arthur morgan can stop turning over
“It became less about intellectual rigor, than a political and social experience,”
So aparently Antioch college, in yellow springs, oh-hi-ee-oh is closing down. This according to a nytimes article on how pissed the alums are about the closing.
Well, hadn't they noticed what a farce their institution had become? It was bad in the 80s, when vandalism was considered self expression (I remember a guy named Ron, a former student of my father and coworker of mine at Greeks/Adriaticos, who went up there for an interview for a position and said he'd rather teach at a school with some rules); by the 1990s students had self imposed a system which required written consent before intercourse between students to ensure date rape did not occur. I do not think that those were the rules that Ron had in mind, but they are illustrative of what I see as the fundamental problem at Antioch - part of college (at least the current American version of college) seems to be about being away from the rules of your parents' house to see what other rules are. Sure, people push those, ignore them, whatever, but learn from them (yes, even drinking too much counts). This doesn't work if you actually think you're making the rules instead of figuring out which ones you really shouldn't break. Unfortunately at lordoftheflies on yellowsprings the institution has learned the hardest way that it's best not to leave a self selected group of self-professed ultra-liberal 18 year olds to create their own little utopia for $30K per annum of their parents' money.
The same thing could easily happen at Reed or Oberlin so watch out.
Oh, and I feel compelled to say that despite how hard I slag on it and how bad I feel for Morgan's "other" legacy to have died so ungracefully (like with Lilienthal at the TVA, even-more-liberal-than-the-Quaker liberals destroyed what he thought was designed properly), that stupid camp there at yellow springs state park remains one of my favorite field trips EVAR. While I was already too cynical by 5th grade to learn about teamwork and depending on each other, the team race course was fun, I still think fondly of learning about owls puking up the undigestable parts of what they eat (especially with the recent baby owls in the backyard experience here) and recognizing the oxidized color of rocks by some springs and the expectant taste and smell of iron in the water.
So aparently Antioch college, in yellow springs, oh-hi-ee-oh is closing down. This according to a nytimes article on how pissed the alums are about the closing.
Well, hadn't they noticed what a farce their institution had become? It was bad in the 80s, when vandalism was considered self expression (I remember a guy named Ron, a former student of my father and coworker of mine at Greeks/Adriaticos, who went up there for an interview for a position and said he'd rather teach at a school with some rules); by the 1990s students had self imposed a system which required written consent before intercourse between students to ensure date rape did not occur. I do not think that those were the rules that Ron had in mind, but they are illustrative of what I see as the fundamental problem at Antioch - part of college (at least the current American version of college) seems to be about being away from the rules of your parents' house to see what other rules are. Sure, people push those, ignore them, whatever, but learn from them (yes, even drinking too much counts). This doesn't work if you actually think you're making the rules instead of figuring out which ones you really shouldn't break. Unfortunately at lordoftheflies on yellowsprings the institution has learned the hardest way that it's best not to leave a self selected group of self-professed ultra-liberal 18 year olds to create their own little utopia for $30K per annum of their parents' money.
The same thing could easily happen at Reed or Oberlin so watch out.
Oh, and I feel compelled to say that despite how hard I slag on it and how bad I feel for Morgan's "other" legacy to have died so ungracefully (like with Lilienthal at the TVA, even-more-liberal-than-the-Quaker liberals destroyed what he thought was designed properly), that stupid camp there at yellow springs state park remains one of my favorite field trips EVAR. While I was already too cynical by 5th grade to learn about teamwork and depending on each other, the team race course was fun, I still think fondly of learning about owls puking up the undigestable parts of what they eat (especially with the recent baby owls in the backyard experience here) and recognizing the oxidized color of rocks by some springs and the expectant taste and smell of iron in the water.
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