Antioch College Closing

Loren Pope Responds to the Announcement that Antioch College Will Close

In the past, when Antioch was having one of its three financial crises of the twentieth century, I would assure parents that if a crisis were really life-threatening, some foundation would come to the rescue, because this country could not afford not to have an Antioch. I said it was the yeast of American higher education, tiny but mighty in its effect. A euphoric chapter in Colleges That Change Lives says why.

The time has come to prevent a national tragedy: Antioch’s Board of Trustees, lacking funds to maintain a 100-acre campus and its adjoining 1,000-acre nature preserve, has decided to close the campus temporarily but keep the many Antioch University satellite institutions and the Antioch degree intact, with plans to open the campus anew in 2012.

Hope can be a main ingredient of the best of plans, while what teenagers want is a main campus, with its many attractions and its central focus. To do this, and to restore a healthy Antioch, the Board needs money, lots of it.

Statement from the Association of American Colleges & Universities