On Thursday evening we had a successful first meeting of the Vermont Alumni Chapter! Four of us were in attendance—Paula DesJardins ‘67 , Ted Scatchard ‘62, Jill Wolcott ‘74, and Amanda Calder ‘07. We talked for several hours, covered a lot of ground, and were energized by being together.
We got to know each other a little bit and shared some of our Antioch experiences. Paula reported on the Alumni Reunion which she attended in June, and we read the Alumni Resolution. We discussed the recent Board of Trustees meeting in Cincinnati and shared various information and ideas about where Antioch is at, how it got into this situation, and what needs to be done. We agree with the Alumni Board that University structure has not served Antioch College and that the College needs its own Board of Trustees. We agree that the situation is complicated, but that Antioch is very worth saving.
We also discussed plans for our Vermont Alumni Chapter.
Objectives we have for the Chapter included the following:
- To support us to share and process information about Antioch, efforts to save it, and unfolding events.
- To participate in efforts to save the college, including supporting the Alumni Board’s efforts, fundraising, and contributing ideas for a renewed Antioch.
- To spread information to alumni in our geographic area, and to facilitate their participation in the Chapter and efforts to save the college.
- To create an intergenerational network and a social place for Antiochians to connect and share their stories.
October Event
Toward these ends, our first main action a large event, tentatively scheduled for Saturday, October 20th from 4-8 pm. This is the weekend before the October Board of Trustees (and Alumni Board) meeting. One of our goals for the event is to bring alumni together from all over VT and nearby areas of NY state.
We are looking into having a speaker to update us on efforts to save the college and on what we can do. Ideas include Michael Brower ‘55, of the Boston Alumni Chapter and on the Alumni Board and in charge of coordinating Chapters, and Dan Kaplan ‘76, former Chairman of the Board of Trustees and part of a group of over 20 former trustees who have been urging the current Board not to close the college.
A significant part of the event will be informal time providing alumni with an opportunity to get acquainted and to discuss Antioch and efforts to save it. We’re also looking into showing Antioch Adventure or another film about Antioch. Food will be potluck finger food.
A prime focus will be fundraising for the Alumni Association’s Revival Fund and the Faculty Legal Information Fund (collegefaculty.org). The faculty lawsuit seems important as a legal safeguard to protects the assets of Antioch College.
Preparation and Planning for the Event
Help Us Contact Antioch Alumni!
We currently have contact info from the alumni office for all VT alumni. We need to find zip codes for the areas near us in NY in order to request alumni info for those areas. If you know of any alums in upstate NY, please feel free to email or call one of us with their information.
For all alums with mailing addresses, the alumni office will support us by sending out postcards to them with our event announcement. However, phoning alums is going to be extremely important in order to effectively reach out to them, and so we need to call all (or as many as possible) of the alums in our area. There are about 160 alums in VT, and we’ve already gotten in touch with a couple dozen of the alumni closest to Burlington, many of which couldn’t come to the meeting Thursday, but want to be involved. Calling and talking to alums has been very rewarding for both Jill and Amanda. To reach all 160 VT alumni, plus the alumni in NY, we need people to each call some of them. A relatively easy and very important way to help is to call 5, 10, or 20 alumni to invite them to the event.
So, please email or call Amanda (jazzypanda or 802-985-8926) if you’d be willing to help call alumni. We can easily divide up the list to give you alums that live near you or that attended Antioch in the same time period. For those who don’t use email very much we can also send a list of people to call via mail.
We welcome students, alumni, faculty, and staff at the current branches of Antioch University as potential allies; we encourage support from all friends of Antioch College. While our strategy initially is to reach out to College alumni, we need as much good support as we can get. If there are people you know who are not college alumni but would definitely support our cause and want to be involved, feel free to invite them to the event.
Carpooling
Amanda is currently going to head up the coordination of carpooling in order to make it easier (and more environmentally friendly and social) for everyone to get to the event. If you’d like to help let her know.
RSVP
Please let us know if you are planning to come, and also if you can bring some sort of finger food to contribute.
Planning Meeting
We will have a meeting on Monday, September 17th at 3 pm at Village Wine & Coffee (located on Route 7 in the center of Shelburne—see www.villagewineandcoffee.com for directions), to check in about preparations for the event, and also to discuss recent Antioch developments. Anyone who’s interested is invited.
Please email or call us with questions, comments, and ideas! And let us know how you’d like to help.
Amanda Calder ‘07 985-8926, jazzypanda
Jill Wolcott ‘74 425-2396, jillwolcott
