[Alumni-chat] Lord of the Flies

Sun Sep 2 11:20:31 EDT 2007

>Though Steve could have taken a back seat since the announcement of his resignation, which was to be effective December 31, 2007, he continued to be an active participant in efforts to save the college and disseminate information to various parties by appearing at chapter meetings in other locales and, from what I understand, making himself available on campus.   I don't know of many people in his position who would do so.  I think it speaks very well of him and his commitment to Antioch.
I find this to be true. However I think that Steve has illustrated that while he has the ability within a buearacracy to advocate for his constituenciy. He has also illustrated that he has a poor understanding of the executive and ambassadorial functions of the president of a SPLAURC.

>For a host of reasons, Antioch College has been suffering for many years.  The College is constantly in a worrisome financial state and the academic programs have suffered because of it.  Antioch has also been having trouble attracting and retaining students for a very long time no matter what anybody says.  All of these things are connected.
You mean no matter what the evidence says right? Cuz the evidence suggest that while over all enrollment is falling it is not falling as fast as the declining numbers in the age cohort of 18-22 year olds. Moreover the retention rate at Antioch has in several sets of consecutive years been at a level equivalent to its peers, 80% and up. This seems to correspond with periods when there is longevity thus stability in leadership and noticed improvements in the infrastructure. IMHO Antioch's co-op program will always yield a slighlty lower rate of persistence than other SPLAURCs because students find other things, or people to keep them where they land rather than moving back to YSO.

>The BoT scheduled a web seminar (webinar) to communicate to all interested parties financial information in support of their decision to declare financial exigency.  This information was essential to our understanding of the situation and would have allowed us to make more intelligent decisions on how to proceed.  Unfortunately, the faculty prematurely filed a lawsuit against the Trustees effectively aborting that webinar.  The BoT were roundly criticized for waiting until the last minute to cancel the webinar.  I would like to remind everyone that in order for them to make that decision, they would have had to gather enough people to discuss the issue and consult with their lawyers.  They had less then two days to decide.  That being said, I don't like the way the initial decision to "suspend operations" was made or passed down.  One would have hoped the BoT would have at least consulted with some of the stakeholders before making that fateful decision.
Well, the point is moot because the AUBoT has agreed to turn over financial data to a committee of people approved by the AA to review the data. They will have to sighn non-disclosure statements so the data itself will not be in the public sphere (which in and of itself is a violation of the Board's own poliicy as stated on the web-site) but it will be used to formulate a plan. Was the faculty premature? I think not considering they had to act within a certain time frame to support their damage claim AND they needed to act, as the only stakeholder group with standing, to prevent the sales of assets or resources which might then make it impossible for any revival.
>I listened to hours of podcasts of the BoT meetings in their entirety (with the exception of the latter part of the open forum held on Saturday morning which I am still in the process of finishing).  I found it interesting but also disappointing.  Much of the support is in the form of emotion and that's fine but, truthfully, I don't think the presentation of the AB proposal to the BoT was as powerful as it should have been.  When a Trustee asked the AB Treasurer exactly how much cash we had raised to date (as opposed to pledged donations), our Treasurer was unable to give a dollar figure.  He mentioned he knew what the number was as of "last week" ($250,000) but he still had a lot of checks in his briefcase and would be meeting with a representative of the bank on the following day.  That looked very bad strategically in that the AB doesn't appear organized or super-competent.  I'm not mentioning this to be needlessly critical. I understand the entire AB is working very hard on
>volunteer time and I think that's wonderful but I do think we need to appear and be more organized and professional.  Furthermore, I wish the AB would act a bit more like a representative body.  By this, I don't mean they should prepare a business plan online with us, but communications from them are sorely lacking and I cannot understand why they don't solicit ideas for visioning and the like from the vast number of brilliant and competent alumni who are not even participating on this chat, for good reason.
I did too and it was apparent to me that the AB was purposefully avoided concrete detail because to do so would have been an invitation to get their ideas shot down. I believe that they moved to convince the AUBoT that they understand the situation from the BoT's POV. This is always the first step in a good neogtiation.

As for Rick Daly's comments about money: If you had asked the CFO of the U what the exact balance of the U's current account was I doubt he would know. As for the checks in the briefcase comment, Rick was going the next day to deposit those checks in the LOCAL bank in YSO. This has been a grass roots effort and the checks come in for small amounts in large numbers and to deposit all of those individually, with out the fast 12 key skills of a bank assistant, would be time consuming. Communication has been a frustrating issue. However once you access the world of the committees there is a lot more direct off-line communication. That is the way of things I guess. 

>I believe in what Antioch used to stand for.
What was that exactly? Does it not change with the needs and interests of the generations? The composition of the faculty? The iteration of the BoT and Administration?

>After participating on these chats, I don't know what Antioch currently stands for but if the chats are any indication, I don't like it.  Antioch College in its current morph seems more like an ongoing dress rehearsal for Lord of the Flies than a liberal arts college.  The culture seems stifling and I know this because when I post messages on the chat, I get private e-mails from people who say they agree with me but don't feel comfortable posting on the chats either because they work at the College or they don't want to be attacked as they think I have been for speaking out.  They are simply afraid.
It is so common a technique to claim private confidences to support ones otherwise unverifiable opinion that I don't need to say more. How could these chate be indicative of what Antioch stands for now or hwat the students or culture are like now, when the current students are rather a small cohort of those participating. Why is their participation limited? Fear? I rather doubt it. Access and changes and time and gearing up for fall, remember: even in this crisis the students have other things to worry about. Your Lord of the Flies analogy presumes that SPLAURCs are some kind of Forum of polite and civil backforth. I think that is simplistic. My anecdotal experience of other SPLAURCs is that they all have battles that erupt and consume a great deal of time and energy and are hardly civil. I compare this to game theory in economics: students are acting out parts trying to find what their real position is and figuring out what the position and knowledge of their peers is. I do not
mean to diminish the importance of their beliefs, but when they go out into the world they will develop a more moderate appriach to conflict based on what they have learned from their role playing and the normative influences of older peers.

>Don't get me wrong.  I am not blaming the students.  I don't even have much contact with current students but the students from the past 10 or 20 years who are most vocal on the chats appear, with a few exceptions, politically naive, poorly educated with inadequate analytical and writing skills (which may be a function of the technology) and lack an understanding of both the business and academic worlds.  I am very bothered by the fact that they do not appear to be independent thinkers and seem to be easily led due to their susceptibility to politically leftist rhetoric.
Well so I will take that personally as a 1994 graduate. I flip it to you Deb, it seems to me that you have a remarkably closed and narrow view of the business and academic worlds, if not a cynical one. I have found a wide variety of people on this forum who are able to articulate their positions with grace and wit. Moreover they have demonstrated the analytical ability to look past the menu of options put in front of them and look to visions and opportunities not dreamed of in the world of the AUBoT, or yours. Some I agree with, some I find fanciful and some I have spent more time researching and now agree with (strong envrio approach green planning, building and technology). It has been on these forums that financial quirks anbd sleight of hand have been indentified and used to further negotiations. It was here that contractual debt obligations were diswcovered which challenge the assumption that MacGregor would be a net positive for the college if a reunion occurede. See there are
several typos there because I am going fast trying to get this off before my kids wake up and demand 100% of my bandwidth. Did you ever think that leftist thinking may in fact be the independent POV at this point in history? We have neo-liberal economic and social theory creeping into the rhetoric of our own University with out even a shred of analysis or criticism. We live in a society that assigns the worth of an individual based on their net worth. Perhaps leftist liberation ideologies are the course the ones that inspire the critical and constructive spirit? And frankly, what rightist rhetoric would you like to hear? As I have said before, to the extent that libertarian thinking is leftist so is Antioch. 
>If, in answer to my prayers to the God I do not believe in, Steve Lawry does stick around to help the AB with the formation of an independent Antioch College Board and participate in fundraising and visioning with them, I'll pledge with my heart, soul and wallet and encourage everyone I know to the do the same.
If you don't believe in God, why do you believe in a Messiah? 

>If not, I'll fade away from this exercise in futility and remember what Piggy said in Lord of the Flies, "How can you expect to be rescued if you don't put first things first and act proper."
>
>To quote William Golding, "What was the sensible thing to do? There was no Piggy to talk sense. There was no solemn assembly for debate nor dignity of the conch."
>
>Sadly,
>Deb Goodman, class of 1983
Sez you Deb. This is not a futile effort. I never thought we would reach even the fund raising we have now. I never thought I would give as much time and money to Antioch. I never thought that I would form working relationships with several people I never really cared for on campus, I never thought that AUBoT would back off from their decision is made position even for a second. I believed it was all going to be a legal battle (still might be of course). The thing is, even if this effort fails (of which this forum is just one part) it will not have been futile just because it failed. Futility is acting when there is no chance of success.