[Alumni-chat] RE: [Chapters] Chapters Newsletter No. 10
dl bahr
dlbahr at hotmail.com
Tue Nov 6 12:33:33 EST 2007
Accreditation is a HUGE issue at the moment. This must get worked out.
> Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 11:38:29 -0500
> From: lrpjak at verizon.net
> To: alumni-chat at w3.antioch.edu
> Subject: [Alumni-chat] RE: [Chapters] Chapters Newsletter No. 10
>
> 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.
>
> _______________________________________________
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