The attempt to Revive Antioch College, some recent news, and why you might care.

[ConsAreLiars]

http://alumni.antiochians.org/s/1050/qs1_index.aspx?sid=1050&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=1159&ecid=1159&crid=0&calpgid=61&calcid=749

Not much will be of interest to those who never heard of that college. But the following short quote from the person whose work is profiled in that article says a lot about what made the Antioch experience so unique and powerful in this statement:

“I came out of Antioch transformed,” he said. “Antiochians know how to navigate the world with comfort. We feel comfortable in our own skins and with finding our way.”

A big part of the value of that unusual approach to education was the work-study program which meant that every year for five years two quarters were spent on campus and two quarters were spent working in low end/intern type jobs around the country, and abroad, and maybe in later years some higher end positions as one gained knowledge and experience.

What this meant was that kids just out of HS were allowed to look over a massive list of options, types of jobs and locations, prioritize them and end up in some almost certainly new city or town and in some new work environment. There were some how-to guides available and a few jobs that included housing arrangements as a part of the job description, but basically all one knew was that a job would be available at a certain time and address.

The on-campus environment was also very well designed to encourage individuation and empower students, but this work anywhere (not just work a crappy local job to pay bills) experience was what is missing from all other colleges that I have heard about. To repeat Matthew Derr's statement: “Antiochians know how to navigate the world with comfort. We feel comfortable in our own skins and with finding our way.”

Choosing Antioch was the most important and valuable decision I have ever made in my life. I would love to see that kind of option once more possible for at least a few more young people. Ideally it would be available to everyone.

There are a few famous graduates, Rod Serling, Coretta Scott King, Stephen Jay Gould, but more importantly there are many, many more who just did a little good work here and there, like this project which continues today - http://www.redsunpress.com/whoweare.shtml - which was initiated by three Antioch grads.

And a personal anecdote by way of evidence for that claim that “Antiochians know how to navigate the world with comfort. We feel comfortable in our own skins and with finding our way.” When in grad school I was approached by an undergrad French exchange student and asked if I wanted to join her in hitch-hiking/camping through Norway. Apart from the fact that any young male approached by any young French exchange student is very likely to say yes to any question beginning with "Would you like...", with "pant, pant, drool...." I immediately saw this as an opportunity to experience more of the world and said yes. (She was a great guide to hostels and destinations, no sex, and I discovered a land I truly loved.) A bit later in the semester I became involved with a woman via our anti-war work who was going to Greece and invited me to meet her there, and I extended my hitch-hiking that direction to meet that date. We decided to take another year, Aegean Islands, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India, down one coast and up the other, Sri Lanka, Nepal, all overland and on a very, very low budget. Among the people, rather than above them. Without that Antioch experience this kid from small towns might never have even encountered those opportunities or would have feared them.

If you have a million bucks to spare, this would be one of the the best uses you could put it to, but if like most of us, $10 or $100 or maybe a bit more is actually possible, consider giving this transformative type of education a chance to be revived. The number of donors is something that outside philanthropies look at when deciding to toss their big bucks one way or another.

One Time Gift: https://secure.imodules.com/s/1050/qs1_index.aspx?sid=1050&gid=1&pgid=310&cid=809&
Ongoing Pledge: http://www.antiochians.org/onlinepledge

(edit to slightly clarify a minor detail)

[nightrain]

1. Rec. Yes, there is something very wonderful and expanding about

having the opportunity to travel and communicate, learn, absorb, in other cultures. Antioch's education truly is transformative.

Glad to be able to Rec this!!

[ConsAreLiars]

4. When traveling/hitching

I discovered that most/many of European youth spent a WanderYear just going, via thumb, from country to country. Made my hitching and all the wonderful encounters that resulted sort of standard fare for them, as were the reciprocal invitations to share a sauna at a generationally passed on summer house on a lake in Finland or another on a barge that served as a base for for a volunteer Red Cross Rescue ship and crew on another. It was an experience in which "sharing" was mutually experienced as a common good, not culturally defined as being as a synonym for getting ripped off.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. K&R. Antioch was one of my serious choices, back in the day...

Sounds as if it should have been my top choice... :-)

[ConsAreLiars]

6. You got here by another path,

but for me, I wavered a bit between scholarship offers from Rice, Reed and Rensselaer, based on their tempting catalogs. Reed, or some other, might have been been one good step forward, but for me the work-study experience was something I wish every student could have. What one gains from being tossed into new environments cannot be learned on campus.

[pecwae]

3. Always loved Yellow Springs and Antioch.

Used to go there with friends who attended while I was still in HS. It was so cool to be able to pick up a bike to use, then leave it for someone else after I was done with it.

[aquart]

5. I still remember getting the rejection letter from Antioch.

It was the first time in my life I ever cried completely silently. And the tears just kept falling.

[ConsAreLiars]

9. I totally understand that.

When I first learned that Antioch College had closed I found tears streaming, not out of nostalgia but because I was hit with the realization that no one would again have those kinds of rich and varied learning experiences.

Thank you for reminding me of the great many who were unable to attend because it was only one small college. You helped me realize that my sadness about what was lost for future students now includes those who wanted it but were denied it when it was still going strong. You would have loved it and thrived there, I am sure. It was a place designed to allow the mind and the heart to open and the sense of our common humanity to grow, not through lectures or such, but just by providing the kinds of environments and encounters needed for that kind of natural growth to occur.

I bolded that one quote in my OP because it hit me as summing up the what the Antioch experience gave to most of those who had the good fortune to attend in a very few words. But underlying this part, “Antiochians know how to navigate the world with comfort” was the underlying sense that wherever we go we are among others not unlike us - maybe not like us, certainly not just like us, but not unlike us. A sense of the reality of our world that the work-study combination made possible.

This was probably the most valuable lesson. It is why I worked so many years to help end the mass murders of people in Indochina and later other places by those which control the US government. And why 90% of my journal is about Afghanistan today. The people I encountered there are also both like us and unlike us, very unlike us if you focus only on the differences, and although I felt I had stepped into another world altogether, I always felt I was surrounded by people at least sort of like me, not non-humans or subhumans which could or should be killed if the got in the way of other more powerful forces. Not only people. Good people despite their tribal/cultural/religious/whatever indoctrination. Just like people here and there and everywhere.

(edit to add a small bit)

[theHandpuppet]

7. Thank you for posting this

I have been aware of Antioch's struggles and have been hoping the MSM might bring this story to light. I appreciate this thread -- and no I'm not a graduate, just someone who appreciates the contributions of Antioch and its graduates -- including Eleanor Holmes Norton.

[theHandpuppet]

8. Kicking for the afternoon crowd...

... or at least for those in our western time zones who are still having their morning coffee.