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June 24, 2007
Antioch and Higher Education Institutional Failure
Colleges are self perpetuating institutions in at least three ways:
We have self-perpetuating boards. Boards of trustees replicate and pay for many of our little habits. Most boards, like the boards of most non-profits, are expected to pony up monetary contributions regularly. If board members can't recruit future members who will help they're not doing their job.
We have self-perpetuating faculties - we (I speak personally here) usually do all the work of hiring our replacements, and in theory we ought to send a few folks to grad school to replace us or people like us someday (I don't think that's responsible in the current world, but in theory we might). If we can't convince people to come work with us and can't manage to retain a certain proportion of the annual intake, we're not doing that part of our job.
We recruit students. Without students neither boards nor the faculty they employ have a real function, unless they can afford to dispense with students and become think tanks. While Harvard could, if it liked, realign its budget to stop charging tuition at all, most of us have some more serious reliance on the annual income from tuition.
Antioch failed on at least the third criterion and probably on the first. It would be vaguely conceivable that an utterly committed board could support the quixotic mission of a college with an enrollment of 130 (the latest Princeton Review figure). They didn't. They will close. There are odd little schools here and there which survive with a tiny enrollment. The people at Antioch who can make the decision are tired of trying, I guess.
Several of the most interesting colleges in America are teensy weensy - but hey! They know it and work it. And they weren't formerly 2,000 people with the physical plant to match. I would never take a job at a college so small. I can't afford it - I have no spousal income to fall back on should it close down. TIAA-CREF will only take you so far at my age. But if you're curious, here's a quick list.
Magdalen College - wacky Catholic with a Vatican II Laity emphasis.
St. John's College, Annapolis - wacky secular college, the oldest surviving Great Books program.
Thomas Aquinas College - wacky Great Books college, Catholic edition. I like their reading list. I'd rather die than live in Ojai, CA. Well, not die, but you know. SoCal? Me?
New College of the University of South Florida - there's even a public version of the experimental college. I'd take a job there, because the funding will never quite go away and because one of the smartest people I have ever known went there and flourished.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at June 24, 2007 10:22 PM