June 9, 08
Hi from Tex (aka Yazz aka David) Allen '66 (Email me at TexAllen@Hotmail.Com):
The President of the official Antioch College Ohio Alumni Assn., Ms. Nancy Crowe '70 (a tax lawyer in the Denver CO USA area), sent an email to all Antioch College alumni dated June 7, 08 stating that the Antioch University Board Of Trustees has offered to "give" Antioch College Ohio to the Antioch Alumni Assn. and disconnect the Yellow Springs Ohio residential college from the other schools and administration part of "Antioch University," with three west coast USA campuses, one in New Hampshire, and one in Ohio (the McGregor Business School).
Here is the text of Ms. Crowe's message, followed by analysis I provided today to the Antioch College chatline in reply to an Antioch alumnus who asked "What does this all mean?"......
------------------------
Antioch College Alumni
> Breaking News
>
> ANTIOCH UNIVERSITY BOARD OF TRUSTEES UNANIMOUSLY CALL FOR PROCESS TO
> CREATE INDEPENDENT AND SEPARATE ANTIOCH COLLEGE;
>
> -- News Stuns Alumni, Faculty, Staff In Depth and Breadth; Timing --
>
> Keene, NH, June 7, 2008-Today, in a surprise announcement, the Antioch
> University Board of Trustees unanimously passed a resolution calling for
> the Alumni Association to create the process to secure Antioch College's
> independence from Antioch University, with its own board of trustees.
> Additionally, the resolution calls for the Alumni Board to craft a
> business plan for the transfer of assets from the University.
>
> "The Antioch College Alumni Association stands ready to continue Antioch
> College as a residential, undergraduate four-year liberal arts program
> with shared governance and a tenured faculty," said Nancy Crow, President
> of the Alumni Board. "We thank the University Board of Trustees for making
> the decision to turn the process over to the elected representatives of
> the College alumni. By doing so, they have ended ten months of anguish."
>
> Matthew Derr, a member of the Executive Committee of the Alumni Board,
> said, "As Antioch College moves forward with plans for its independent
> future, we acknowledge the accomplishments of the University campuses and
> their programs. We hope that they will continue to flourish as they follow
> their own paths."
>
> When asked how this resolution differs from previous agreements, Crow
> replied: "This is startlingly different. This is a resolution supporting
> complete independence from the University. Additionally, the Board of
> Trustees is asking the alumni to create the process, not to work within a
> prescribed process."
>
> She continued, "I know I echo the feelings of many alumni when I say how
> grateful we are for the courage demonstrated by the Board of Trustees by
> this decision. We look forward to ensuring our process moves forward
> swiftly."
>
> This resolution comes two weeks before alumni around the world are to come
> to Yellow Springs for the College Reunion, June 20 - 22. Crow said, "We
> need alumni to come to campus to help the Alumni Association Board craft
> the plans needed to create a well-funded, vigorous and vital Antioch
> College for the next 155 years-at least!"
--------------------------------------------
The above message seemed to me problematic, and I wrote the following bit of analysis for the Antioch College chatline, submitted today (June 9, 2008), which dovetails with disapproving words I've provided to this website in the recent past....the "official opposition" to the AU BOT are not good guys, any more than the people who form the AU BOT itself are.
This is a time for critical thinking and "realpolitik," not unrealistic "feel good" emotions or conclusions.
Here are my words about it all submitted and published today on the Antioch College Ohio alumni chatline:
------------------------
June 9, 2009
Hi from Tex (aka Yazz aka David) Allen, Antioch College alumnus!
What follows are words of reply to Ms. Crowe's call to Antioch College alumni to support the most recent offer of the Antioch University Board Of Trustees made to the group Ms. Nancy Crowe '70, heads, the Antioch College Ohio Alumni Association, which has been "offered" Antioch College disconnected from it's present owner, Antioch University, and that University's embattled leaders......
Can anybody sensible trust the Antioch University Board Of Trustees, especially regarding Antioch College, Ohio and what is to become of it?
Puh-leeeese!
These are NOT sincere or honest people, or at least the main leaders aren't....Art Zucker '55, AU BOT Chairman of millions and guile, electronics man of wealth from North Carolina....Toni Murdoch, CEO of Antioch University....top on the payroll person at Antioch, anywhere.
The thing to due is look for hidden agenda items.
What can they be?
Well.....let's not forget about money...the AU BOT never does, and claims that's the main reason they shut down Antioch College, Ohio.
If/when they actually turn over Antioch College Ohio to anyone, not much of monetary value is likely to be left..."Yes, you can 'have' Antioch College, Ohio....No, you can't have everything, certainly nothing hockable!"
It's very likely the AU BOT will WITHHOLD important parts of traditional Antioch College Ohio property....and only give what's left over to...well...to whom, actually...is the Antioch College Alumni Assn. a group of educators and administrators likely to do well at making a horserace out of Antioch College Ohio after all the battering of the past year?
The AU BOT may just be dumping unwanted garbage sans good stuff the Antioch Alumni leaders agreed to fork over but haven't yet admitted or announced.
Let's think about obvious issues part of the whole saga of recent times:
Toni Murdock, Antioch University CEO of fame, wants to run a modern, internet "Phoenix University" type place which is what's selling these days to no-money people....school w/o dorms or any undergrad life....classes and credits and jobs like teachers and lab managers at the end of the tunnel. She wants money to fund it all...and raiding Antioch College, Ohio's residential campus is way to do it.
How much of Antioch College Ohio is she (and her allies on the AU BOT) willing to give up? She's got plans for the valuable part of Antioch College, Ohio....it's unlikely the plans include giving valuable parts away.
Who knows what "conditions" the AU BOT demanded (and got) from the always user friendly (to the Antioch U. BOT) official Antioch College Alumni leaders.
Last year, John Feinberg, then president of the Alumni Board, kept the 2007 Reunion from turning into a revolt against the AU BOT. He stage managed the Kelly Hall meeting he ran on June 22, 07 to favor the Antioch BOT and Mr. Art Zucker, whom Feinberg treated not as the rat Zucker is and with the contempt Zucker deserved, but with all the reverence and high diplomatic protocol reverved normally for an ally and good friend at the ambassadorial level.
A true revolt might have broken out during the 2007 Reunion, but it didn't, thanks largely to the expert stage management of Mr. Feinberg and the Antioch College Alumni leaders, and the fact that the title of "official opposition" to the AU BOT closedown threat was seized by people quite respectful of the AU BOT and willing to go along with ground rules the AU BOT demanded and set up.....this accounts for why the AU BOT closedown plan went off a month EARLIER than scheduled (June 2008 rather than July 2008) after a year of failed "negotiation."
The same thing will happen with the coming (two weeks) 2008 Reunion, now run by Alumni Board leadership who want to sell the new AU BOT offer to visiting alumni, and who will STOP revolt, as the same group did last year.
Once again the stage management welcoming potentially peskey and revolutionary Antioch College Ohio alumni will stop the revolt, and after the steam is drained off from the 2008 Reunion group meeting, the AU BOT can back down, again. Just like they did before. They promise plenty, play for time, deliver nothing.
None of this is pleasant to state or think about, but it IS a realistic assessment of what's happening and who Antioch College Ohio alumni are dealing with.
This is a time for critical thinking and hard boiled decisions difficult to make....not "feel good" joyousness and the conclusion that the bad guys (and their friends part of the Antioch Alumni Assn. leadership, who have such an obvious track record of enabling the power of the AU BOT, and never seriously challenging that power) are after all not such bad guys after all.
I've written more about all this on WWW.AntiRecord.Org and haven't been flattering in summing up the failed work of the "saviours" who saved nothing over the last year. Visit the WWW.AntiRecord.Org site for details, which are not optimistic.
I gave bad reviews to the "leaders of the opposition" and I still think those reviews are justified, and explain why the AU BOT has once again
proposed to draw out the current soap opera by playing "Let's Make A Deal" with these same discredited (by me on WWW.AntiRecord.Org) leaders.
Best wishes,
Tex (aka Yazz aka David) Allen '66
