanities are if 
> >anything even more rich in 
> >opportunities.  Suppose that aiming to do that 
> >field work well would become the center piece of 
> >an Antioch education. Suppose that by mobilzing 
> >the necessary back-ground knowledge one placed 
> >considerable emphasis on learning theory design, 
> >organizing what one learned and might do 
> >research on into a framework that would make the 
> >research theoretically interesting and 
> >empirically doable.  If that kind of structure 
> >was to form the backdrop and substance of the 
> >Antioch experience then a junior year might be a 
> >field study year, whether in this country or 
> >abroad, and in whatever specialty a student 
> >finds attractive and stimulating.  Suppose too, 
> >that one's senior year would involve both 
> >reflection on the wider implications of what was 
> >learned before field work and experience of 
> >doing it in terms of the empirical 
> >generalization of the findings or the larger 
> >philosophical, moral, ethical, or artistic 
> >implications of what has been accomplished. My 
> >point would be to focus early, organize 
> >knowledge in terms of learning by doing, with 
> >some of the doing being real field work.  And 
> >just think how far ahead students would be if 
> >and when they a) entered the job market, or b) went on to graduate school.
> >
> >Of course I myself can immediately voice 
> >objections.  Would students have to choose 
> >before they were capable of it?  Would such a 
> >focus or emphasis exclude too much from a 
> >balanced educational program?  Would such an 
> >emphasis generate early professionalization at 
> >the expense of intellectual curiosity?  And 
> >above all who would pay for it?   There are lots 
> >of others.  But the central idea behind this 
> >suggestion is that institutions of higher 
> >education rarely confront the fact that in a 
> >world so complex, and so multiiple, and where 
> >the sheer building up of essential theory and 
> >knowledge is so overwhelming, there is a growing 
> >need is for quite new strategies of learning 
> >rather than strategies of survival - or just 
> >moving the knowledge chips around in the same board game and calling it reform
> >
> >Antioch's near demise tells us something about 
> >how far ahead it once was, and how much higher 
> >education caught up.  It also suggests 
> >opportunities for a next round that an Antioch, 
> >or some other experimental college of the future 
> >might entertain.  What I envisage would be 
> >intensely serious, requiring committed students 
> >and faculty, around ideals not only of learning 
> >but of knowledge as experience - all of which is 
> >in keeping with Antioch's tradition.
> 
> 
> These are only a few thoughts to throw into what 
> I hope will be a very diverse hopper.
> 
> David E. Apter
> Henry J. Heinz II Professor Emeritus of 
> Comparative Political and Social Development
> Yale University
> 
> 
> 
> At 12:00 AM 11/4/2007, you wrote:
> 
> >Thank you for your words, David Apter.
> >Any academic imagination, you care to share?
> >
> >We have just returned from the first meeting of 
> >Minnesota Alumni.  Catherine Jordan presented 
> >the recent Alumni Board negotiations with 
> >Antioch University BoT and Administration--and 
> >the AB fund raising efforts and goals.  There is 
> >much work ahead.  Frank Adler also called for a 
> >strong academic vision and pulling on the 
> >academic expertise within the alumni community 
> >to begin development of a vision.  Drawing on 
> >the alumni expertise could also serve as a 
> >symbolic bridge between the "old' and "new" 
> >Antioch College.  Your name was mentioned as one such alumnus.
> >
> >There is a Vision forum on Antiochians.org.  You 
> >have to sign-up by going to forums.  Once you 
> >are logged in you can scroll down to Vision.  I 
> >hope to read more of your ideas in the near 
> >future.  What needs to be done first in this new start?
> >
> >Lesley A Pownall Bahr
> >Minnesota
> >
> > > Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 21:45:26 -0400
> > > To: alumni-chat at w3.antioch.edu
> > > From: david.apter at yale.edu
> > > Subject: [Alumni-chat] (no subject)
> > >
> > > This reprieve brings temporary relief to those for whom Antioch
> > > remains special. But if it is to be more than that and to restore
> > > Antioch to something like its earlier luster, it will require a great
> > > deal of academic imagination along with some hard thinking about what
> > > to learn, how to learn it, and why what is to be learned should be
> > > learned.  Otherwise it will do little good to simply keep the place
> > > going.  I hope the powers take this moment for what it is, an
> > > opportunity for a fresh look as well as a new start.  Properly done
> > > my hunch is that there will be money out there for an exciting
> > > program and lots of good will as well.  Good luck.
> > >
> > > David E. Apter "50".
> > >
> > >
> > >
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