SOLSC: College Boosterism

            Tonight I went to a fund-raiser but also an information session about my old college. I went to Antioch College. If you’ve heard of Antioch at all, it’s either because the college was closed 10 years ago, or 25 years ago for its Sexual Offense Prevention Policy, which required consent for every step of an intimate encounter, starting with kissing.

            In fact, Antioch reopened in 2011 after the alumni bought the college from the university. (This is way too long and complicated a story to go into; here’s one version of what happened.) And the SOPP that was widely derided when it first became known at the time now seems prophetic in the age of #metoo.

            So tonight two staff people from Antioch came to talk to about 10 Antioch alums on the Upper West Side of Manhattan about what the college is doing now and how we can help. They faced tough questions about how Antioch is presenting itself, what elements of its program are really unique and how to best present those elements. Antioch’s co-operative education, in which students spend 12 weeks every year at a full-time job somewhere in the country and write a paper about their experience, is what distinguishes the school from most other. Whether that’s enough to keep the college alive remains to be seen. I want Antioch to survive, despite my own love/hate relationship with it. There has never been another college like it.

            If you know a high school student who seems out of step with her or his milieu, Antioch might be exactly the right school. Check it out here.

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I’m participating in the 11th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 15 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!