6.16.2007

Antioch College 1852-2008



If ever there was any doubting the expression “don’t let the patients run the asylum” one only has to look to G.L.C.A. member Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH. Like most institutions founded for the greater good it had a noble charter. It was one of the first colleges that codified gender equality for both students and faculty. Also like most institutions created for the greater good its idealism often came at the expense of practicality. The school had chronic enrollment problems and was forced to operate on a shoestring until the middle of the 20th century.

Parasitism always involves a certain degree of opportunism frequently in the form of selecting hosts uniquely weakened or compromised in some way. Being dirt poor with a history of bucking convention made Antioch a perfect host for the post WWII communist academics and their Marxist ideology. Under this banner Antioch was remade into the preeminent source of leftist student radicalism in the country. When investigated by the House Unamerican Activities Committee they responded:

“freedom begins not in suppressing unpopular ideas but in holding all ideas up to the light”

This sort of thing was extremely popular in the 60’s and enrollment soared to over 2,000 bringing financial prosperity for the first time. Unfortunately this didn’t result in the improvement in the curriculum which to this day has students create their own study plans which are not graded and remains almost entirely focused on social activism.

The school degenerated into a freak-show in the 90’s attracting national attention when under pressure from feminist activists imposed "Sexual Offense Prevention Policy" which enforces severe penalties on male students if explicit permission isn’t received at each stage of sexual activity. “Do you want to have sex?” is far too ambiguous.

The goal is 100 percent consensual sex, and it works like this: it isn't enough to ask someone if she'd like to have sex, as an Antioch women's center advocate told a group of incoming freshmen this fall. You must obtain consent every step of the way. "If you want to take her blouse off, you have to ask. If you want to touch her breast, you have to ask. If you want to move your hand down to her genitals, you have to ask. If you want to put your finger inside her, you have to ask."

Then in 2000 it had convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal give the commencement address.

Today with funds nearly dried up and only a few hundred believers remaining the college announced its closing but is leaving open the possibility it may reopen:

The school hopes that alumni will provide financial help, that it will attract investors and that it can develop more partnerships with the Yellow Springs community, said Mary Lou LaPierre, vice chancellor for university advancement.

Yeah I'd love to be making those Alumni fund raising calls. Talk about blood from a rock.

UPDATE: Here's a good NYTimes Op-Ed from an NPR reporter that went to Antioch in its heyday that comes to the same conclusions:

Each semester, the college seemed to create a new program. “We need to take education to the people” became a mantra, and so satellite campuses began to sprout around the country. Something called Antioch University was created, and every faculty member whose marriage was going bad or who simply couldn’t hack living in a village of 3,000 people and longed for the city came up with a proposal to start a new campus.
“It was liberalism gone mad,” a former professor, Hannah Goldberg, once told me, and she was right. The college seemed to forget the pragmatism that had been a key to its ethos, and tried blindly to extend its mission beyond education to social reform. But there were too many new programs and too little cash reserve to deal with the inevitable growing pains.

6.14.2007

Cool Map


States are renamed as countries with similar GDP.

Russia, India and China don't really fit any State but for for comparison's sake Russia and India are closest to Florida but about $100 Billion smaller. China is currently equal to the sum of California and Nevada ($2.5 billion trillion).

Germany's economy, despite having less than 8% of China's population is still $350 Billion larger than China's.