Dear Antioch Faculty and Staff,
Today, I want to brief you on our ongoing dispute with the Coalition for the Common Good’s President and Board, share concerns about a troubling letter the CCG President sent to our accreditor, and invite you to join me for another Community Update next Tuesday.
Before I get into those three things, I want to thank all of you who have sent notes of encouragement, posted letters on the Antioch Forward site, and raised your voices in the name of Antioch. For those who haven’t joined in yet: now is the time. If you have a letter you’d like to share, we’ll post it on the website. With just a few clicks, you can also add your name to the Change.org petition. If you think that Antioch should have its own Board of Governors and its own President chosen by an Antioch process (not installed by the CCG President or Board), let your views be known.
This Week Is Pivotal
On Friday, we return to the Greene County courtroom to present our arguments and hear the judge’s ruling on our motion for a preliminary injunction. We hope the judge will find that the CCG Board’s actions conflict with the governing documents and enjoin the CCG from taking those actions until the court issues a final ruling. Given how difficult it is to predict what a court may or may not do, I’d be disingenuous if I said waiting for the ruling is easy.
The good news I can share is that yesterday, almost seven months after Antioch first requested mediation, both sides met virtually with a professional mediator. Because Ohio law protects mediation communications, and our court-ordered mediation is subject to confidentiality requirements, I can’t discuss its specifics. What I can tell you is this: Antioch’s Board leaders and I are approaching mediation in good faith. We are doing everything we can to help it succeed because we know that good-faith mediation can reduce the need for costly, protracted litigation. Ideally, we can carve out a sliver of common ground with the CCG on that point.
Interference With Our Accreditation
At the same time, I think you should know about ongoing developments. The President and Board of the CCG continue to take actions that threaten Antioch’s independence, disregard the authority of Antioch’s Board and President, and interfere with our relationship with our national accreditor. On October 1, John Comerford, President of Otterbein and the CCG, sent a letter to our accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission. He asserts that he and the CCG Board have abolished Antioch University’s Board of Governors, have taken total control of our university, and are planning to seat a new interim president. To be clear, those assertions remain contested in court. Yet the letter presents them as settled facts and appears to bypass the HLC’s regular channels for updating an institution’s point of contact.
The day after I learned about this letter, Provost Madar, Accreditation Liaison Officer (ALO) Michelle Finley, and I met with the HLC. Yesterday morning, our HLC representative confirmed that the Commission currently sees no ambiguity about who serves as the president of Antioch (me) and who they will be dealing with in terms of Antioch’s official accreditation matters (our ALO, Michelle Finley). Thankfully, the HLC does not accept a change of control simply because a leader declares it so. For now, we have been assured that Otterbein and CCG President Comerford’s assertion that he has been delegated the authority to serve as Antioch’s voice on accreditation matters is not recognized by the HLC.
It is revealing that the CCG President would take actions that could put Antioch’s accreditation at risk. Antioch has been continuously accredited by the HLC for 99 years. Our accreditation is essential to our eligibility to participate in federal student aid programs—and, in turn, to student enrollment and persistence.
Mediation Has Begun
Last summer, after more than a year of work by faculty, staff, and the Board of Governors, HLC reaffirmed our accreditation for ten years. That achievement belongs to our entire community, and it protects opportunities our students depend on. Anyone who cares about Antioch would do everything they could to safeguard it.
For these reasons and more, anyone trying to understand this situation should read CCG President Comerford’s letter to see how he is approaching this conflict. The letter claims that Antioch’s Board of Governors “has been abolished” while insisting, in the same letter, that abolishing the Board “does not constitute a change of control, structure, or organization.” That claim directly conflicts with HLC’s 2025 Final Report, which states clearly: “AU is governed by a Board of Governors with appropriate responsibilities for the oversight of the operations and academic programs of the institution…”
What's Next
I know these details are draining and difficult for many of you to hear. Sharing them also carries professional risk for me. But we are in this together, and you deserve to know what is happening. Antioch deserves a leader who tells the truth and models transparency.
I expect questions and important developments in the coming week, so I’ve asked my team to schedule another Community Update. This meeting will be held next Tuesday, October 13, at 2pm ET / 11am PT. Please register here.
Thank you again for everything that you are doing, both to support Antioch in this conflict and to keep the everyday operations of Antioch going.
Your President,
Lori Varlotta