[Alumni-chat] Antioch today

[Pam Olsen]

Deb Said:
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.

My response;

Deb, there are occasions on the forum when I feel people attempt to
intimidate, and have written about that.

however, I don't think we from years past (some of us from several
generations past) are in any position to judge Antioch today.  We're not of
the same generation, we don't interact with them every day, etc.

I have confidence that if we can simply save the structure of Antioch
College as it is today, a college, with a governing board that cares about
it and is close to it, with the traditional values of Antioch, the College
can fairly easily deal with any "cultural" issues.  Expanding programs,
maybe an educational seminar periodically on what valuing diversity really
means and how do we best live it out....it wouldn't take a lot, I don't
think, if the community there now considers it an issue.

Pam