Free Republic

Former faculty at Antioch College, which is temporarily closing amid financial problems, plan to teach in coffee shops, bookstores and parks to keep alive the spirit of the private school known for its pioneering academic programs. Scott Warren, former associate professor of philosophy and political theory at Antioch, said 22 ex-faculty members have formed the Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute in the village of Yellow Springs... Warren said the institute will follow the Antioch formula of offering progressive liberal arts courses while encouraging learning for life, humanitarian acts and collective decision-making. Murdock said she applauds the group's passion, but the institute...

YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio (AP) -- Antioch College, known for inspiring quirky academic programs that produce students with a passion for free thinking and social activism, has no choice but to close for the 2008-2009 academic year, trustees of the parent Antioch University said yesterday. Operations will be suspended June 30. Antioch and Yellow Springs, tie-dyed and liberal-leaning, fed off each other. Students were encouraged to create their own programs for learning. Famous alumni included Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, Coretta Scott King and evolutionary scientist Stephen Jay Gould. After two days of meetings in Los Angeles, trustees reaffirmed their June...

WASHINGTON -- During the campus convulsions of the late 1960s, when rebellion against any authority was considered obedience to every virtue, the film "To Die in Madrid," a documentary about the Spanish Civil War, was shown at a small liberal arts college famous for, and vain about, its dedication to all things progressive. When the film's narrator intoned, "The rebels advanced on Madrid," the students, who adored rebels and were innocent of information, cheered. Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, had been so busy turning undergraduates into vessels of liberalism and apostles of social improvement that it had not found...

THIS is an obituary for a great American institution whose death was announced this week. After 155 years, Antioch College is closing. [snip] The college’s motto, not in Latin or Greek but plain English, was coined by Horace Mann, its first president: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” For most of its history the institution lived up to that calling. [snip] Yet it was in the high tide of liberal activism that the college lost its way. . . . The 2,000 students at Antioch, living in a picture-pretty American village, provided a laboratory...

SPRINGS — Antioch College will shutter its campus in July 2008 because of a lack of money and declining enrollment, the private, liberal arts college said Tuesday. The school will regroup for four years and hopes to find the financial resources to reopen an overhauled campus in 2012. About 160 faculty and staff will lose their jobs when the campus goes dark, said Mary Lou LaPierre, vice chancellor for university advancement. The undergraduate college, which has a rich history in social activism, has watched enrollment drop from its 1960s heyday of about 2,000 students to 400 today, LaPierre said. Enrollment...

According to a statement released on June 12, 2007 by the Antioch College Board of Trustees, the College in Yellow Springs, Ohio will suspend operations on July 1, 2008. The Trustees announced that the "College's resources are inadequate" to continue its operations in Yellow Springs. The statement from the Trustees refers to the College's "low enrollment and lack of adequate funding." It refers to all of the cutbacks that the College has made, which have "eroded the confidence students and parents have in the College's academic program." The statement mentions the long-term goal of reopening the campus at some point...