[Alumni-chat] Recent Visit to YS

[toyboy (andy at svcable.net)]

Fascinating stuff Laura and Travis (really!) and gives me more reason not to get attend to my work. (Is the University gonna pay for this online Think Tank or what?)

Just a few knee jerk reactions to the posts above:

Jdwood: aside from the illogic that the Admin and BoT want to both close the College yet use its reputation at the same time, I find it hard to see a scenario where administrators, without real cause, just are ipso facto hostile to the College as you appear to suggest. These people are professionals; they have their reasons, if they have them at all. (And hostility might be in the eye of the beholder. There has been open hostility to the Centers by many at the College from as far back as when Dixon first started them.) And I think it would be very productive to hear those reasons out, and even should they be forced somehow to admit to an "open hostility" to learn what has caused that. These people aren't idiots and it is just too facile to brand them "corporate" or whatever, and therefore not part of the table of discussion. I can very well see a sort of "tail wagging the dog" scenario in the BoT decision to close the College, but their actions since (e.g. meetings with interested
parties) has not exactly been one of your usual top down decisions makers. And Murdoch, to her credit made an appearance at Adcil. Call me naive, but I just can't see it having worked that way you describe. Perhaps some administrators at the University are there simply to advance their careers, but I should think that most of them would not be even a part of Antioch were it not for an intrinsic respect and identification with the College in some way. I can see how they would be blind, perhaps, to specific feelings and resentments of those part of the College campus due to, if for no other reason, an intimacy with certain histories of the College, but hostility is a two-way street. 

Again, the one thing we all agree to is a change of governance. It even appears that there is agreement within the University to a change in this direction.

>From the way Travis describes it, the Centers are a failed experiment. Perhaps. But his critique of it based on the structures of other Universities strikes me as a bit unfair. I don't think it was ever meant to be like a "normal" University. And you know where I stand about the strength of the center. I am not going to blame the University for all the losses at the College. 

Laura's post strikes me as interesting, but a little overgeneralizing. Who can really say why someone chooses a University program, or for that matter how widespread it is. I don't believe that the Centers are simply regional in nature. Perhaps a majority of their students are, but surely not all. Certainly, the name of Antioch probably initially attracts the bulk of prospective students but just the same, it is the content, and reputations, of these individual schools that gets someone to enroll, not simply an Antioch name. Just the same, I couldn't agree more that a much stronger central College will benefit everyone. But as I've said before, a change of governance does not guarantee, in and of itself, a stronger central College.

As for Antioch College becoming the University, well I hate to say it, but in essence that's the way it is now. If only taking a look at things physically, the University offices are just right across Livermore from the main campus. These people live there! I fail to see how having the College administration take over administration of the University would change anything in the long run. That's how it started.  It is only due to a sort of us-them way of thinking that causes people to believe there is such a dramatic split. 

And as for mules or hybrids, some Alums might say that Antioch College has been something of a mule in recent years.
I've been proofing/editing this post for a 1/2 hour now. I got to post and get back to work! Go ahead and start attacking. I'll be back later. :o)