[Alumni-chat] RE: [Chapters] Chapters Newsletter No. 10

[L Powsner]

The college is not allowed to recruit new students, but they will accept
"opportunistic" students, right? We (alumni) are not the college, so can't
we informally (without the college's permission) encourage high school
students to apply? I don't see how Antioch is going to get it's head above
water without an incoming freshman class.

Laurie '83
lrpjak at verizon.net

3) Help find new students for Antioch  -- but NOT YET, not until  
authorized to do this!

But we have to be very careful.  Right now we can talk with and  
encourage potential transfers.  But while the faculty is ready and  
eager to admit also a whole new Freshman class,  for the minute we  
cannot reach out to prospective Freshman and try to recruit them  We  
can certainly answer any questions that come our way about Antioch.   
But we cannot reach out to High Schools, we cannot engage in active  
enrollment right now - until we are given the green light that the  
Accrediting Organizations are giving Antioch the approval to continue  
granting degrees beyond December 2008.  I am sure we will get that,  
and we must be preparing ourselves NOW to move fast when so  
authorized.   But for now, we must wait for information from, and  
authorization from, our Director of Alumni Relations, Aimiee  
Maruyama.  Very soon Aimee will start sending out these Newsletters  
to Chapter leaders (see below) and she will inform us of what we can  
and cannot do, when.  For now, it is Okay to talk with prospies, but  
not to recruit them.

-----Original Message-----
From: chapters-bounces at antiochians.org
[mailto:chapters-bounces at antiochians.org] On Behalf Of Michael Brower
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 12:59 AM
To: Chapters

Antioch Alumni Chapters Newsletter No. 10

Today, November 3, 2007 is a truly historic day.  Today the Antioch  
University Board of Trustees announced at 2 PM at an Antioch  
Community Meeting its decision to reverse the June decision to  
suspend the operations of Antioch College.  Instead, they have stated  
that the College will remain open after July 1, 2008, and not close  
or suspend. The declaration of Financial Exigency, however, will  
remain in effect for some time longer, until the conditions are in  
place to remove it.

The two key Documents, the "Resolution," and the "Agreement in  
Principle," both dated November 2, have been emailed to all Alums  
with known emails as Antioch Update VIII.  If you didn't get that,  
or lost it, or want to become accustomed to getting info up-to-date,  
go to our Alumni Board website, antiochians.org, and read there these  
and other documents and statements.  See, for example the statement  
posted there by Alumni Chair Nancy Crow. And check there every day or  
two.  Lots of new news goes up there.

We have gained our two main objectives - or a least large parts of  
them -- with the Board of Trustees.  Keeping Antioch open, and an  
Agreement in Principle to establish a separate Board of Trustees for  
Antioch College (and for all of the other campuses too).

These agreements are far from complete.  In fact they are only  
beginnings, estalishing a path forward and processes.  When you read  
them, you wil find, like most Alums do, that there are parts that are  
not completely satisfying.  We still have a long way to go, a lot of  
work to do, a lot of funds to raise.  But we are now working  
cooperatively with the Trustees, we have earned a solid foundation of  
respect from them, we have made enormous progress already, and we are  
on a path forward to regenerate Antioch College to again become a  
world-class path-breaking College to serve humanity another century  
or two or more.

Now on to some of the urgent work we Alumni need to do.  In my brief  
Interim Newsletter No. 9 I listed 5 kinds of important activites  
Chapters need to undertake.

1) Keep their own membership informed and involved and attract new  
members.
2) Help us find Alums to organize new Chapters in another 2-3-4 dozen  
cities.
3) Help find new students for Antioch  -- but NOT YET, not until  
authorized to do this!
4) Continue Helping Raise significant donations and pledges for  
Antioch College.
5)  Find Co-op jobs and support Co-op students in our communities -  
as authorized.

In Newsletter No. 9 I addresed Item 1 above and sent you as an ideas  
source a long list of Boston events in recent years.  Later I sent an  
Addendum with an offer by Richard Couto to travel to Chapter meetings  
and talk about his book Courses in Courage which is about Antiochians  
(faculty and students) from 50 years ago.   If any of you did not get  
either of these documets, just let me know and I will send them again  
to you alone.

Now it is urgent for Chapters to work fast on all 5 of these items,  
especially the first four - but with an important proviso in No. 3  
about new Freshmen.   Let me address this list, one by one, although  
they are indeed inter-related and mutually supportive.

1) Keep your own membership informed and involved and attract new  
members.

This is essential.  Now is the time for your leadership or planning  
team to meet and plan and then hold soon a full membership meeting  
before Thanksgiving, or no later than the first week of December.  We  
need to keep people informed, to answer their questions, to recruit  
additional members, to keep our spirits up, and to roll into further  
actions.  AND to plan for several meetings of our Chapter in 2009.   
After all, thie College is going to stay open!  We need to stay in  
high gear and do all we can to make that permanent, to create the  
support and requirementes to enable removal of "financial  
exigency" and to really let the faculty know we are fully supporting  
them.  To attract new members, how about using a telephone tree?   
Each of three of you call 3-4 others, and if there are enough names  
on your lists,  each of those call another 3-4, etc. etc.  Or 2 call  
20 each?

To do this, get an updated list of Names and addresses and phone  
numers from our Alumni Director, Aimee Maruyama. She can give these  
to you, after you sign a Confidentiality Agreement, by city or zip  
code.  And, if you don't already have one, and can afford to buy  
it,  buy a new 2007 Alumni Directory, either a printed book, or a CD  
version, or both,  Two Problems:  They are VERY expensive, over $90  
each.  So, to buy  printed or CD you may want to take up a  
collection.  And, they are almost sold out of both.   If you want to  
help us start other new Chapters (see #2 below), it will be almost.  
essential for you to buy a Directory.  If they are out of both  
printed and CD versions when you call, ask if they will soon  
duplicate CDs, which they have told me they are likely to do soon, as  
their supplies run down to or close to zero and duplication is ot too  
expensive.  Printed versions?  Since these are much more expensive,  
it is unlikely that they will ever reprint this 2007 edition!  To  
buy, write to:
PCI the data company, Heritage Square, 4835 LBJ Freeway, Suite
1100 Dallas, TX  75244. Or better, since they may soon be out, call 
their Customer Service at 1-800-982-1590.

2) Help us find Alums to organize and join new Chapters in another  
several dozen cities.

We now have over 40 Chapters, with new ones being organized every  
week.  But we also have over 15,000 known Alums (out of a total of  
17,000).  There must be several dozen other cities in the US and  
Canada, not to mention other countries, where there are enough Alums  
to support a Chapter.   Just to take a few examples out of many,

Madison Wisonsin has 50 Alums, but no Chapter (unless I am behind a  
bit!).  And Alumna Kristen Muir '05 (kkaramuir at gmail.com) is ready  
to organize Madison.  I'm sure she could use some help.  Milwaukee,  
Wisconsin has about 21 Alums, but in my lists (hopefully outdated) it  
is listed as Minneapolis - Milwaukee!  Well Minneapolis has an  
energetic Chapter, but Milwaukee is a huge drive from there!   How  
about Ann Arbor, MI, with 75 or more Alums,  or  Kalamzoo with 18.    
Or Sacramento, CA with about 30 Alums and no Chapter.  I think Joel  
Elinwood <jellinwood at aklandlaw.com> is ready to help organize a  
Sacramento Chapter, but he will need some help.  We have only one  
single combined YS - Dayton Chapter.  Yet YS alone has about 250  
Alums and Dayton has its own 110 or so.  Don Wallace '60 strongly  
believes we should have a separate Chapter in large and thriving  
Dayton, and is willing to help in organzing there, although he does  
not live there. "Don Wallace" w420 at earthlink.net . I am sure that  
Alumni Board member Miguel Santiago ("'Miguel Santiago'"  
masantiago75 at yahoo.com) ), would help, but Miguel is packing up his  
young newly expanded family and moving to Columbus for a new job in a  
couple of months or three. Who will step forward and get Dayton  
going?  And how about Xenia with 20 Alums and Springfield with 46?   
Who do you know there?

Now let's look to the South.  Except for Texas and North Carolina,  
where are our Southern Chapters?    Atlanta has abouit 65 Alums, but  
no Chapter!  Back in July Louise Meller '67  (770) 993-9380   
louisemeller at bellsouth.net  ) wrote me that she is (was?) willing to  
organize an Atlanta chapter.  But I was leaving on family vacation  
that day and lost her email and did not find it and get back to her  
until yesterday.  Shame on me!  I hope she is still willing and able,  
but she'll need help.  Ben Drake '56 in suburb Peachtree city is  
willing to help.  (Ben Drake drakeben at bellsouth.net )   And who do  
YOU know in or near Atlanta?

Or what about Florida?   Hundreds of Alums in Florida, but no Chapter  
yet.  Start in Southeast Florida.  Michael Olenick, '90   
olenick at valueinnovation.net has offered himself as a contact for Southeast
Florida.   And Ginger  Lines '81, now  Virginia Prodanova, a Teacher at Palm
Beach County  
Community College, has also offered to help.  
Millhaven28 at hotmail.com.   I suggest that the two of you get in touch  
right away, and that the rest of us send you names and contacts for  
our friends.  West Palm Beach has onliy 5 Alums listed.  But Miami  
has 31 and Miami Beach has 7.  And there are a whole bunch of other  
cities on that Southeast Coast.

Then there are all thos cities on the other side, the southwest  
Coast.   Who do we know, or who can we find in Naples (21 Alums),  
Fort Myers (15) and Fort Myers Beach (4).  And going north a bit  
Sarasota has 25 Alums and nearby are Bradenton (15) and Bradenton  
Beach (5).    Hey, shout out to my classmates Lee ('55) and Shirley  
('58) Cass.   lcass at tampabay.rr.com  How are you.  Are you up for  
organizing an Antioch Alumni Chapter in your area? I would love to  
hear from you, and could offer my help.

And I haven't even offered info on father north on either the East  
or the West Coasts of Florida, nor the interior, nor the panhandle.

But I hope you all get the idea.  What am I suggesting that you do,  
asking you to do?  Either alone in your Living Room, or in a small  
group, or in your next Chapter meeting, try to think of half a dozen  
or more of your classmates and friends at Antioch.  Do you know where  
they live and have their email or phone number?  Good. Call them up,  
or email them.  Tell them about how we just saved Antioch from  
closing and how we are regenerating Antioch to become again a famous  
leader in American education.  Ask them to join their local Chapter,  
and if there is no local Chapter, to organize one!  Tell them Aimee  
Maruyama and Mike Brower will help them get going.  Or, say you each  
remember 6-12 friends from your Antioch years.  But have no idea  
where they are now.  Look them up in the 2007 Directory.  See above.   
That is why you need at least one Directory in each group.  As a last  
resort, find out which friends in which chapters have these Alumni  
Directories and contact them with your names and ask their help to  
check in their Directory to find the old friends.  Or as a very last  
resort, pester Aimee Maruyama or Director of Research Fred Kraus at  
Antioch to get you the addresses and phone numbers and emails of your  
old friends. fkraus at antioch-college.edu

Why is contacting these old friends so important?  Because we are  
still reaching only a tiny fraction of our Alums, since most have  
been ignored and cut off from Antioch for too long.  First we find  
them, then we invite them back in with us, then we inform and engage  
them and interest them - and then they become active AND they make a  
contributioin and help in other ways.  Maybe become organizers or  
leaders!  Or major donors?   (See below.)  THAT is how we will save  
our beloved Antioch and make sure it is still around winning  
victories for humanity, and our planet, for another 155 years.

3)  One of the most important things we can do for Antioch is to help  
find more students who would fit with Antioch's history and values  
and future.  Both transfers and entering Freshman.  Our Admissions  
office has always been understaffed, and now that is even more true.   
They need help in staffing College Fairs and talking with High School  
Counselors and with graduating seniors and other prospects about  
Antioch.  Etc., etc. Our Boston Chapter has a whole Team focussed on  
this, and I wouild like to see EVERY OTHER Chapter quickly organize  
such an Alumni team or Committee.

But we have to be very careful.  Right now we can talk with and  
encourage potential transfers.  But while the faculty is ready and  
eager to admit also a whole new Freshman class,  for the minute we  
cannot reach out to prospective Freshman and try to recruit them  We  
can certainly answer any questions that come our way about Antioch.   
But we cannot reach out to High Schools, we cannot engage in active  
enrollment right now - until we are given the green light that the  
Accrediting Organizations are giving Antioch the approval to continue  
granting degrees beyond December 2008.  I am sure we will get that,  
and we must be preparing ourselves NOW to move fast when so  
authorized.   But for now, we must wait for information from, and  
authorization from, our Director of Alumni Relations, Aimiee  
Maruyama.  Very soon Aimee will start sending out these Newsletters  
to Chapter leaders (see below) and she will inform us of what we can  
and cannot do, when.  For now, it is Okay to talk with prospies, but  
not to recruit them.

4) Continue Helping Raise significant donations and pledges for  
Antioch College.

In the short run - and long run - this is the most significant  
thing we can do for Antioch.

Many of us recently made cash contributions or pledges.  And it was  
that cash and those pledges that convinced the Board of Trustees that  
the Alumni are determined to keep Antioch open and that we could  
raise significant dollars to cover the deficits for the next few  
years.  Since we have now obtained from the Trustees commitments on  
our two main requirements to fulfill those pledges (keep Antioch open  
and estalish our own separate Board of Trustees) it is now time to  
send in the cash to honor our pledges.  Monday morning I am honoring  
my pledge and sending in a Check.  Made out to "Antioch College  
Alumni Association."  And I will put "Account #130110698524" on  
the Memo Line.  And I will send it to US Bank, 266 Xenia Ave., Yellow  
Springs, OH 45387.  This info is from the bottom of the Pledge Form.   
Copies available at antiochians.org, under "Donate".  I would ask  
that you do the same thing, and ask your members to.

It is time we all honored our pledges. Our Alumni Association leaders  
will transfer these funds on a promised timetable to an Antioch  
College (NOT University) account which will pay for our Antioch  
Alumni Office and our Development Office, and the Admissions office,  
and cover the current deficit for faculty salaries, and keep Antioch  
open.

Next, we must go out and solicit still more pledges.   We have to  
keep raising money and pledges to cover all of the current and  
projected deficites for several more years.  Then we have to keep  
raising funds until we have developed a break-even sized studemt  
enrollment, which will take several years.  And THEN we should keep  
working and raising bucks until we have finally built up a  
respectable solid endowment, so that our beloved Antioch can never  
again be threatened with closure.

So, we should all donate and pledge as much as we possibly can, and  
then a bit more!  And encourage all our friends to do so too.  And,  
if we cannot give any significant amount of dollars, or we have  
friends who cannot, we should still contribute SOMETHING and urge  
them to.  We need many millions of dollars beyond the $18 million  
that we raised in a couple of months. This REALLY impressed the  
Trustees and helped get them to agree to keep Antioch open.  AND we  
also need to dramatically raise the number and percentages of our  
Alums that contribute anything, anything at all.  Even $50.  Even  
$25!! Why?  Because rich potential donors and foundations look at  
both figures.  How much, in dollars, have your Alums contributed?  
Each year?  And HOW MANY, what percentage, of Alums, contribute to  
Antioch College each year?

Let me tell you what we are up against.  EVERY YEAR Williams College  
gets donations from about 80% of its Alums!  But Antioch, which has  
ignored its Alumni for so long (a stupid trend that we, you and I,  
are finally turning aournd), gets donations from only a bit over 20%  
of its Alums.  Well, we are going to dramatically change that, year  
by year.  Let's double that to 40%, and then get over 50%!  And  
then  the Foundations will begin to wake up and say "What is  
happening with Antioch?" "We thought it was dead, and now it is  
bursting with new buds and leaves and ideas and energies!"   And if  
you have saved a big chunk of money, or know some Alum who is  
wealthy, please immediately contact our Antioch major gifts officer  
Wendy Ernst or our Director of Research, Fred. Kraus.  Quickly!   
wernst at antioch-college.edu, or  fkraus at antioch-college.edu

5)  Find Co-op jobs and support Co-op students in our communities -  
as authorized.

Well, this is another way we can help.  But probably not right now,  
as plans for the Co-op periods and the Co-op office are going through  
transitions.   It would do no harm if you want to email our Co-op  
office and let them know if you are interested, now or in the future,  
in heliping place one or miore Co-op student in your area. Might be a  
year or two.

Okay.  Enough already.  Too much?  This may be the last Newsletter  
you get from me.  Our Alumni Director, Aimee Maruyama, has told me  
she is ready to start writing and editing and sending regular Chapter  
Newsletters to come out once or twice a month.  So send her your  
ideas and needs and you will soon start getting Newsletters from  
her.  And by all means, continue to contact me with ideas and  
requests for how I might help.

Congratulations!  We did not let it die!!  W:e will win more  
Victories for HumanIty, and Planet Earth for another 133 years!

-- Mike Brower '55.  Member, Alumni Board.  Chair, Chapters Committee.