Full-tuition scholarships to continue at Antioch

The Board of Trustees has approved a plan to enroll 75-85 new students each year until 2016. Horace Mann Fellowships to be offered to students who enroll in fall 2013 and 2014.

The Antioch College Board of Trustees recently endorsed a “stable growth” formula that aims to expand the student population from about 100 at the current time to approximately 250 by 2016, a plan that would allow the College to continue to offer the full-tuition Horace Mann Fellowships to all students who enter the college in the 2013 and 2014 academic year.

“This clearer understanding of the projected rate of growth ensures that all Antioch College students will engage with a high-quality, rigorous, liberal arts curriculum,” Board Chair Frances Horowitz said. “All Antioch students will experience a variety of co-op placements; participate in community governance; and reside on a campus dedicated to fostering sustainable living.”  

The College expects to enroll between 75 and 85 new students each year for the next three years. The growth strategy is timed with a continued renovation of the historic 160-year-old campus and a multi-phased, multi-year accreditation processes.

The College received more than 3,100 applications for fall 2012 admission; 5.2 percent of those applicants received acceptance letters, making Antioch one of the most selective colleges in the U.S. Seventy-five new students arrived for fall orientation, joining a class of 33 returning students. Many students turned down offers from other elite colleges to become partners with the administrators and faculty in rebuilding the institution.

While most members of Antioch’s new class are first-year students, 17 percent are transferring from other colleges to attend Antioch. Fifty-three percent of the students entering the College in October are from outside of the state of Ohio. The average GPA of those incoming students is 3.69 (unweighted). Among students who submitted test scores with their applications, the average SAT verbal and math score was 1180; the average ACT score was 27 (Antioch is a test-optional school).

A storied college with a history that includes deep connections to the U.S. civil rights and social justice movements, as well as science innovation, Antioch is in its second year of independent operation since its much-publicized 2008 closure. Following months of negotiations, an alumni-led group in September 2009 purchased the campus, rights to the institution’s endowment, its 1,000-acre Glen Helen Preserve, and its award-winning The Antioch Review. The College’s new trustees hired Mark Roosevelt, a former Pittsburgh Schools superintendent and former Massachusetts legislator, as the college’s new president. With just six tenure-track professors on board, the College opened to a class of 35 students in the fall of 2011.

Antioch’s campus remains a work in progress. The 1943 Birch Hall dormitory, a design of famed architect Eero Saarinen, is home to the first class of students. A nearly 160-year-old dormitory, North Hall, has gotten a $5.7 million renovation that will make it the oldest building in the U.S. to meet LEED Gold Standard for sustainable construction. And the historic 1930s Science Building—where the likes of Leland Clark and Mario Capecchi studied while working on their bachelor’s degrees—will begin a $3.5 million partial renovation beginning this fall.

Antioch College was an early pioneer of the cooperative education program that requires students to complete full-time periods of paid work as part of their education. The College was also one of the first fully coeducational and racially integrated colleges in the U.S.

Cooperative education remains a core component of the Antioch education; all students complete at least four quarters of full-time work off campus. Additionally, the general education curriculum includes emphases on language acquisition (most students will do one year of language study leading to novice-high proficiency in a second language) and global issues (students are required to complete four of six global seminars on food, water, energy, health, governance, and education).

Antioch College’s alumni include noted television producer and director Rod Sterling; civil rights activist Coretta Scott King and her sister, Edythe Scott Bagley; Nobel Prize winner Mario Capecchi; Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton; and novelists Nova Ren Suma and Jaimy Gordon.