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113 AN T I OC H CO L L E G E C L A S S O F 19 6 5 5 0 t h A N N I V E R S A R Y B O O K A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z M U L H A U S E R MULHAUSER KAREN [WEBBER] THEN AND NOW 4 B.A. Biology 4 A.E.A. at Perugia, Italy FAMI LY 4 Husband, Fritz Mulhauser 4 Son, Christopher ADDRESS 4 319 7th St., NE Washington, DC 20002 CONTACT kmulhauser@consultingwomen.com I E I T H E R B L A M E or credit Antioch for who I am today, depend- ing on the day. I once had to describe Antioch using only seven words.I said, “social responsibility, social responsi- bility, social responsibility, social.” While a student at Antioch, I was of course a member of the commu- nity. I benefitted from all that com- munity provided, but I was never re- ally active in CG, ComCil or AdCil. I voted, I knew who had been elected, I followed things in the Record , but it surprises me now that I did not take more advantage of the learning expe- rience of community and community governance while I was there.Antioch was part of my very shy phase. But what follows is a bit of a description of what I’ve done sinceAntioch as ex- amples of how ingrained community became in the fiber of who I am. While at Antioch, the best com- munity I could ever imagine was when I traveled with three other students in what we called an ex- periment in communication without words.We hitchhiked in Israel,Turkey, Greece and Yugoslavia, folk dancing and puppeteering—what we called communication without words—and co-op andAEA gave us credit! While I studied biology at Antioch and had some graduate ed- ucation at Tufts Medical School on my way to finding a cure for cancer or some other medical mystery, I de- cided in 1966 that I’d rather work with people than with rats, and I’d like to find a way to get over being shy. But what to do since my educa- tion was in science? I taught junior and high school sciences and the shy girl found herself giving guidance and information to students about their sexuality. This led to the next chapter in my life of social responsi- bility,problem pregnancy counseling in Boston, training family planning professionals in the Northwest, and the steepest-ever experiential learn- ing curve possible as executive direc- tor of NARAL, the National Abortion Rights Action League. Here is just how embedded Antioch instilled a sense of commu- nity—without my even being aware of it. NAT IONAL ABORT ION R IGHTS ACT ION LEAGUE , NARAL AND THE WOMEN EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS’ COM- MUNITY: After I’d established the DC office of NARAL in 1973, I was asked in 1975 to be the national execu- tive director, and the national office was moved to D.C. from New York. Knowing the challenge this would be for a young woman who had never taken a management course, I approached eight women who were leading nonprofit groups. I did not know most of them. They all confessed that they also had never taken management courses and I asked if they would all like to meet as a group.We formed a com- munity that met monthly for several years.We helped write each other’s bylaws and personnel policies; we helped each other deal with difficult boards and board chairs;we discussed how to fire difficult staff;we brought in experts when we needed them. And I am fairly confident that the Antioch experiential learning model taught us at least as much as manage- ment courses.We were a strong sup- port system. Everything we said in our meetings was in confidence and this became a model of community that I have re-created many times. PEACE AND SECURITY NETWORKS: When Reagan was elected,he scared me at least as much as he scared the Soviets and I was asked to start two anti-nuclear weapons organizations, CitizensAgainst NuclearWar and the Center For Education on Nuclear War. One was a coalition of almost 70 national groups that had nothing in common except that they passed resolutions in support of freezing the production of nuclear weapons. The Center was the fiscal sponsor for many projects, includingWomen for a Meaningful Summit, a network of community that urged President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev to