[Alumni-chat] Re: Student trustees

[Sistersara at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/10/2008 9:11:45 A.M. Central Standard Time,  
pas0705 at yahoo.com writes:

"I  continued thinking about your response on the way in to work
this morning,  since I was mildly shocked that an Antioch Grad
would have such a position  in regards to the Antioch Governance
structure. Isn't the Antioch College  education all about the
tri-partite model? Isn't one of the pillars of that  model active
participation in community? Are the trustees not stakeholders  in
the community?"



Laura, Student as Regent or Student as Trustee is one of those styles that  
came up and was a fashion in the 1970's.  All I am saying is that with now  40 
years of observation of something I fought for back then in the case of the  
University of Minnesota, it has been meaningless.  And most reviews of the  
idea say the same thing.  
 
What you want is real communication, unmediated, between Students and  
Trustees, communication on a regular and ongoing basis.  You want a trustee  or two 
to be engaged with the contemporary student milieu on an ongoing basis,  so 
that ultimately gets factored into decisions.  You are less likely to  "level" 
the status differences between students and trustees by having one  student 
elected for a short term to a board, than you are to get the  communication you 
need by putting a Trustee in the midst of Comcil and Adcil on  an ongoing 
basis.  
 
An Antioch Board of Trustees (a private college) will always be able to do  
business off line -- that is in private meetings to which no student, even a  
student Trustee would have access.  A Public University such as the  University 
of Minnesota has to operate under state sunshine laws, and has to do  its 
business more or less in public, particularly if it involves money.   All I am 
trying to point out is that we have 40 years of experience with  "Student as 
Regent" as a style, and I think it claims virtually no victories for  humanity.  
All I am suggesting is that the fight is useless it seems, and  if what you 
want is real meaningful communication, try something else.  
 
Of course I think students should be engaged in governance.  I  certainly 
think that any Antioch College BoT that is formed ought to be so  transparent we 
call it plastic wrap.  But the board that needs to be formed  now needs to be 
powerful in very special ways -- it needs to massively fund  raise to a new 
mission that puts Antioch back in contention as a very high  quality Liberal 
Arts College.  It needs to raise the money as an investment  in a successful 
academic enterprise, and that needs to look out twenty or thirty  years beyond 
now, and build the kind of faculty and curriculum that will never  again 
entertain the kind of closure resolution we saw last June.  And right  now it doesn't 
need to be burdened by fashions from the 70's such as Student as  Regent or 
Trustee.  
 
"I think Antioch College could again be ground-breaking in  an
educational field- this time in integrating more fully the
community  participation component into the education. "

Community Participation does not require memberships on Boards.  What  is 
more necessary is to end the stupid rules that Faculty or Students could not  
communicate with Boards -- in otherwords break up the nutty ideas of hierarchy,  
and who has to communicate through whom and all that, and just simplify the  
streams and arrangements for communication.  If one group sups at the Green  
County Country Club, and the other group eats pot luck in the caf -- good lord  
what a problem of caste.  Electing a Student to the Board of Trustees will  
not change this class based culture.  
 
 
"I'm  very specific when I mention the pillars of an Antioch
COLLEGE education.  From what I know of the satellite campuses,
their primary model is  classroom education for people currently
in the workforce. I don't know how  much active community
participation goes on at the satellite campuses. I  think a case
could be made that anyone wishing to use the name "Antioch"  for
their educational program would have to petition to show how
their  program satisfies the ideals of the tri-partite Antioch
College education.  Call it our own  mini-internal-accreditation.
:)"

Cheers
-laura


Laura, I have taught students working on their BA or BS at the University  of 
Minnesota who have two kids, one in child care (after a fight we provided on  
campus) and another in school, where the student is a single mom who cannot 
take  time out in the evening for a couple of hours in the library, because 
that is  when she is working hopefully for better than minimum wage for rent, 
food money,  and costs of tuition, so that two or three years from now she can 
get a job with  some benefits, and make a life for herself and her children.  
 
For whatever crazy reason -- maybe because she just wanted to understand  her 
situation better -- she ended up in my Social History Class -- which does  
require Library time.  Rather than compromise, I found a group of Lutheran  
Church Ladies who were willing to offer child care in the church parlor at night  
for mom's that needed to spend some hours in the library.  Once they  
understood the need, they volunteered.  But not all communities can arrange  such.  
 
I really don't think Antioch should have expanded in the 1960's via the  
Network model, (knowing what I know now), but I know that they did because of  the 
Grants that were available at that time.  No Question but what the  
non-traditional student needed both services and institutions at that time --  and 
today needs them even more given what has been eliminated from the safety  net.  I 
have questions now as to why Private Colleges should be into this  effort in 
the kind of big way Antioch University is, but that is what has been  
developed, and as someone who has had classes filled with this part of the  "market" 
all I can say is stop hurting them.  Stop reducing them to lesser  status and 
class.  We don't need that to defend High Quality Liberal Arts  Education.  




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