By any reckoning, Antioch University’s Board of Trustees got along uncommonly well for the past seven years. They were also uncommonly productive, elevating the community profile of the small liberal arts college to new and unprecedented heights. All that came to an uncommonly swift end last Monday, when the college’s 20 trustees were informed — with no advance warning — that their services would no longer be needed. Effective immediately.
Antioch University is headquartered in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and operates five satellite campuses throughout the United States. Each has its own board of trustees. The university as a whole is run by a separate Board of Governors that meets in Yellow Springs. The complexity of this governance structure, the notification letter explained, “was frustrating at times,” giving rise to a “pressing need to simplify.” Alluded to were severe financial challenges confronting the small private college that demanded “exquisite focus and swift action.”
In that same “swift action,” trustees from the other four campus boards were given similar notices. Some of the trustees, the letter stated, might later be incorporated into Antioch’s Board of Governors in Yellow Springs.