Dear Fellow Antioch College Supporters,

New Jersey alumni met on July 29 and decided upon the following statement and action plan, which we hope others will want to replicate:

The Antioch University Board of Trustees will be meeting on August 25 and its leaders still publicly insist they will not reverse their decision to suspend operations of the College in Yellow Springs.

Despite the Alumni Association’s success at raising $625,000 since June 28, we believe many more alumni are holding back on contributing to the College because of uncertainty about whether those donations will go to an institution that upholds the core principles of Antioch.

We believe the majority of alumni are outraged by the Board of Trustees’ failure to adhere to Antioch’s longstanding practice of community governance in reaching the decision to close the College or to be properly transparent about the financial accounting that informed that decision. In addition, we believe that the critical financial support of alumni will not be there in four years if Board of Trustees has suspended operation of Antioch College in the interim.

We resolve to encourage as many alumni as possible to pledge support to the College in the next three weeks on the condition, as stated in the pledge form available at antiochians.org/donate, that the Board of Trustees release control of Antioch to a new board specifically committed to the College in Yellow Springs and to an open and inclusive renewal process. In addition to pledging financial support, we believe it is important for alumni to pledge other forms
of assistance, such as recruiting new students, maintaining alumni connections, finding new co-op jobs, and the like We encourage alumni to include information about those support activities on the pledge.

We also resolve to try to increase donations over the next three weeks to the Antioch Faculty Legal Information Fund account at Yellow Springs Federal Credit Union, 217 Xenia Ave., Yellow Springs, OH 45387. Current faculty members—who have played a key role in keeping Antioch alive this long—deserve our backing in their efforts to fight
the closure and protect tenure and academic freedom.

Alumni voices should be heard loud and clear before the next Board of Trustees meeting: The trustees should release Antioch and give control of the College to a board that truly values its legacy of self-governance, innovation, a liberal arts curriculum and social justice. We will not support any future educational institution in Yellow Springs that does less.

Sincerely,

The New Jersey Antioch Alumni chapter

Last Modified : August 1st, 2007 Filed under : New Jersey Navigate : Previous post / Next post