Defiant, hopeful and celebratory

An overflow crowd attended last Saturday’s 156th Antioch College commencement ceremonies at Kelly Hall on the Antioch campus. Pictured are, from left, graduate Vanessa Little with her dad. Click here for more photos of graduation.

By Diane Chiddister

Even though the 156th Antioch College commencement ceremony may have been the college’s last, a mood of celebration won the day on Saturday, when 121 students received their diplomas at Kelly Hall on the Antioch campus.

“We’re here to celebrate. There will be no mourning here today,” said commencement speaker Jimmy Williams, the college’s popular former dean of students, in his opening remarks.

Bad weather forced the event inside Kelly Hall, and the room’s 664 seats quickly filled up with students, parents, family, friends and community members, some of whom sat in the aisles and stood in doorways. Those who couldn’t get into the standing-room-only crowd piled in to McGregor 113 to see a live feed of the event, and overflowed that room as well.

Graduates entered Kelly Hall through an aisle lined on both sides by their professors, who offered hugs and congratulations to the young people as they made a slow path to the front of the room.

No decision yet on fate of Antioch College As of Tuesday, April 29, there was no decision from the Antioch University Board of Trustees regarding whether to accept the proposal from the Antioch College Continuation Corporation that seeks continued operations and independence for Antioch College. According to an April 17 press release from the university, the trustees met face to face on April 16 with members of the ACCC. On the table at this point is a proposal from ACCC that offers the university $10 million in exchange for 10 seats of the 18-member board, according to ACCC co-chair Eric Bates in an earlier interview. The ACCC’s previous offer of $6.2 million up front and $6 million within five years in exchange for independence for the college is no longer viable because it is too late to ensure that college operations would continue next year, Bates said, adding that the 10/10 offer is the only proposal that ensures continued operations. While the press release stated that a decision would be announced by the time of the Antioch College commencement on April 26, no decision was made. The trustees met via conference call on Monday, April 28, to discuss the proposal. On April 29 Antioch University spokesperson Lynda Sirk said she had no information about when a decision would be reached. Antioch University Board Chair Art Zucker and Chancellor Toni Murdock were not available for comment due to an ongoing information embargo, according to Sirk. Check the News Web site, for updates at ysnews.com.

The event took place in a time of deep uncertainty. While the Antioch University Board of Trustees announced that the college will close at the end of June, many hold out hope for an 11th-hour rescue by the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, or ACCC, a group of former university trustees and donors who seek to make the college independent. The trustees, who met face to face with the ACCC on April 16, sent out a press statement soon after that they would announce a decision on the ACCC proposal by the commencement ceremony, but they did not do so. As of Tuesday, April 29, no decision had been announced.

In his opening remarks, Professor Emeritus Al Denman acknowledged the anxiety that many felt regarding the future of the college.

“Today we belong to the vast fellowship of those who bear the pain of waiting for the unknown,” Denman said.

And while Antioch University Trustee Sharon Merriman, in a short address, said she wished there was a decision that she could report, she did not have one. Trustees Paula Treichler and Janet Morgan, whose son graduated that day, also attended. Chancellor Toni Murdock and Board President Art Zucker were not present.

Two student speakers, Julian Sharp and Kim-Jenna Jurriaans, delivered in their presentations a biting indictment of “the elephant in the room,” as Sharp said, speaking of “an Antioch University administration that has acted in bad faith” in negotiations with the ACCC, the group that aims to achieve independence for the college.

Antioch students remain committed in their fight to save the college, according to Sharp.

“We are not the last class of graduates of Antioch College,” he said.

Citing the persistence and courage of her fellow students, especially in the challenges of the past year, Jurriaans stated, “As long as there is spirit, there is hope for change. Never let it die.”

Most speakers focused, even in the midst of anger and uncertainty, on a celebration of Antioch, and especially a celebration of what they believe makes Antioch a unique institution of higher learning. To Associate Professor Jean Gregorek, who presented the faculty address, Antioch College occupies a distinctive place among liberal arts colleges, which provide “green space of the mind,” in that they offer young people the opportunity for four years of questioning, creativity and critical thinking, not because such activity yields a profit but because it makes people better human beings.

“We encourage the idea that each individual spends only a brief time on the planet and it makes sense to do something meaningful,” she said.

She is proud to work at a school with the “audacity” to have as its motto the Horace Mann statement, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”

“A place with those aspirations is worth saving on those grounds alone,” Gregorek said.

In the remarks and songs of the nine graduates who made presentations, it was clear that they had taken to heart the learning experience that Gregorek described.

At Antioch, with its “passion for truth and social justice, I have been pushed to find not my profession but my soul, me,” said Ruthie Scarpino. “Above all, Antioch is about learning how to be a person.”

According to Chelsea Martens, Antioch College creates “fierce, compassionate and engaged revolutionary individuals. Antioch has engaged every part of me.”

To Levi Cowperthwaite, the college “has engaged me as a whole person. It has shaken me to my core.”

What Antioch College graduates need to take with them into the world is hope, according to Williams in his address.

Defining hope as “the desire for good with the expectation of obtaining it,” Williams described a world in which hope is in short supply.

“Just give us hope,” he said to the young people. “That’s all we ever really have, is hope.”

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com