The Alumni Newsletter of Antioch College
Winter 2002

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Campus News:

2002 Commencement

Antioch Welcomes a New Dean of Students, Patricia Whitlow

Antioch Up for Accreditation

The Connection Between Alumni and Admissions

The Antioch Area Theater

Around Campus

Antioch Welcomes New Community Members!

Editor:
Rachel Moulton '97

Contributing Writers:
Laurien Alexandre
Derek Ali
Patricia Corrigan
Masha J. Etkin '63
Lauren Heaton
Dan Kaplan '76
Fred Kraus
Mary Laskowski '02
Meredith Moss
Rachel Moulton '97
Robyn Overstreet '96
Anne Townsend '03

Photography:
Dennie Eagleson '71
Lauren Heaton

©2002 Antioch College

Around Campus

Tom Ayrsman '79, Assistant Professor of Botany & Environmental Sciences, and six students were in attendance at the Greening of the Campus 4, held at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Tom presented a paper and poster session on Antioch College's "greening" activities. Alum Alex Stadtner '01 presented a paper on the creation of Antioch's "GreenCil," an environmental council, and its effects on the College community, academic program, and administration.

Tom was also in attendance at a Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) National Conference in October 2001 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. PKAL is a national alliance of individuals, institutions, and organizations committed to strengthening undergraduate science, mathematics, engineering and technology education.

Tom presented a poster session on "Undergraduate Research in Ecological Restoration: Using a Collaborative Learning Process." The poster describes the ongoing research in the restoration of Glen Helen, in the creation of a Native Tree Arboretum on campus, and in the ecological restoration of the 25-acre golf course on campus.

Kab Butamina, Associate Professor of Chemistry, presented a paper entitled "Ab Initio Mechanistic Studies of Halonium Intermediates, SN-1, and SN-2 Reaction Pathways" at the Annual Poster Session of the American Chemical Society/Society for Applied Spectroscopy at the University of Dayton with student co-author Wahji Sanders '02.

Kab also attended Science Education for a New Civic Engagement & Responsibilities (SENCER) and discussed the course Everybody's Chemistry as an Antioch success story along the lines of SENCER's own ideals for science courses of the future.

Barbara Davis, Associate Professor of History, published two reviews in the Antioch Review: "The Means of Escape: Stories by Penelope Fitzgerald" and "Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark." Her scholarship includes a revision in progress for second submission to the Sixteenth Century Journal of "Poor Relief, Humanism, Heresy: the Case of Toulouse." Her activities in scholarly society included nomination to the Business Committee of Sixteenth Century Studies Council.

Dennie Eagleson '71, Assistant Professor of Photography, traveled in February 2002, with Adam Howard, Assistant Professor of Education, to San Francisco for on-site visits of co-oping students and job development. This travel was funded by a grant whose goal is to support better integration of classroom faculty with the co-op program. Also in February, she participated in the Top Brass in Sarajevo exhibition at the Dayton Engineers Club that was concurrent with the Paul Laurence Unsung Hero concert. The same exhibition ran concurrently with the Antioch Reunion. In March, she was invited to review portfolios at the National Society of Photographic Education in Las Vegas, Nevada. In March and April of 2002, she collaborated with Chris Garcia, Assistant Professor of Ceramics, to publish an article documenting a Mail-art project by Antioch students, in Clay Times, an internationally known publication. In February and March, Eagleson curated an exhibition titled Relics/Recollections. In June, she traveled to Havana, Cuba and presented a two-day workshop on Pinhole photography to a group of photographers at Fototeca, the premier center of photography and photographic education in Cuba.

Chris Garcia, Assistant Professor of Ceramics, participated in a number of workshops/residencies/presentations during the academic year of 2001-2002. These included a residency at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland; a brief stint as a visiting artist and lecturer at Kent State University; and a short appointment as a workshop instructor on environmental and cultural based art at the La Suerte: Art Studios in the Rainforest, Costa Rica.

Chris's publications include: "Willis 'Bing' Davis: A Community Artist," in Ceramics Monthly Magazine; "Minor Works by Major Ceramists, A Mail Art Project," in Clay Times Magazine; and "The Mansion is Optional," in Salida Magazine (Calgary, Canada, Visual Culture publication). His online publications include: "Jim Leedy: Retrospective," James Leedy Artist's Homepage, and "Ceramic Workshop in Central America: The Rainforest and the Volcanoes," La Suerte Study Abroad Homepage.

Chris participated in group exhibitions at the Thornhill Gallery, Avila College; the Dayton Visual Arts Center; the Xavier University Art Gallery; the Antioch College Ceramics Studio Display Space; and the Dayton Visual Arts Center, Dayton Art Institute. Chris had selected solo exhibits at Burren College of Art, Newton Castle in Ballyvaughan, Ireland and in the Antioch College Noyes Gallery. Chris also had several commissions and collections that included a sculpture in the permanent collection of the Burren College of Art, and a mural inspired by the flora and fauna of the Rainforest.

Benjamin Grossberg, Assistant Professor of Literature/Creative Writing, had poems accepted in Nimrod, Green Mountains Review and Cimarron Review, and had poems appear (they were accepted some time ago) in two anthologies: Pass / Fail, by Kleidon Publishing, and Like Thunder: Poets Respond to Violence, by University of Iowa Press.

He also presented papers at two conferences. The first conference, "The Presence of the Past," was hosted by the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association. The second conference, "Acting Up and Acting Out in Early Modern England," was hosted by the University of Mississippi.

Also, Ben and Rachel Moulton '97, Assistant Director of Academic Support Center, ran their first marathon this year!

Chris Hill, Visiting Associate Professor of Communications, published in Millennium Film Journal: "(Re)performing the Archive: Barbara Lattanzi & Hollis Frampton in Dialogue." The essay examines a net.art project, "HF Critical Mass" by Barbara Lattanzi, a live media editing and performance instrument that Lattanzi refers to as "idiomorphic software" and which references the editing strategy of the 1971 Hollis Frampton film "Critical Mass."

Chris re-published a 1996 essay "Attention! Production! Audience!: Performing Video in Its First Decade, 1968-1980" in an educational CD-ROM on video history by Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC), which will be internationally distributed to libraries and museums. The same essay will also be translated and published in Czech by Cafe 9 project, Center for Contemporary Art, Prague. The CD-ROM features a range of resources (interviews, original production tapes, etc.) produced in conjunction with the 1976 video classic "The Eternal Frame" by West Coast media collectives Ant Farm and T.R.Uthco. The essay is one of 3 essays on the history of video art and independent production which will also be included in this educational project.

Chris gave talks accompanied by screenings on "Inside & Out: Witnessing Prison in America" (with Anne Bohlen, Associate Professor of Communications) at Penn State-Lehigh; was a Media Arts Panelist on the Illinois Council on the Arts in Chicago; and was a Multi-disciplinary Arts Panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in Washington, DC.

Chris was the curator and co-coordinator of "Living Archives," for international symposium and media exhibition at the Center for Contemporary Art in Prague. This symposium examined media archives (e.g., Czech video samizdat, open media archives on the internet) and media artists whose work specifically engages archives (artists from East Central Europe, Western Europe, U.S.). While in Prague, Chris also delivered a talk on "Speaking Across the Distance of Time."

Chris received an Artslink/Trust for Mutual Understanding Grant in January, 2001 for the "Living Archives" project. Chris also exhibited a series of photographs in the Herndon Gallery at Antioch called "How To Read Cards."

Cheryl Keen, College Professor, was named Higher Education Leader of the Year by the National Society for Higher Education. At their annual conference, she gave a workshop on assessing the impact of service-learning. Cheryl gave a keynote address at the International Consortium for Experiential Learning in Slovenia and workshops at a Mellon Foundation sponsored conference, "In Search of Wisdom," at Mt. Holyoke College and the Center for Philanthropy's annual conference. She gave many other workshops and addresses on the application of the findings of her research project and book Common Fire to community service and service-learning. She served as a respondent on a panel at the First International Conference on Service-Learning Research.

Cheryl continues to serve on the steering committee of the Institute for Authenticity and Spirituality in Higher Education. Her publications this year included an article co-written with Adam Howard, Assistant Professor of Education, and published in the Journal of Secondary Gifted Education. With Pat Linn, J.D. Dawson Professor of Cooperative Education and Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies, Cheryl completed a major grant to promote school-to-work projects, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.

Freed up after this two-year grant, Cheryl added to her half-time faculty work the role of Director of the Center for Community Learning and Bonner Scholars Program at Antioch. This year she was awarded a grant for the Antioch Literacy Corps from the Student's Coalition for Action for Literacy Education and a college-community collaboration grant from Ohio Campus Compact to partner with leaders from Springfield, Ohio. She continues to serve as senior research fellow for the Bonner Foundation where she is engaged with Jim Keen, College Professor, in an ongoing longitudinal study of the impact of co-curricular service learning scholarship programs on students on 25 campuses.

Jim Keen, College Professor, was named for a three-year term to the Quaker United Nations Committee, which oversees the Quaker NGO mission to the UN. He was an invited participant to the Synthesis Dialogues, a transnational group of forty participants that includes the Dalai Lama. The group convened in Trent, Italy with a follow-up meeting in Chicago by the Foundation for Global New Thought and the Fetzer Institute. Afterwards, Jim made several presentations in Yellow Springs regarding his meeting with the Dalai Lama. At Rotterdam's Erasmus University, Jim presented on Learning Platforms for Executive Leadership and was an invited participant to a conference on the same theme at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in Wassannar, NL.

Jim attended a conference of the International Consortium for Experiential Learning in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He was a design consultant on a Lilly Endowment Youth Theology Initiative grant at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. He also was a resource person and workshop leader in Iowa for Simpson College's Lilly vocation grant. He served as an evaluator for the Multi-faith Institute project, an initiative of Auburn and Union Theological Seminaries in Collaboration with the Temple of Understanding. He gave a presentation and workshop on his book Common Fire for a lecture series at Bowling Green State University as well as for the conference "In Search of Wisdom," which was sponsored by the Mellon Foundation at Mt. Holyoke College. He served as a panelist on Spirituality Initiatives in Higher Education at the first national conference on Spirituality in Higher Education, sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and co-founded the Initiative for Authenticity and Spirituality in Higher Education. He serves as co-incorporator for the Education as Transformation Project and as a board member for the Self-Knowledge Symposium. He continues to serve as senior research fellow for the Bonner Foundation where he is engaged with Cheryl Keen in an ongoing longitudinal study of the impact of co-curricular service learning scholarship programs on students on 25 campuses.

Suzanne Kolb, Director of Antioch Education Abroad's Brazilian Ecosystems Program and Assistant Professor of Environmental Sciences, has been working on three projects designed to help protect species diversity in Brazil. One involves assisting a Brazilian non-governmental organization, the Association for Environmental Defense and Education, in developing a proposal for dramatically increasing the size of an existing forest reserve located in Brazil's Atlantic Coastal Forest, a highly endangered biodiversity 'hotspot.' She is developing two additional projects with the support of Ohio Parana Partners, the state affiliate of the national group Partners of the Americas. The aim of one is to provide technical assistance for establishing an alternative means of income for a small Brazilian community previously dependent on the illegal exploitation of an endangered plant species. The other project involves providing financial assistance for a newly initiated forest restoration project, and includes participation by AEA's Brazil Program interns, to ensure long-term continuation of this work.

Pat Linn, J.D. Dawson Professor of Cooperative Education and Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies, participated in the founding meeting of the Research Consortium of the National Commission for Cooperative Education in Atlanta, Georgia. She facilitated a Research Symposium at the Cooperative Education and Internship Association meetings in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Pat, Adam Howard and Eric Miller '82, co-op and education faculty, submitted their edited book, Handbook for Research in Cooperative Education, to Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates in April 2002. The book is due to be published in April 2003. Pat presented the keynote address at the Ohio Cooperative Education Association in Canton, Ohio.

Nevin Mercede, Assistant Professor of Paint/Printmaking, initiated a new course experience for students with the successful first offering of The Culture of Art Exhibitions, examining the relationship between institutional mission and exhibition design and educational programming at major visual arts institutions.

Nevin's curatorial work included DIVERSE by DESIGN Antioch College Faculty Exhibition and Symposia, an exhibition plus nine nights of faculty research talks; works by recent MFAs from Tyler School of Art: Wearable Art through Computer Aided Design and Materially Reconsidered: An Installation by Judith Robertson. All exhibitions were held in the Herndon Gallery on Antioch campus.

Nevin's publications this year include a book review: "Drawing Us In: How We Experience Visual Art" and "In the Realm of Appearances: The Art of Andy Warhol." Nevin was a panel coordinator for "Classroom Climate: Listening to Our Students" at the College Art Association Annual Conference in Philadelphia. Nevin was also a prize juror for the Dayton Visual Arts Center Annual Members Exhibition.

Hassan M. Nejad, Executive Vice President/Dean of Faculty and Professor of Political Science and International Relations, participated in several scholarly/professional development activities. These activities included: the 2002 Asian Studies Development Program Institute on Infusing Southeast Asian Studies into the Undergraduate Curriculum, which was a joint project of the East-West Center and the University of Hawaii; participation in the Global Partners Summer Seminar in Turkey sponsored by the Great Lakes College Association (GLCA) and Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM); participation in numerous GLCA functions and meetings. Hassan also conducted scholarly research at The Hague in the Netherlands.

Elizabeth Nettles, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, hosted the Five College Math Contest, a contest for upper-level math students that has been held for several decades and includes Antioch, Wittenberg, Ohio Wesleyan, Kenyon, and Denison. Several teams from Antioch made a good showing in the competition. Bill Houston, Faculty Emeritus of Mathematics, designed the test for this year's contest.

Elizabeth also attended Science Education for a New Civic Engagement & Responsibilities (SENCER) and worked on designing interdisciplinary math and science courses.

Robert Pryor, Associate Professor of Religion and Director of the Buddhist Studies program, participated in an intensive Vipassana meditation retreat in Burma (Myanmar), India. Vipassana is a form of Buddhist meditation that was best preserved in Burma from where it has spread in the past fifty years to other parts of the world, including America. The retreat was held at Kyaswa Monastery in the Sagaing Hills near Mandalay. This area is the most important center for Buddhist education in Burma with over 200 different temples that now accommodate approximately 8,000 monks and nuns involved in intensive study and meditation. Instruction and personal interviews were provided by Sayadaw U Lakhana, the abbot and resident Vipassana master. He was aided by Steven Smith, an accomplished American meditation teacher. Together they created an environment that gave participants access to the practice of Vipassana from both a traditional and modern perspective. Robert will be able to share these perspectives with his Buddhism in America class as well as with students on the Buddhist Studies program in India.

Since September 11, 2001, there has been an increased interest in interfaith dialogue. Robert has been active in presenting the Buddhist perspective to groups in Southwestern Ohio. On April 14, 2002, he met with members of the Church of the Brethren in Dayton, Ohio. On May 21, 2002, he met with the Interfaith Ministers for Reconciliation in Dayton to discuss with them Buddhist perspectives on liberation and social involvement.

Robert has been invited to contribute a chapter on the History of Buddhism in Ohio to History of Religious Experiences in Ohio. This book will be published in 2003 by the Ohio Bicentennial Commission to recognize and celebrate Ohio's religious diversity and to promote interfaith understanding, tolerance, and respect among citizens.

Helen E. Richardson, Assistant Professor of Theater, presented B$LL, a performance art piece on Bill Gates and American values -- created in collaboration with and performed by Melissa Heston -- at the International Dance Theatre Festival in Bytom, Poland, July 2001 and at the New York International Fringe Festival in New York City, August 2001.

Helen published a theatre review in the December 2001 Theatre Journal on the 2001 Festival de Theatre des Ameriques in Montreal, Canada.

Helen also presented a paper titled "Charles Mee's Big Love in which Aeschylus' Suppliant Women Meet Barbie and Ken" at the Comparative Drama Conference at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

Helen did research for a play on Margaret Fuller (1810-1850): a leading voice in the American Transcendental Movement, author of "Women in the 19th Century," and the first woman international correspondent working for the New York Herald Tribune.

Louise Smith '77, Associate Professor of Theater, was a Site Visitor for the National Endowment for the Arts and a Bush Foundation Panelist for Interdisciplinary Arts Fellowships. She performed in Seascape at the Human Race Theatre and Donkeyskin, a solo at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Louise participated in Playlabs, a national playwright's laboratory for new work at the Minneapolis Playwright's Center with forming visiting artist Carlyle Brown where she performed Brown's play Smith and Brown: a meditation on the relationship between the actor and the playwright. Louise co-organized a Yellow Springs artists roundtable with Migiwa Orimo and presented her new work-in-progress, Sacrifcu Intellectus while also writing the play Gaston Boudreau, Cajun Robin Hood for Yellow Springs Kids Playhouse. In addition to these activities, Louise directed and wrote Endurance about Ernest Shackelton for Yellow Springs Kids Playhouse.

Marianne Whelchel, Professor of Literature and Women's Studies, attended the GLCA Women's Studies Conference at the College of Wooster in April of 2002. She also attended the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians in June of 2002 at the University of Connecticut, a major conference for women historians held every three years.

Robert Whyte, Executive Director of the Glen Helen Ecological Institute, co-authored "Dynamics of a Pioneer Population of Eurasian Watermilfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum L.) in a Shallow Lake Erie Wetland" with D.A. Francko. The article will appear in the Journal of Aquatic Plant Management. Robert also presented "Classification of Forest Vegetation in an Ohio Nature Preserve" with colleagues B. Krisko and O. Loucks at the Ohio Academy of Sciences Annual Conference in Columbus, Ohio.

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