[Alumni-chat] Antioch future vision

[Laura Fathauer]

--- Sistersara at aol.com wrote:
> Anyway you slice it, a College is about the Academic
> Enterprise, and  whether 
> you can do that with quality outcomes.  When you
> can't attract  sufficient 
> students to support core Faculty and programs, yes,
> you have  failed.  No way to 
> dress that up.  

And that is your primary mistake in 'cause'; for
earlier this decade, your cause and effect is
backwards. It wasn't that we weren't attracting
sufficient students to support the program, its that
the program (faculty, staff, student services and
support, shared governance, admissions and
recruitment) was being decimated due to expense cuts
mandated by the stock market crash, which THEN drove
away students (lowered retention) AND made recruitment
less successful.

As for relying on student tuition revenue to support
the program, in a study done in 2001, the top 49
liberal arts colleges ALL 'subsidized' their student
tuition from other sources. The average was about $13K
per STUDENT in subsidized revenue; i.e. on average it
cost $13K more per student to educate them then what
was paid in tuition, a cost that had to be funded from
other sources. Antioch College being low on sources to
'subsidize' the cost per student (small endowment,
heavy reliance on yearly gifts), was dealt a death
blow when the amount required as a 'subsidy'
drastically increased with the poorly thought out
decision to change the curriculum. 

When Straumnis first came in, one of the things she
frequently said (i wish the board would have listened
then) is that a lot of the issues other colleges have,
we don't have. We have money issues. We don't have
problems with having an identity or a mission or even
a lack of vision, we just perpetually can't fund it. 

But there was good things done during that time as
well, just never funded. Straumanis did some
'commissions' on focused areas- looking into a
'change' institute if I recall correctly. The Learning
Communities in 05 if properly supported were starting
to be successful- its just that the 5-year deficits
mandated by the Board ended up being larger then they
could stomach. 

In more recent history, Aimee Maruyama started a sort
of science advisory board that from what I know of it
I think could be a model for alumni participation and
engagement in curricular issues at the college. Of
course alumni have experience and great ideas- how do
we get them in place, and when is the appropriate time
to do so?

Just throwing out some other ideas- Alumni have
experience in the professional working market these
days- how could the co-op program, and co-op students,
be intergrated into today's market? 

As for the needs of the student of the 21st century,
I'd like to quote a current student on campus right
now- "Hey, guys! hello! over here! I'm sitting right
here! Yea, you're talking about me!"

-laura






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