Antioch College, a well-respected small liberal arts institution known for its progressive admissions policy and pedagogical approach, will close its doors in July of 2008, according to its President, Steven W. Lawry. Founded in 1852, its graduates include such luminaries as Coretta Scott King, Rod Serling, and Leonard Nimoy. The college hopes to reopen with a state-of-the-art campus in 2012. In the meantime, financial pressures, including heavy reliance on student tuition necessitated by its modest endowment, combined with deterioriating infrastructure, have forced its administration to shut down the campus at the conclusion of the upcoming academic year. Antioch College's endowment is valued at $35 million. By comparison, the endowment for Harvard University bears an estimated market value of $29.2 billion. Sources consulted: Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...ch23jun23,0,6483776.story?coll=la-home-nation); http://www.antioch-college.edu/news/releases/index.php?id=178; Google (search terms: "Harvard University Endowment").
Considering that it was founded in 1852, however, it wasn't a bad run. By the way, the school has closed and subsequently reopened before.
I think that the Genesis Planet has taken care of itself, however. Many people seem to be pessimistic that Antioch College will ever reopen. If it does not, then American will have lost a great resource -- a laboratory for progressive thinking and liberal thought. Ironically, a sister institution, Antioch University MacGregor, a much newer commuter school that prominently advertises its management programs while insisting that it maintains the progressive approach of Antioch College, is doing very well and expanding onto a new campus. It's been alleged that Antioch College, the core institution that started it all, has used its endowment to build satellite campuses at the expense of its own. Steve Lawry has also been criticized as too deferential to financial pressures. His closure of one of the world's first truly innovative institutions of learning strikes at the heart of those who dream of a better and more compassionate America -- one less fixated on the principal concerns of capitalism and more concerned, as it should be, about the human condition.
Excellent news. One can only hope the pace of destroying liberal thought continues on until it's inevitable extinction.
With tendencies like that, America itself wouldn't have been possible. The founding fathers were among the most progressive mainstream thinkers of their era. It's shocking that so much of the younger generation no longer believes in progress and instead seems to cater to the most self-centered kinds of ideologies of today.
The founding fathers are obsolete. A new world order is forming. You will either bend to its will or become part of the training that will hone the skill of the shock troopers.
For those who may have missed the class: Godwin's law has an exception: If you're talking about a Nazi ideology, it's okay to talk about Nazism. What would you discuss, instead? Tooth decay?
Antioch University, its parent organization, has West Coast branch already, so maybe you're on to something there. It would be a liberal academy.
About the cavities comments, I'll refrain from making the obvious joke. (Despite the fact that this is the Red Room.)
I guess its sister school, Miami U, my alma mater, swallowed them up. Sad. Antioch was the first college to admit women in the United States.
Great comments, everyone. Perhaps efforts will be redoubled on the part of similar colleges in memory of a most valiant enterprise.
