Antioch College is exclusive amongst U.S. faculties in some ways, however it’s searching for some like-minded buddies.
Lori Varlotta grew to become the personal establishment’s twenty third president in August. The primary individual to carry that title was Horace Mann, the abolitionist and training reformer who is usually recognized by the lofty title “The Father of American Training.”
Since its founding within the early 1850s, Antioch has developed a mannequin of experiential studying that melds follow with curriculum. As we speak, it has areas in California, Washington and New England, with on-line and low-residency applications as properly. In fall 2023, Antioch enrolled 3,397 college students, all however 300 of them in graduate applications.
Antioch is proudly progressive, with advancing “social, racial, financial, and environmental justice” baked into its mission assertion — at a time when the Trump administration and lots of Republican lawmakers have turn out to be outright hostile to most of these goals.
The college additionally co-founded the Coalition for the Widespread Good with Otterbein College in 2023. The community goals to be a nationwide larger training system that revolves round Antioch’s skill to offer and scale graduate applications for companion faculties. As president of Antioch, Varlotta can also be government vice chairman of the coalition. Otterbein President John Comerford leads the community.
Increased Ed Dive sat down with Varlotta to debate how the shifting larger ed panorama impacts the position of Antioch, the coalition’s ambitions and the calls for on school presidents.
HIGHER ED DIVE: What attracted you to the place at Antioch?
LORI VARLOTTA: I am a thinker by coaching and a practitioner by commerce. The notion of philosophy, because it interprets the upper ed mission, is basically vital to me as somebody that appears at these high-level ideas and values. I used to be terribly excited in regards to the alignment between my private values and my private mission an d the mission of Antioch College.
Permission granted by Antioch College
A number of faculties say they provide experiential and student-centric training that goals to foster justice and the widespread good, however Antioch’s mission is utilized to each diploma program it presents.
Bachelor’s levels to Ph.D.s have an experiential part and utilized studying part. College students are anticipated to do a mission that not solely augments their studying however improves the communities the place they work and stay. That notion of democracy in motion was critically vital to me as a long-time scholar of [philosopher and education reformer] John Dewey. I believed it was among the best examples within the U.S. of educate democracy by doing.
What are you targeted most on in your first six months or 12 months?
Antioch College is that this very distinctive system, largely of graduate faculties that emphasize jobs and justice. Whereas we care very a lot about scholar comfort and diploma attainment, our priorities in the beginning are attracting college students who need to be taught by doing and impacting their communities on the similar time they’re incomes their levels.
It is very totally different from college students who, understandably, simply need to “talent up.” There is not any pejorative judgment on that, however we appeal to a scholar who desires to construct relationships and interact in a neighborhood. I am undecided that everyone associates that taste of graduate training with Antioch, however it’s our bread and butter, and one thing we’re very happy with.
We need to scale up, however extra importantly, we need to appeal to such a socially oriented, socially energetic, activist scholar who desires to be taught by doing and never essentially just by enrolling in asynchronous programs. My focus is getting that phrase out and constructing a nationwide model round that sort of studying at a second when training for the widespread good and doubling down on democratic training is extra mandatory, I’d argue, than ever.
And whenever you discuss democratic training, do you imply educating for the advantage of a democracy, or a democratic method to training?
It is very a lot each. It is educating for democracy — serving to college students find out about democracy, not by studying about it, however by doing it. They’re doing this by partaking in neighborhood organizations the place they must establish a mutually agreed upon objective and dealing with neighborhood teams, skilled clinics, nonprofits, faculties or church buildings of their neighborhood, the place they go in because the learner and because the facilitator to assist.
You may think about that what a scholar may assume might be finished over the course of a single class or semester is usually not simply achieved; that what they may assume are widespread pursuits are extra divergent than initially anticipated; that they may have made an motion plan with a school member that maybe is a bit more linear and neat than what unfolds in actual life. These are good examples that assist us as particular person residents perceive how our complete democracy works.
We educate by permitting college students to take dangers and, frankly, to fail. That is a key lesson for democratic training in our democracy, typically we now have to take issues in smaller items and components. Now we have to construct coalitions. Now we have to hearken to individuals whose voices are totally different from our personal. We’re hoping that grownup learners could also be just a little extra snug with taking dangers and failing as a result of by the point you’re in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, you have had some failures, and you’ve got nonetheless moved ahead.
Social justice, environmental justice, issues which are a part of the college’s DNA are being focused by the manager department. How do you navigate that?
It is a bonus and, frankly, a blessing that training for justice is not simply our model, it is our blood. We will and can stand tall and true to that dedication — not as an act of resistance, not as an act of poking the bear needlessly — however we will proceed to do what we have all the time finished.
We aren’t altering the names of our fairness applications. We’re not obscuring web sites the place these items stay. We need to keep a constructive relationship with the federal authorities, and we need to do it by saying, “We’re curious, and we’re searching for to grasp.” We’re asking for a similar — that they search to grasp the great work that we’re doing. Don’t write us off as a result of our mission is equity-based, however on the contrary, look to see the sorts of initiatives, the real-life initiatives, that our college students and our college have finished, not for years or a long time — however for hundreds of years. Choose us on our work.
I’d like to be the place the place individuals who have questions on justice or fairness may come and have a really spirited dialog with out being antagonistic or ugly.
Should you had been at a convention or dinner with different school presidents who had by no means heard of Coalition for the Widespread Good, how would you clarify it?
It really is a brand new mannequin for larger training. As somebody who was a political thinker at one level in my life, I have a look at it as a federation of types. It is a assortment the place, for probably the most half, undergraduate universities come collectively below a unifying intention.
The intention is to convey similarly-missioned establishments collectively to create further course choices for his or her undergraduate college students. That might embrace further majors and minors, and, very importantly, clear pathways to graduate training, as most undergraduate small personal establishments do not essentially have strong graduate choices. The thrilling factor in regards to the coalition is that the entire particular person undergraduate establishments retain their governing board, their mission, their model and their institutional undergraduate choices. They don’t seem to be giving any of that up.
However they enter right into a revenue-share with Antioch College, which turns into the graduate system of the coalition. All the graduate levels are provided by Antioch. They’re Antioch levels co-branded with the contributing establishments. The collaborating faculties get a income share of the schooling, however we’re capable of scale up graduate applications and enhance them extra rapidly than most undergraduate establishments may with out startup funds.
The establishments additionally profit from collaborating in a shared service group the place we now have widespread authorized counsel and we aspire to have widespread studying administration programs.
John Comerford and I collectively will work to increase the coalition and usher in faculties like Otterbein which are small, personal, largely tuition-driven and are in secure monetary situation.
However this isn’t an acquisition. We’re not trying to purchase establishments that merely cannot stand on their very own. We’re wanting to usher in establishments that need to develop within the graduate realm however haven’t got the monetary startup capability to develop that space of the establishment.
The important thing driver to the coalition is development, not financial savings. That is totally different from a mere shared providers group. It is about rising the graduate applications in methods so undergraduate faculties can actualize the revenues related to high-demand graduate applications.
Do you will have a imaginative and prescient for the way large this might get?
We’re not making an attempt to have 50 [in the coalition]. We have solely existed for a few years. A really bold objective can be to get to 6 to 12 faculties after which assess scalability past that in order that we can’t solely be environment friendly but in addition actually true to this mission. It is a coalition constructed on cooperation, and we’re very severe about discovering establishments which are very mission-oriented round this notion of democracy and social justice.
What would you inform somebody doubtlessly strolling into the job of school president as we speak for the primary time?
It is like that outdated Peace Corps slogan — it is the toughest job you may ever love. And it is tougher now than it is ever been. I’d ask them, are you prepared and ready? Are you courageous sufficient to essentially create a student-centric establishment? We should turn out to be student-centric establishments. By and huge, most establishments are usually not — not as a result of they’re dangerous locations, however as a result of so a lot of our buildings have lengthy been set as much as be faculty-, staff- and administrative-centric.
Are you prepared to essentially restrict your search to establishments whose mission aligns together with your values? At age 40, 50 or 60 — you aren’t going to vary your core values, and I can assure that the establishment isn’t going to vary its mission for you.
I’d, third, inform them to know the place your skills and energies are on the change spectrum. Establishments that do not change will die.
The place are you in your personal change orientation? Is the establishment at a stage the place it wants a significant disruptor? Are you that individual? Is the establishment at a stage the place the most important disruptor has simply left they usually want any individual to return in and assess? Are you that individual? Has the establishment already been disrupted and assessed, and is it one of many few that may be in additional of a upkeep and tweaking stage? In case you are any individual who loves to keep up solidly constructed buildings and you’re making use of to an establishment that should considerably change and disrupt, that mismatch isn’t going to be sustainable.
Then, lastly, are you prepared to be the goal for nearly the entire dangerous and a lot of the good? We get way more credit score than we deserve in these positions, and we get way more blame.
Regardless of all of the criticism, this can be a discipline that does actually appeal to passionate individuals. They need to make a distinction. We get branded as being authoritarian or not caring in regards to the college students. However most of us, significantly these of us who’ve been within the discipline ceaselessly, we do not keep on this discipline to get wealthy. It is a calling. It is a vocation.”
